March 19 — The Joseph being celebrated today is the foster father of Jesus. He is rarely mentioned in the Bible, it is the Gospels according to Luke and Matthew that mention him when talking about Jesus. The Gospel of Mark does not name him Joseph but "the carpenter".
According to the accounts of the Gospel of Luke in chapter three, Joseph is of the lineage of King David. In the first chapter of Matthew's Gospel, he is the husband of Mary, Mother of Jesus. It is this same Gospel that mentions that the mission of Jesus was revealed to him: "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife to you, for the child that is begotten in her comes from the Holy Spirit; and she shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus (that is, The Lord-Saviour), for he will save his people from their sins". Joseph is also called a righteous man; he is put on the same level as the great patriarchs and the ascendants of the Messiah. He asserted his paternity by giving the name Jesus (Saviour) to the son of Mary. During the visit of the Magi, he is not mentioned, but the angel gave him the mission to protect the Messiah against Herod's desire to kill the child, according to Matthew's account in the second chapter. When Jesus began his public life, there was no further mention of Joseph except once in the Gospel of John 6:42: The Jews rebuked Jesus because he said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph?"
Many people have a special devotion to St. Joseph. His cult began in the West as early as the 11th century, but it was not until the 14th century that devotion to him was popularised through the mendicant order of the Servites, who first celebrated on 19 March in the year 1326. In the 15th century, Pope Sixtus IV included the name of Joseph in the Roman calendar and it was Pope Gregory XV who made the celebration obligatory in 1621. On December 8, 1870, Pope Pius IX made Joseph the protector of the Church at the request of the First Vatican Council. Pope Leo XIII made him the patron saint of workers and fathers of families in 1892 and the feast of May 1st was established by Pius XII in 1956. Pope John XXIII placed the Second Vatican Council under his patronage and since then the name of Joseph appears in the Eucharistic prayer of the liturgy.
