Espousal of Mary and Joseph

Today tradition remembers the Espousal of Mary and Joseph, that is, the moment when two people make a promise to each other — and everything else begins from there. Of Joseph, Matthew’s Gospel says just one thing, but a weighty one: that he was a righteous man. The rest has to be pieced together from hints. He was Mary’s betrothed and, when he realized she was expecting a child that wasn’t his, his first thought was to divorce her **quietly**: that is, to let her go without exposing her, without scandal, taking the ugly part of the story on himself. The whole man is already in that detail. Then, the Gospel says, an angel spoke to him in a dream, and he agreed to marry her and to legally recognize the child as his own. That’s why tradition calls him the putative father — from the Latin *puto*, I believe: the one who *was believed* to be his father. His trade has been debated for a long time. Matthew says Jesus was the son of a *téktōn*, and the Greek word is broader than it seems: not only a carpenter, but someone who worked hard materials, wood or stone, in building. Some even think of a small business rather than a workshop. In any case, back then boys started learning their father’s trade at five: so Jesus, too, did that work. Joseph was declared patron of the Catholic Church by Pius IX in 1870, and he is the saint fathers and workers turn to. If your name is Joseph, Josephine, Peppe or Pina, today you can take it as an early celebration: the big one is March 19.