A Reflection for the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Find today’s readings here.
They are coming to kill your child.
Panic. Terror. Confusion. After the initial onset of emotions questions start cropping up: Am I sure? Was that dream real? Am I overreacting? Should we pack up our entire lives over this? A rush of resolve quiets the questions. Mary, we’re leaving for Egypt. I’m not sure for how long.
I do not know what went through Joseph’s head after he was told by an angel in a dream that Jesus was in imminent danger. A king wanted him—the son of a poor family—dead. Matthew is brief in his description of what happens next: “Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. He stayed there until the death of Herod.” But it is not difficult to imagine the fear and uncertainty that came with the warning, and the courage it took for Joseph to respond.
There are fathers in our cities and at our borders today who, like Joseph, face impossible decisions about how to keep their family safe in a foreign land. In his Lent message for 2025, Pope Francis suggested that “it would be a good Lenten exercise for us to compare our daily life with that of some migrant or foreigner, to learn how to sympathize with their experiences and in this way discover what God is asking of us so that we can better advance on our journey to the house of the Father.”
The feast of St. Joseph is a solemnity and a cause for celebration and parades around the world. But today, during this Lent, perhaps we could turn towards his status as a “persecuted and courageous migrant,” as Pope Francis has described him.
In 1955, Pope Pius XXII instituted the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker to coincide with the May Day labor celebrations around the world, and to foster a deep devotion to this aspect of the father of Jesus. In our own era, when there are more than 280 million migrants worldwide, it’s perhaps time for a new devotion to Joseph. Pope Francis has made concern for migrants and refugees a hallmark of his own papacy. I know it’s not typical to use a Scripture reflection to suggest action items for the Roman Pontiff, but if I could use this space to make the following plea: Institute a new feast for the universal church: St. Joseph the Migrant.
I am agnostic about the timing. The Flight into Egypt is an obvious Gospel reading. The hospitality of Abraham and Sarah to incognito angels could be the first. But it would be good for those of us who are not migrants to meditate on how the Holy Family once were, and for those who are to find consolation from a courageous father who fled his homeland, in the face of a murderous tyrant, to care for the mother and Son of God.
