The Role and Responsibility of Fatherhood

The Role and Responsibility of Fatherhood - St. Joseph as Model by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

If there was one fact of our Christian faith which needs to be stressed today it is the need for a father in the family. At the center of the social revolution today is the attack on men, as husbands and fathers of families. Behind this revolution is the philosophy of Karl Marx. According to Marx, families are the invention of dictating males who created, what we call the family, in order to dominate women in human society.

The result has been disastrous. Most of the laboring force in America is women. Feminism is an epidemic that our popes tell us will destroy family life. Abortions are only the most tragic consequence of this plague.

I thought this introduction was worth making before we begin our conference on, “The Role and Responsibility of Fatherhood, St. Joseph as Model.”

Men as Husbands and Fathers Within the family community, the man is called upon to live his gift and role as husband and father.

In his wife, he is to see the fulfillment of God’s intention, as expressed in the first book of the Bible, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” The Lord makes His own the cry of Adam, the first husband; “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”

At the dawn of creation, God made the human race as two genders, men and women. He told them to increase and multiply. He promised them a Redeemer after they had sinned. He assured them of His blessings, provided they responded to His divine will.

With the coming of Christ marriage was elevated beyond anything known before in human history. He restored marriage to its condition before the fall of our first parents. He told the Pharisees that a man may not put away his wife. Even if she is unfaithful, he cannot remarry

Pope John paul II could not be clearer on the quality of love that a husband should have for his wife.

Authentic conjugal love presupposes and requires that a man have a profound respect for the equal dignity of his wife: “You are not her master,” writes St. Ambrose, “But her husband; she was not given to you to be your slave, but your wife … reciprocate your attentiveness to you, and be grateful to her for her love.” With his wife, a man should live, “A very special form of personal friendship.” As a Christian, he is called upon to develop a higher form of love, showing his wife a charity that is both gentle and strong like that which Christ has for the Church” (Familiaris Consortio, 25).

But that is only the beginning. The husband is to love his wife as mother of their children and love the children themselves. This love belongs to the very essence of fatherhood.

In countries like our own, fathers are encouraged to be less concerned with their family and less involved in the education of the children. Here the Church’s highest authority tells us that fathers must restore what is God’s revealed command: the role of the father in the family is of unique and irreplaceable importance. In this context, I think it is important to quote the exact words of Pope John Paul II.

“As experience teaches, the absence of the father causes psychological and moral imbalance and notable difficulties in family relationships. In contrary circumstances, the oppressive presence of a father, where there still prevails the phenomenon of machismo, or a wrong superiority of male prerogatives which humiliates women and inhibits the development of healthy family relationships (Familiaris Consortio, 25). Christ tells his married followers that they are to reveal and relive on earth the very fatherhood of God. On these premises, a man is called to ensure the harmonious and united development of all the members of his family. He will perform this responsibility by exercising generous, even heroic charity, for the life conceived under the heart of the mother. He must be deeply concerned for the education of his children. He must share with his wife the duty of training these children in the knowledge of their faith and their love for God. With God’s grace, he must do everything possible to avoid division, and foster unity and stability in the family. With his wife, he is to be a channel of grace to his children, whom they have brought into this world in order to reach their heavenly destiny.

St. Joseph, Model of Fathers In the litany of St. Joseph, we say, “St. Joseph, Head of the Holy Family, pray for us.” There is more hidden behind this invocation than meets the eye.

We know, of course, that Mary is the Virgin Mother of Jesus Christ. We know that the Savior was not conceived of a human father. Yet the Church has never tired insisting on the fatherhood of St. Joseph in the Holy Family.

It is crucially important to understand that there are two levels to fatherhood. There is the physical level of providing for the conception of a human body. In this sense, Christ did not have a human father.

But a father is not only to cooperate with his wife in generating a child. He is also to cooperate with her in rearing the offspring which his spouse brings into the world.

From all eternity, Joseph was destined to be the spouse of the Blessed Virgin. They were truly married. Joseph was Mary’s husband, and she was his wife.

Marriage is the most intimate of all unions between two human beings. It imparts a community of gifts between those joined together in matrimony. Consequently, in giving Joseph the Blessed Virgin as his spouse, God appointed him to be not only her life’s companion, but also the witness of her virginity, the protector of her honor. No, by reason of his conjugal tie to Mary, he participated in her sublime dignity.

We cannot exaggerate the importance of seeing St. Joseph as the true spouse of Mary. Under God, he was to share in her unique role as Mother of the Word made flesh who dwelt among us.

St. Luke tells us that, on returning to Nazareth after Mary and Joseph found the young Christ in the temple, “Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace before God and men (Luke 2:52)”.

What are we being told? We are being told that the Christ child constantly manifested greater wisdom as he grew in age. In God’s mysterious providence, both Mary and Joseph contributed to this manifestation of greater wisdom in Jesus.

We return to our main theme: that St. Joseph is the divinely revealed model of human fatherhood. We know only too well that a man can father a child in body without even being married to the mother of his offspring.

True fatherhood depends on the generous love of the husband for the offspring of his wife.

True fatherhood means that the husband cooperates with his wife in the spiritual upbringing of the children.

True fatherhood therefore, is not only or even mainly generating a human body in this world. It is also and mainly collaborating with the mother in developing the human soul for everlasting life in eternity. How, then, is St. Joseph the exemplar of fatherhood? He is, to coin a word, the prototype of what all human fathers should be. They should reflect, in their families the seven virtues which the Church specially honors in St. Joseph’s relationship to Jesus and Mary.

most obedient in seeing every event as part of divine Providence and responding with, “Here I am Lord. I am ready to do Your will.”

most faithful in loving their wives with perfect fidelity, and their children with tireless generosity.

the strength of the home by their exercise of manly courage. They are to protect their wives and children from the plots of the modern Herods who are inspired by the evil spirit to destroy the Christian family in the modern world.

Prayer “St. Joseph, spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and foster father of the Son of God, obtain from Jesus the grace we fathers need to raise our families according to the will of God. We need light to recognize our grave responsibility as husbands and fathers. Above all we need the courage to persevere in the fatherly care of our families through time into the endless reaches of eternity. Amen.”

+Ephraim the Syrian puts these words in Righteous Joseph's mouth, as he is holding Christ in his arms, in his Fourth Nativity Hymn which we sing, obviously, on the Feast of the Nativity:

"Who hath given me the Son of the Most High to be a Son to me? I was jealous of Thy Mother, and I thought to put her away, and I knew not that in her womb was hidden a mighty treasure, that should suddenly enrich my poor estate. David the king sprang from my race, and wore the crown; and I have come to a very low estate, who instead of a king am a carpenter. Yet a crown hath come to me, for in my bosom is the Lord of crowns!"

As +Basil the Great taught, +Joseph was both a protector of the Theotokos and the Christ and a witness to her purity. +Romanos the Melodist has Panagia give this explanation to the Magi of +Joseph's presence in her home:

"I shall remind you, O magi, for what reason I have Joseph in my dwelling. It is for the refutation of all who doubt. He himself will tell what he heard about my child. For in his sleep he saw a holy angel who told him whence I conceived (Mt. 1:20). A divine being, shining like fire, reassured him in the night and settled his thorny doubts. Therefore Joseph is with me to reveal that here is a young child, the pre-eternal God. Clearly he will report the things that he himself saw among the heavenly beings and mortals on earth--how the shepherds sang songs, and the shining ones sang with men of clay; how the star ran ahead of you to light your way and guide you."

Troparion (Tone 2)

Proclaim the wonder, O Joseph, to David, the ancestor of God: you saw a Virgin great with Child, you gave glory with the shepherds, you worshipped with the Magi, you received the news from the angel. Pray to Christ God to save our souls!

Kontakion (Tone 3)

Today godly David is filled with joy; Joseph and James offer praise. The glorious crown of their kinship with Christ fills them with great joy. They sing praises to the One ineffably born on earth, and they cry out: "O Compassionate One, save those who honor You!"

St. Joseph

Readings | Prayers | Family activities

Pope John Paul II, in his Angelus Message on March 17, 2002, stressed that Saint Joseph is a model of fatherhood in the following excerpts:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The day after tomorrow, March 19, we will celebrate the solemnity of Saint Joseph, spouse of the Virgin Mary and patron of the universal Church. The extreme discretion with which Joseph carried out the role entrusted to him by God highlights his faith even more, which consisted in always listening to the Lord, seeking to understand his will and to obey it with his whole heart and strength. This is why the Gospel describes him as a "just" man (Mt 1,19). In fact, the just man is the person who prays, lives by faith, and seeks to do good in every concrete circumstance of life.
Saint Joseph and fathers
Faith nourished by prayer: this is the most precious treasure that Saint Joseph transmits to us. Generations of fathers have followed in his footsteps who, with the example of a simple and laborious life, imprinted on their children's souls the inestimable value of faith, without which every other good runs the risk of being in vain. So even now, I am happy to assure all fathers of a special prayer, on the day dedicated to them: I ask God that they be men of a robust interior life, in order to fulfil their mission in the family and society in an exemplary way.
Saint Joseph
What we know about the life of Saint Joseph is contained in the gospels of Saint Matthew and Saint Luke. He has become known as the "Just man".
The name foster-father of Our Lord appears in local martyrologies of the ninth and tenth centuries. The first church dedicated in his honor was in 1129 in Bologna. Pope Sixtus IV(1471-84) added the feast of Saint Joseph to the Roman Calendar. Pope Pius IX placed the whole Church under the Patronage of Saint Joseph in 1870.
In 1989, Pope John Paul II reflected deeply on the life and witness of Saint Joseph in Redemptoris Custos "Guardian of the Redeemer" (q.v).
Among the saints known to have had particular devotions to Saint Joseph are Saint Bernard, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Gertrude, Saint Bridget of Sweden, Saint Alphonsus and Saint Teresa of Avila.
As the Bible tells us, Saint Joseph was descended from the royal house of David. A village carpenter of Nazareth, he was chosen among all men to be the husband and protector of the Virgin Mother of Jesus Christ. To his loving care was entrusted the childhood and youth of the Redeemer of the world. He reveals to us the perfect model of Christianity through his purity of heart, patience, and fortitude.
Poor in worldly possessions, he was rich in grace. Devotion to Saint Joseph, was fervent in the East from the early ages, and has spread and increased. Today, Catholics of all nations honor him.
There are many stories about the miraculous intervention of Saint Joseph. One is a medieval account of how a famine in Sicily was ended after a Novena to Saint Joseph. A more recent story is of the mysterious "itinerant carpenter" who volunteered to build an architecturally unique spiral staircase in a convent chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is as sound today as when it was first built, and has never needed repair.
According to ancient tradition, Saint Joseph watches over and protects the Church. He is considered the model of perfect Christian life and the patron of a happy death. His patronage extends over the Mystical Body of Christ, over the Christian family and schools, carpenters, fathers, laborers, and all individuals who appeal to his charity and intercession, especially in the hour of death. Joseph, when dying, received the loving ministry of his foster Son, Jesus, and his spouse, the Blessed Virgin Mary, so it is believed that his intercession may well obtain the mercy of God and the grace of a peaceful and holy death.
His feast is celebrated on March 19, and a special memorial to Saint Joseph the Worker is observed on May 1.

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