The First Sunday of St. Joseph (2026)

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

Devotion to St. Joseph has developed spontaneously from the heart of the Christian people. For many people the Holy Patriarch is an excellent model of humility, industriousness, and fidelity to one’s vocation.

One of the most popular devotions to St. Joseph is the Seven Sundays of St. Joseph. This is an extended opportunity to meditate about the Holy Patriarch and to pray for his intercession.

Today we can renew a long-standing custom of preparing for the feast of St. Joseph during the seven Sundays prior to that feast day. On each of these Sundays of preparation, we can meditate on the life of St. Joseph, a life which is full of lessons for us.

Following Our Lady, St. Joseph is the greatest of all the saints in heaven. Such is the common teaching of Catholic doctrine, particularly expressed by Pope Leo XIII in an encyclical called Quamquam pluries in 1889.

This humble carpenter from Nazareth exceeds in grace and blessing all the patriarchs, prophets, St. John the Baptist, St. Peter, St. Paul, the apostles, the holy martyrs, and all doctors of the Church (cf. Bernardine of Siena, Homily 1 on St. Joseph).

The Church recognizes St. Joseph’s excellence in the First Eucharistic Prayer, where his name follows immediately upon that of Our Lady.

Christians from every period are under the care of the Holy Patriarch. The Church pays homage to this protection in the Litany of St. Joseph, which names St. Joseph as the Illustrious scion of David, Light of the patriarchs, Spouse of the Mother of God, Model of the working man, Tribute to the domestic life, Guardian of virgins, Consoler of the afflicted, Hope of the sick, Patron of the dying, Scourge of demons, Protector of the Holy Church...

No other creature aside from Our Lady has ever merited such praises. Pope St. John Paul has written, “This patronage must be invoked as ever necessary for the Church, not only as a defense against all dangers, but also, and indeed primarily, as an impetus for her renewed commitment to evangelization [in the world and to re-evangelization] in those lands and nations where—as I wrote in the Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles laici—'religion and the Christian life were formerly flourishing…and are now put to a hard test.’

“In order to bring the first proclamation of Christ, or to bring it anew wherever it has been neglected or forgotten, the Church has need of special ‘power from on high’ (cf. Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8), a gift of the Spirit of the Lord, a gift which is not unrelated to the intercession and example of his saints” (John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, Redemptoris custos, Point 29, August 15, 1989).

Through the course of these seven weeks, we can renew and deepen our devotion to St. Joseph. These are moments to draw especially close to him.

“Love St. Joseph a lot,” St. Josemaría in The Forge says. “Love him with all your soul, because he, together with Jesus, is the person who has most loved Our Blessed Lady and has been closest to God. He is the person who has most loved God, after Our Mother.

”—He deserves your affection, and it will do you good to get to know him, because he is the Master of the interior life, and has great power before the Lord and before the Mother of God” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 554).

We should take advantage of this opportunity to go to his powerful intercession regarding that matter which worries us the most.

We can apply to St. Joseph that principle formulated by St. Thomas with reference to the sanctity of Our Lady, where he says, “The Lord prepares those whom he calls to do his work” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Part 3, Question 27).

It is for this reason that Our Lady was not only conceived without original sin but from her very conception she was filled with grace. She was given more grace than that possessed by all the saints in heaven combined. As the creature closest to the fountain of all grace, Our Lady has benefited more than any other creature.

Right after Our Lady, no one was ever closer to Jesus than St. Joseph, His foster father on earth. Next to Our Lady, no one has received such a unique mission as did Joseph. No one has loved Jesus more. No one has given Jesus more attention. No other person has been so intimate with the Son of God.

St. John Paul II said, “This is precisely the mystery in which Joseph of Nazareth ‘shared’ like no other human being except Our Lady, the Mother of the Incarnate Word. He shared in it with her; he was involved in the same salvific event; he was the guardian of the same love, through the power of which the eternal Father ‘destined us to be sons through Jesus Christ’ (Eph. 1:5)” (John Paul II, ibid., Point 1).

It was certainly most fitting that God prepared Joseph’s soul to carry out his extraordinary vocation. One writer says God was entrusting Joseph with the care of His beloved Son. Joseph’s mission was so important that it cannot be equated with the services performed by all the hosts of angels (cf. Boniface Llamera, Theology of St. Joseph).

St. Joseph participated in the fullness of Christ even more than the apostles did. One writer says, “He loved Christ. He lived with Christ. He listened to him. He touched him. He was continually at the supernatural fountain of grace, enriching his interior life.

“He also participated in the spiritual fullness of Our Lady in their married life. Surely Mary did not deprive her spouse of the benefits deriving from her perfection. Mary led a most grace-filled life in the presence of Christ and the angels. The only person she would have been able to communicate these blessings to would have been St. Joseph. It was in this fashion that Mary fulfilled the precept of the law that the two partners in marriage should become one flesh” (Isidoro de Isolano, The Gifts of St. Joseph).

In a Prayer before the Mass we say, “O Blessed Joseph, happy man whose privilege it was, not only to see and hear that God whom so many a king has longed to see and saw not, long to hear yet heard not; but also to carry him in your arms and kiss him, to clothe him and watch over him! Pray for us, Blessed Joseph” (Roman Missal, Prayers before Mass). Favor us with your powerful intercession, for how can Jesus deny you anything?

St. Bernardine of Siena has taught, following the writings of St. Thomas, that “whenever God chooses someone to do some important work for him, God grants that person the necessary graces. The perfect example of this truth can be seen in the life of St. Joseph, foster father of Our Lord Jesus Christ and spouse of Mary,” says St. Bernardine of Siena.

Sanctity consists in fulfilling one’s vocation. For St. Joseph, that vocation entailed preserving Our Lady’s commitment to virginity while living in authentic matrimony.

We’re told in St. Matthew, “An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Joseph, son of David, to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:20). Joseph loved Our Lady with a love so pure and refined that it’s beyond our imagination.

With respect to Jesus, Joseph watched over Him, protected Him, taught Him a trade, helped in His education. “Joseph is called ‘foster father,’ but words cannot express the intimate and mysterious relationship which he actually enjoyed with the Son of God. In normal circumstances a man becomes a foster father by accident. In the case of Joseph, however, this is no accidental relationship. Joseph was created so as to live out this transcendent responsibility. This was his predestination,” says one writer, “the purpose of all the graces which he received” (Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Mother of the Savior).

St. Joseph is a great saint because he corresponded in a heroic way to the graces given to him. We should contemplate about how well we are corresponding to the grace in our own vocation in the middle of the world.

We can never forget the maxim that whenever God chooses someone to do some important work for Him, God grants that person the necessary graces.

We can ask ourselves: How do we react to difficulties in our life of faith? Do we ever doubt God’s support in our struggle to raise a family, to give ourselves generously to God’s requests, to live a commitment of apostolic celibacy? Do we firmly believe that ‘because I have a vocation, because I have the grace of God, I can overcome any obstacle?’ Do I put my trust in God so that difficulties only make me more faithful?

St. Josemaría said in The Forge, “You saw it quite clearly: while so many people do not know God, he has looked to you. He wants you to form a part of the foundations, a firm stone upon which the life of the Church can rest. Meditate upon this reality and you will draw many practical consequences for your ordinary behavior: the foundations, made of blocks of stone—hidden and possibly rather dull—have to be solid, not fragile. They have to serve as a support for the building. If not, they are useless” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 472).

St. Joseph was the firm foundation upon which Jesus and Mary were able to rest. He teaches us how to be faithful to our vocation. He will help us always to be faithful. We need only to go to his intercession. We can ask St. Joseph, “Pray for us…pray for me.” It’s a simple prayer that we could recite many times today.

St. Josemaría in Christ Is Passing By says that Joseph’s great human personality is evident from the Gospel narratives:

“At no time does he appear to us as a man who is apathetic or frightened in the face of life. On the contrary, he knows how to face up to problems, to get ahead in difficult situations, to assume with responsibility and initiative the tasks entrusted to him” (cf. J. Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Point 40). We see St. Joseph as a man with great fortitude, very much able to handle the setbacks of life.

Fortitude is the virtue whereby we face dangers or put up with difficulties. We put up with adversities for a just cause, for truth, for justice. It’s a character strength that goes by other names today: perseverance, personal toughness, guts, tenacity. Joseph had all of these.

“Fortitude is the ability to endure or overcome pain, or inconvenience, or disappointment, or setbacks, or tedium, for the sake of some higher good—for example, one’s duties to God or to others, starting with our duties within our own family” (cf. James Stenson, Educating in Virtue).

These are character strengths that we see highlighted by Joseph on that journey to Bethlehem (Luke 2:4-5), and also when they had to flee to Egypt, and likewise when they had to remain there for a period of time (Matt. 2:13-15).

“Simply speaking, fortitude is the habitual power to either solve problems or to put up with them, to override one’s fears and ignore one’s self-centered feelings. Courage is perfectly compatible with personal fearfulness; a courageous person does what is right despite his or her anxieties. All children have to learn this, especially from example and practice in the family” (Stenson, ibid.).

Our divine filiation, that awareness that we are children of God, is the foundation of our fortitude——like St. Joseph, to solve those difficult problems, to take the blows as they come, to fulfill the will of God even when it costs us a great effort.

There’s a story of a man who lost both his legs when he was in the States or Canada, and as he lay on his hospital bed, he was thinking, “I could lie here for the rest of my life complaining about how tough life has treated me, or I can get two artificial limbs and walk across Canada for charity”—which is what he did.

Sometimes it’s those difficult situations, the hard passes that life may throw at us, that reveal authentic virtue.

St. Josemaría in The Way says, “Many who would let themselves be nailed to a cross before the astonished gaze of thousands of spectators won’t bear the pinpricks of each day with a Christian spirit. But think, which is the more heroic?” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 204).

We can ask St. Joseph that we might learn how to face the difficulties and challenges of life, and to discern the paths that deviate from our identification with that provident will of Our Lord. It means sometimes we have to be daring.

Sometimes in the workplace, we have to be daring. There are many situations in professional life these days that call us to be conscientious objectors, not to be willing to do anything that is wrong, which sometimes may mean saying no to our boss.

It may mean that we always try to function on duty, not just on our feelings; that we feel that drive to fulfill our duty in all situations in order to sanctify that duty. This can mean a great fortitude when it comes to exam time, or fostering good work habits on a daily basis, or being punctual for every single appointment that we have.

Sometimes fortitude can be needed to fulfill the most basic duties that we have each day, such as making our bed. I know a governor of a Central Bank who invited all the employees of the bank to bring their children so that he would give them a talk, and he gave them a talk on virtue. Many of the parents were thinking that this governor, a very successful professional person, would teach their children how to be a future governor of the Central Bank. But one of the things he told them was that you can never be successful in life if you don’t know how to make your bed every morning.

Sometimes we may have to declare war on the Internet, or the newspaper, or our caprice, or our follies, or our frivolousness, in order to get our duty done first. All those things may be for later. We have to learn how to do the important thing first.

When we look to the life of St. Joseph, of how he organized those journeys, of how he must have had foresight to foresee possible problems, how he made everything happen, how he turned the stable in Bethlehem into a focal point of family warmth for all eternity, we see the great virtue that was there in Joseph—wonderful things from which to feed our heart and our soul on, so that we “draw water in joy from the wells of salvation” (Isa. 12:3).

We may need great daring and fortitude to be a person of integrity in all situations, to live by the truth, even if the roof is going to fall down on top of us; to keep our hands above the table so that all our business transactions are transparent.

In Scripture, we see how Joseph intelligently follows the divine designs, even if they’re not comfortable. They make that difficult decision to leave their home in Nazareth, their support structure, their family, their neighbors. How, later on, they have to travel for fear of persecution; how he seeks a lodging for the Holy Family in Bethlehem, and likewise in Egypt.

Through fortitude, we dominate our fear of suffering or any fear we may have of temporal ills. We’re able to dominate our moods or emotions, or our anger, or imagination.

One writer wrote once, “Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, and skillful execution. Quality represents the wise choice of many alternatives” (William A. Foster). There’s a great quality in the decisions of Joseph.

President Theodore Roosevelt once said: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat” (Theodore Roosevelt, Speech, Citizenship in a Republic).

[Vince Lombardi] once wrote, “The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” We see a great commitment to excellence in the life of Joseph.

Often our chief want in life may be someone who will make us do what we can. An early Latin writer in the early centuries called Horace said, “Adversity reveals genius; prosperity conceals it” (Horace, Satires). In all the actions and reactions of Joseph, we find great genius.

At the same time, we see great patience. Patience with the plans of God that have to work themselves out over time: “Remain there until I tell you” (Matt. 2:13).

In St. Luke we’re told, “By your patience you will gain possession of your souls” (Luke 21:19). St. Gregory the Great comments, “The possession of the soul is attributed to patience, which in effect is the root and guardian of all the virtues. We secure possession of our souls through patience, because by learning to have dominion over ourselves, we begin to possess that which we are” (Gregory I, Homiliae in Evangelium).

We see St. Joseph having great fortitude in giving good example. In The Way, St. Josemaría says, “By good example good seed is sown; and charity compels us all to sow” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 795).

St. Thérèse of Lisieux says, “When we feel no courage, no energy for the practice of virtue, this is grace. This is the moment to depend solely on Jesus” (cf. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul).

We see St. Joseph with a great sense of abandonment to the plans of God, a great confidence. We could say to Our Lord in our prayer, “Lord, help me to understand always that you are perfect happiness, even when you seem absent.”

On that journey to Bethlehem, God may have seemed absent. Joseph could have argued: ‘Look, if you chose us out from all eternity, you must have known this decree of Caesar Augustus was coming. You could have brought it one year earlier to change all our plans so that we didn’t have to come on this dangerous journey, with Mary almost at the time of her delivery.’

Or God may have seemed absent when Joseph went from door to door in Bethlehem, receiving a “no” each time (Luke 2:7). But all that time he saw that ‘if I’m receiving this rejection, this negativity, God must have some other plan.’ Joseph thinks supernaturally and with initiative.

This is why we have to try and consider our divine filiation frequently every day. We have to learn to trust like St. Joseph trusted. Our Lord permits contradictions so that we might depend totally on Him.

T.S. Eliot has a phrase where he says, “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business” (T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets). We try in this thing and that thing and the other thing, but the fruits, the results, that’s up to God.

We’re told in the Prophet Jeremiah, “Accursed be anyone who trusts in human beings, who relies on human strength and whose heart turns from Yahweh. Such a person is like scrub in the wastelands: when good comes, it does not affect him since he lives in the parched places of the desert, uninhabited, salt land. Blessed is the person who trusts in Yahweh, with Yahweh to rely on. Such a person is like a tree by the waterside that thrusts its roots to the stream: when the heat comes it has nothing to fear; its foliage stays green; untroubled in a year of drought, it never stops bearing fruit” (Jer. 17:5-8).

St. Teresa of Ávila says, “O Lord of my soul, who has words to explain what you give to those who trust in you?” (Teresa of Ávila, The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus).

We can ask St. Joseph that we might learn more how to trust, that we might begin our prayer each day in that way, trusting in Him because He knows what is best.

Fulton Sheen says, “That is why the petition is not the essence of prayer; trust underlies it.” That trust helps us to overcome any fears that may arise. Fear can be a tool of the devil to keep us from trusting in God. The devil can play on our human frailties and weaknesses.

Our Lord said, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” (cf. Matt. 8:26). We may have fears of losing material things. We may have fear of what people will think or say. We may have fear of death or loneliness. Really, the only fear we need to have is the fear of not understanding God’s love for us.

Joseph got over the fear of losing the material things that he had in Nazareth, or the human respect of what people would think or say when they go from door to door asking for accommodation.

If we don’t understand this, will we not understand what God is capable and willing to do for us? Fear can grip our life and paralyze our soul. It can bring about a misery that stops us from trusting in God.

In the Book of Isaiah we read, “And now, thus says Yahweh, he who created you, Jacob, who formed you, Israel: Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name, you are mine. Should you pass through the waters, I shall be with you; or through rivers, they will not swallow you up. Should you walk through fire, you will not suffer, and the flame will not burn you.

“For I am Yahweh, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I have given Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you” (Isa. 43:1-3).

In The Way of the Cross, St. Josemaría says, “Drop anchor in your divine filiation” (cf. J. Escrivá, The Way of the Cross, Seventh Station).

We can learn from the Holy Patriarch St. Joseph that omnia in bonum, “all things turn out for the good for those who love God” (cf. Rom. 8:28).

We can realize that there’s a profound divine joy that arises from every pain that is lived for Christ, in Christ, and with Christ. The Psalms say, “Delight in the Lord and he will give you the requests of your heart” (cf. Ps. 37:4). “Your sadness will be turned into joy” (cf. Jer. 31:13). St. Paul says, “Patient in tribulation, joyful in hope” (cf. Rom. 12:12).

Joy is written [over] 300 times in the Bible, and the frequency of words that appear in the Bible is an indication of its importance. God is joy. “Joy is the most infallible sign of God’s presence” (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin).

Our cheerfulness is a permanent state because our divine sonship is a permanent state. “Joy is the mark and fruit of charity” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Part II of II, Question 28).

In all the stories that we read about St. Joseph, we find there’s a great joy there. To be with Christ was and is a source of joy. True virtue is pleasantly joyful.

Our Lady and St. Joseph experienced rejection in Bethlehem, but we find their enormous calm; there’s not a word of complaint. There’s a great joy of serving God, of self-surrender at the fulfillment of duties. Our God is a God of consolation.

We can turn to St. Joseph as we begin these weeks and ask that we might grow to have a deeper devotion to him, to entrust more things to his care, and to rely on him on a more daily basis.

Our Lady will be enormously happy, as will the Child Jesus, when they hear us talking more and more to her loving husband and to the foster father of Jesus.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.