Page 98 - Reflections on St. Joseph

SAINT

JOSEPH’s

Service of Fatherhood

Fr. Enrique Barragán Pérez, OSJ

“from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named”
Ephesians 3:15

S
t. Joseph was called by God to serve the person and mission of Jesus directly through the
exercise of his fatherhood. It is precisely in this way that, as the Church's Liturgy teaches,
he "cooperated in the fullness of time in the great mystery of salvation" and is truly a
"minister of salvation”.”1 Human love constitutes the greatest expression and manifestation of
his reality as a spiritual being. And human love which is more similar to Divine Love, is the love
of a mother, of a father, of spouses, of those who know how to give life to the one loved (“Who
are my mother and my brothers …? Those who do the Will of my Father”), those who give their
life for their friends. “Even if a mother should forget her sons, I will never forget you”, because
“I have your name written on my hand”. “If you only knew how much my Father loves you”.

However, the actual cultural reality of
postmodern man, made up of complex
manifestations of secularism, materialism,
hedonism, and the Babylonic confusion of the
multi-form pluralistic culture, guided by
different opinions, ways, and liberal laws,
which seek to ignore this Creative,
Providential, mercifully Prodigious and
Loving Father, and who position themselves in
this way against human nature itself,
manipulating and destroying their true
identity, reaching numerous erroneous
manifestations and misguided truths. So in
many places and circumstances, the figure of
the human father, the vocation to fatherhood,

74 Reflections on st. joseph