The Devotion to St. Joseph

Saint Josemaria and the Role of Saint Joseph in Christian Life

Devotion to St. Joseph and to the Holy Family - one can say that in the industrial west, with the loss of the family and misandry, there is a need for the devotion to St. Joseph as foster-father to Christ, husband to the Theotokos. Would it have gained such prominence if deification and supernatural adoption had remained at the forefront of Western spirituality, though? And we were thus properly engaged with Christ's and our relationship with God the Father? (Similarly, is devotion to the Holy Family as circumscribed as the Western devotion to the infant Christ at Christmas (which Louis Bouyer critiques in Liturgical Piety)?

Again, there may be a need now for St. Joseph as a role-model for men who wish to be good husbands and fathers. And perhaps depictions of the Holy Family, with Christ as a child, are not so out of place when we remember that icons of the Theotokos also have Christ depicted as a child. Is it part of Byzantine canon for St. Joseph to be depicted with the Christ child?

While there may be an older Latin devotion to St. John the Baptist comparable to the one in the East, it does not seem to be so prominent, at least in American churches?

The Importance of Devotion to St. Joseph
QUAMQUAM PLURIES
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON DEVOTION TO ST. JOSEPH