Enriched by grace with an immense array of virtues, he is an ideal model of every great Catholic virtue.
Yet the majority of Catholics do not seriously consider taking St. Joseph as a model. On one hand, they deem the great sanctity of the legal father of Jesus an absolutely unattainable ideal.
On the other, human weakness of which we are full, solicited by every type of inclination, deviates us in every way from lofty spiritual aims. And we think we have already done a lot when we free ourselves from the bondage of mortal and venial sin.
We live a spiritual life that is stationary and relatively mild, limited to conserving previous conquests, which is totally sterile for the Church and for the greater glory of God.
The Church does not want Her children to match Saint Joseph in glory and virtue since his was the highest expression of human virtue after the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Yet neither does She wish to limit our spiritual horizons to a mediocre life of piety, stifled by false notions that it is prideful to aspire to great holiness as seen in St. Thomas’ genius, St. Ignatius’ combativeness, St. Teresa’s recollection and St. Francis’ zeal.
The Church debunks this type of false humility as being a pretext of cowardice, or a spiritual conception of conceited virtue, considered more as the result of human effort than of God’s mercy.
At the same time, She uses the example of Her great saints to catapult our hearts to the heights.
To show us that the only real concern of this life, the only truly important issue of our existence, is the acquisition of spiritual perfection, the only heritage we take with us - despite the financial crises, social unrest and the fragility of human things – when we finally cross the threshold of eternity.
Intense, constant, supremely ambitious interior life in the spiritual sense of the word is the great lesson that St. Joseph teaches us.
The comparison of this lesson’s grandeur with our meager strength should not discourage us. Rather, we should exclaim for encouragement: "I can do all things in him who strengthens me" (Phil. 4, 13)
(Plinio Correa de Oliveira; Legionario, March 26, 1933).
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