Mary Valtorta
Very little is known about Joseph, very little data that is needed for his adopted son; and for Him not a word.
In the Gospel, the evangelists preferred to be totally silent, Joseph is the man of silence; he was the one who, by mission received, took care of Jesus and Mary. He was himself a chosen one along with Mary.
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The holiness of Joseph
This young man who was singularly chosen to be the father of the Son of God! He is a man who does not possess the privileges of Mary, but He was entrusted with the firstfruits of the Church-Jesus and Mary. Scripture simply calls him a "righteous man," and besides being righteous he was also holy.
Joseph and Mary, lived the course of their lives, facing unique situations in which only faith could be their counsel. Joseph, like Mary his bride, was the man of faith, in the line of the great patriarchs of the Old Testament, and can be considered the inspirer of all those people who intend to follow the teaching of Jesus as the beacon of their lives, to accept the mission entrusted to them by God, despite the difficulties and sufferings. Joseph is a luminous figure was a man who knew how to choose, and with Mary, they decided to believe in Jesus. They chose faith, and they did so immediately, without even much explanation, in the simplicity of those who trust and rely on God.
The Gospels tell us just enough to reveal the great stature of these two characters and how grace worked them. Certainly the drama was great for Joseph, but he was also a man who knew how to rely on God, and in this unique event he lingered for a few days to reflect, but the situation was absurd. We know that at some point Joseph was reached by a sign. The dream, it was the sign for Joseph and He believed, and this was credited to him as righteousness. The thoughts that gripped him from the moment he took cognizance of Mary's state, to that of his decision to accept the Son of God as well, were unsettling. These thoughts are reflected, in part, in the words of the Angel who appears to him in a dream. The Gospel reveals to us Joseph's thoughts, of a man who paused to think about what had happened to him, but over his reflections love prevailed, enabling him to offer his act of faith. [...] And he took Mary into his home. He understood that God's plan, was greater than his honor.
From the writings of Maria Valtorta
My Joseph also had his Passion. And it was born in Jerusalem when my state appeared to him. And it lasted days as it did for Jesus and for me. Ne it was spiritually little painful. And solely because of the holiness of the Just One who was my spouse, it was contained in a form that was so dignified and secret, that it has passed through the centuries little noticed. Oh! Our first Passion! Who can tell its intimate and silent intensity? Who my sorrow at finding that Heaven had not yet fulfilled me by revealing the mystery to Joseph? That he ignored it I had understood by seeing him respectful to me as usual. If he had known that I bore the Word of God in me, he would have worshipped that Word enclosed in my bosom with acts of veneration that are due to God, and that he would not have failed to do as I would not have refused to receive, not for me, but for Him who was in me and whom I bore just as the Ark of the Covenant bore the stone codex and the vessels of manna.
Who can say my battle against the discouragement that wanted to overwhelm me to persuade me that I had hoped in vain in the Lord? Oh! I believe it was Satan’s anger! I felt the doubt rise to me behind and to stretch its frosty branches to imprison me the soul and to stop her in its orare. The doubt that is so dangerous, deadly to the spirit. Lethal because it is the first agent of the deadly disease that has the name "despair" and to which one must react with all strength, not to perish in the soul and lose God.
Who can say with exact truth the pain. of Joseph, his thoughts, the upset of his affections? As a small boat caught in a great storm, he was in a whirlwind of opposing ideas, in a whirlwind of reflections one more biting and painful than the other. He was a man, apparently betrayed by his woman. She saw her good name and the esteem of the world collapse together, for she already felt marked and compassionate by the country, she saw her affection and her esteem in me fall dead before the evidence of a fact.
His holiness here shines even higher than mine. And I bear this witness with bridal affection, because I want you to love my Joseph, this wise and prudent, this patient and good, who is not separated from the mystery of the Redemption, but although he is intimately connected to it because he consumed the pain for it, and himself for it, saving you the Saviour at the cost of his sacrifice and his holiness. Had he been less holy, he would have acted humanely, denouncing me as an adulteress so that I would be stoned and the son of my sin perished with me. Had he been less holy, God would not have given him his light for guidance in this endeavor.
But Joseph was holy. His pure spirit lived in God. Charity was alive and strong in him. And out of charity the Saviour saved you so much when he did not accuse me to the elders, as when, leaving everything with prompt obedience, he saved Jesus in Egypt Brevi as a number, but tremendous in intensity the three days of Joseph’s passion. And my first passion. Because I understood his suffering, I could raise him in no way for obedience to the decree of God that he had told me: "Shut up!".
And when I came to Nazareth, I saw him leave after a laconic greeting, curved and as aged in a short time, neither come to me in the evening as he always used, I tell you, children, that my heart wept with a very sharp sorrow. Locked in my house, alone, in the house where everything reminded me of the Announcement and the Incarnation, and where everything reminded me of Joseph married to me in an illiterate virginity, I had to resist the discouragement, the insinuations of Satan and hope, hope and hope. And pray, pray, pray. And forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive Joseph’s suspicion, his revolt of righteous indignation.
Children: it is necessary to hope, to pray, to forgive in order to obtain God to intervene on our behalf. You too live your passion. Deserved for your sins. I teach you how to overcome it and turn it into joy. Hope beyond measure. Pray without mistrust. Forgive to be forgiven. God’s forgiveness will be the peace you desire, or children.
