Review: St. Joseph - Guardian of Holy Mother Church
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 28, 2012
The life of St. Joseph can best be described as "an enigma wrapped inside a conundrum." Much that has been written about his life is considered to be apocryphal, meaning, of course, of dubious or of questionable origin. Both St. Jerome and St. Augustine reject these out of hand. Nevertheless, the author of the introduction does an outstanding job of giving us a least an overview of this most beloved saint. It is he and he alone who was chosen to be the guardian of the Holy Family. This, of course, is fact.Some of the early Church fathers have intimated that Mary was about 14 or 15 when she was betrothed to St. Joseph which would not be uncommon in ancient Jewish tradition. In addition, it has also been suggested that Joseph was in his early to mid-thirties. Furthermore, we can make a fairly accurate assumption that St. Joseph had passed-away prior to the beginning of Christ's public life which would have been when He was 30 years-old. The notion that St. Joseph lived to be well over a hundred years-old seems rather unlikely. But again, one must recall that these are apocryphal accounts. But as the author states in his introduction one will have to arrive at his or her own conclusions.In Roman Catholic Tradition, St. Joseph is prayed to as the guardian and protector of Hold Mother Church as he was the faithful guardian of the Holy Family while he lived. (See Prayer VI. Prescribed by HH. Pope Leo Xlll for the month of October after the recitation of the Rosary)The prayers are beautifully written and many are derived from ancient sources and approved by several popes. I throughly enjoyed this book and found it to be one of the best in this series on the "Lives and Prayers of the Saints" series published by Wyatt North Publishing, LLC