ST JOSEPH 

In God’ providence St. Joseph was the earthly guardian of our Lady and the Foster-Father of the Incarnate Word. All that is reliably known of this ‘just man’ is contained in the first and second chapters of the Gospels of St. Mathew and St. Luke.

From the fact that St. Joseph is not again mentioned in the Bible after finding the boy Jesus in the Temple, it has been reasonably inferred that he did not live to see the beginning of our Lord’s public ministry.  The date of his death and the place of his burial are unknown, but devotion has been shown to him since the earliest ages; the eastern Copts already celebrated a feast in his honour in the 4^th century, and his cult has been steadily increasing in a marvelous manner.

St. Teresa of Avilla {Spain} chose St. Joseph as the Patron of her reform of the Carmelite Order and her nuns were given the privilege in 1689 of keeping a feast in honour of his patronage.

At the First Vatican Council [1869-1870] over 300 Prelates petitioned to the Holy See to declare St. Joseph the Patron Saint of the Universal Church, and on December 8, 1870, Pope Pius IX proclaimed him so.

The Catholic Church, to use the words of Pope Pius IX, teaches that St. Joseph has been designated by God as the master of his goods and of his household.

In 1955 Pope Pius XII added the title, ‘Patron of workmen’ for St. Joseph, the feast to be celebrated on 1^st May.

St. Joseph is also invoked for a happy death. ‘All should go to Joseph’ in their difficulties as the Church advises and urges!

The Diocese of Mangalore has chosen St. Joseph as its Patron. The holy Patron St. Joseph has assisted the Diocese in all cases, in every necessity and in every undertaking.