St. Thomas

Question: :Father, I know this is a stupid question, but what happened to St. Joseph?
Answer:   It isn’t a stupid question at all. We know all about what happened to the Blessed Mother, thanks to Scripture and our feasts throughout liturgical calendar, but we never see such a clear picture of St. Joseph. The Gospel of Matthew tells us that he is there to marry Mary and raise Jesus. He takes them down into Egypt to protect them from King Herod and then moves them to Nazareth after Herod’s death. We also hear in Luke that Joseph is there when they travel to the Temple in Jerusalem when Jesus is 12 years old. After that, Scripture drops him from the story. We know that his absence means that he has died by the time Jesus begins is public ministry at the age of 30. This explains why Jesus entrusts his mother to the care of the Beloved Disciple at the cross, since she is a widow and her only son is dying. Somewhere between Jesus’ teens and turning thirty, St. Joseph dies in Nazareth. He would have died with the Mother of God and the Son of God at his bedside, and so he has become the patron saint of happy death. That is why so many cemeteries are named in his honor.