How does St. Joseph’s model help us in living more live devotedly to our wives?

In this final reflection on St. Joseph, we examine his great devotion to his spouse Mary in the hopes of uncovering a witness that can guide us in our relationship with our spouse and girlfriends.  (Note: even though the boyfriend and girlfriend relationship is less than ideal for this reflection given its obvious limitations, nonetheless, I wanted to address this for those readers who are not yet married).

I hope you are enjoying these reflections on the Patron of the Universal Church, our beloved St. Joseph. Ioffer this second reflection of this three part series with the goal of drawing men and women to a deeper appreciation of the role St. Joseph had as provider for the Holy Family. This particular reflection will focus on the following question:

Reflection #2: How can I make my work more meaningful and fulfilling?

Recently I was asked to give three reflections on the life of St. Joseph, specifically his role as head of the Holy Family, his work as a carpenter and spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary. What an honor it was to examine this great saint’s life and his singular call to serve the Holy Family. Although Sacred Scripture provides us with no spoken words from St. Joseph, his actions speak volumes on the role of men in relation to their careers and vocations as husbands and fathers. For this article, I would like address Joseph’s role as head of the Holy Family and in subsequent articles address the other two reflections.

This article is long overdue! For far too long men have embraced the biblical understanding of their role as husbands and fathers in a very oppressive manner. I think the lion’s share of this thinking has come from a gross misinterpretation of St. Paul’s instruction to wives and husbands in Ephesians 5:21-33. Lets look at these verses in two parts: Wife’s Role and Husband’s Role.

Recently, I received a call from a man who had observed The King’s Men apostolate’s usual first Wednesday of the month anti-pornography protest a.k.a. “The No More Porn Tour.” This man, whom I will call Mike, questioned the value of protesting pornography on the streets when innocent children would be exposed to these concepts for the first time as they passed by in their vehicles. As much as I tried to be compassionate towards his observations, I found it hard to embrace fully what he was trying to say until Chris, one of my band of brothers, challenged me to seriously think about the points he was raising. Hence, the genesis of this article.

The King’s Men constantly preach to men that their natural call is to “lead, protect and provide” for women, children and the common good. Educating men on these fundamental roles has been a staple part of our masculinity programming for the past four years. Recently though I encountered some difficulty in breaking out these concepts to a young adult audience in Queens, NY. The difficulty arose when one of the young adults in my audience, who happened to be a woman, questioned whether these roles weren’t true for women. For the sake of protecting her identity I will refer to her in this article as Jen.