St. Joseph
He does not say a single word anywhere in the Bible.
Joseph is in the Christmas story, the flight into Egypt, the trip to the temple. He is there for all of it. And he never once speaks. Not a line. Everything we know about him is something he did.
He was a carpenter, or closer to a builder, working with stone and beams as much as wood. He taught the trade to Jesus, which means for about twenty years the Son of God had sawdust on his hands because Joseph put it there.
Four times in the Gospels an angel tells Joseph something in a dream, and four times he simply gets up and does it. Take her as your wife. Go to Egypt tonight. Come back. Go to Nazareth. No arguments recorded, because no words are.
St. Joseph facts for kids
- He has no dialogue anywhere in Scripture
- The Greek word for his trade, tekton, means builder, not just carpenter
- He gets four dreams in the Gospel of Matthew and obeys all four
- He's patron of a happy death, from the tradition that he died with Jesus and Mary beside him
Feast day: March 19 · Patron of workers, fathers, and the whole Church
St. Joseph, help me be someone people can count on without me saying so.