Remembering Saint Joseph

Saint Joseph’s Day falls on March 19. The feast day of Saint Joseph, the husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the foster-father of Jesus Christ, has the rank of a solemnity in the Roman Catholic Church.

March 19 was dedicated to Saint Joseph in several Western calendars by the 10th century, and this custom was established in Rome by 1479.
Pope Pius IX proclaimed Saint Joseph the patron of the Universal Church in 1870. Having died in the “arms of Jesus and Mary” according to Catholic tradition, he is considered the model of the pious believer who receives grace at the moment of death, in other words, the patron of a happy death.

Saint Joseph is the patron saint of a number of cities and countries including the Americas, Canada, China, Croatia, Mexico, Korea, Austria, Belgium, Peru, the Philippines and Vietnam, as well as of families, fathers, expectant mothers (pregnant women), travelers, immigrants, house sellers and buyers, craftsmen, engineers, and working people in general.