Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.
Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ.
Yesterday, I heard an interview with the director of the largest hospital in the northern Italian town of Bergamo, telling of the wrenching decisions that his medical staff have to make determining who will get limited life-saving ventilators and who will not in the midst of this novel coronavirus pandemic. Inevitably, if the choice is between an 80-year-old or a 40-year-old with a family, the choice is sadly obvious. He wept when he shared the fact that since visitors are rigidly restricted due to the virulence of contagion, many of the older patients die alone. Because of the numbers of deaths and limited medical personnel, calls to relatives sadly notifying them of the death of their loved ones, can be delayed days.
In the midst of this world-wide crisis, the Church pauses in the midst of our Lenten journey, to mark and celebrate the Solemnity of St. Joseph, husband of Mary and foster-father of Jesus.
We know only the faintest outlines of Joseph’s life from sacred scripture with pious tradition filling in the rest. St. Joseph has down through the ages been the patron of a ‘happy death.’ Why? Because tradition has it that both Mary and Jesus were there when he died, that is why!
Because of our belief in being part of the Body of Christ and our solidarity with all those who have gone before us in faith in the communion of saints, no one of us ever truly dies alone. While we long to be surrounded and companioned physically by our loved ones at the time of death, we are never truly alone in that definitive leave taking. The holy ones are there to lead us to that fulness of life prepared for us from the foundation of the world, to rejoice forever with Jesus, Mary and Joseph.