The Faith Explained with Cale Clarke

Now that we’ve looked briefly at the case for Saint Joseph as an older man in our last post, how about the other side of the argument? Is it possible that Saint Joseph was a younger man when he became the adoptive father of Jesus? Under this view, it would still be possible to hold the opinion that Joseph knew about Mary’s prior commitment to consecrated virginity, or (far more unlikely) that they were planning a “normal” marriage prior to Mary’s discovery of her unique vocation to be the Mother of the Messiah?

Here’s what St. Josemaria Escriva, who had a tremendous devotion to St. Joseph, said about the matter in a homily about St. Joseph in 1963:

“I don’t agree with the traditional picture of St Joseph as an old man, even though it may have been prompted by a desire to emphasise the perpetual virginity of Mary. I see him as a strong young man, perhaps a few years older than our Lady, but in the prime of his life and work…You don’t have to wait to be old or lifeless to practice the virtue of chastity. Purity comes from love; and the strength and gaiety of youth are no obstacle for noble love. Joseph had a young heart and a young body when he married Mary, when he learned of the mystery of her divine motherhood, when he lived in her company, respecting the integrity God wished to give the world as one more sign that he had come to share the life of his creatures. Anyone who cannot understand a love like that knows very little of true love and is a complete stranger to the christian meaning of chastity.”

I suppose an important question in this debate is this: How old is old? perhaps a type of “hybrid” view makes the best sense. For example, Joseph could have married Mary when he was about 25-30 years old (with Mary being, in all likelihood, no more than 16, according to the majority of New Testament scholars). Joseph would have still possessed a relatively “young body”, as St. Josemaria put it, able to withstand the rigors of the flight into Egypt and the journey back to Nazareth some time later. He would have been capable of working hard for many years and protecting Jesus and Mary, as well as providing for their necessities.

The average life span of men in the first century in the Roman Empire was considerably less, however, than what we enjoy today. Thirty years later, when Jesus began his ministry, it is more than concievable that Joseph, approaching sixty, may have already passed away.

Today’s Gospel is the famous account of the Annunciation from Luke 1:26-38. It includes some indirect proof for two major Marian dogmas of the Church – the Immaculate Conception (which was recently celebrated on Dec. 8), and the perpetual virginity of Our Lady. It also gives us part of the biblical roots of the “Hail Mary”.

When the archangel Gabriel greets Mary, it marks the only recorded incident in scripture that an angel greets someone by their title, not their name. “Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28). This, of course, is the first line of the “Hail Mary”, with the second line, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb”, from Luke 1:42. So much for the ridiculous argument that the prayer is “unbiblical”.

But what of those dogmas? Speaking of the phrase, “Full of Grace”, in the original Greek of Luke’s Gospel, it is an interesting term: “kecharitomene”. It means, literally, “one who has been made full of God’s grace” (biblical translations that render this term “highly favored one”, or something to that effect, don’t cut it) . It’s a past perfect, meaning that, at some point in the past, Mary was made perfectly full of God’s grace. This condition extends out into the future, into eternity. This is exactly what the Immaculate Conception is all about  - that, from the first moment of her existence, Mary was preserved free from all stain of original sin. If one is perfectly full of the grace of God, there is no room for sin.

With respect to the perpetual virginity, Gabriel explains to Mary that she will bear the Messiah, and at this point he has said nothing about Jesus being conceived by the Holy Spirit. Yet, Mary says, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” (Lk 1:34). A very strange question for a young woman to ask, who, as we have already been told, was engaged to be married. Unless, that is, she had already intended to remain a virgin, consecrating herself wholly to God.