St. Joseph: Now and at the Hour of Our Death

Linotype by Ade Bethune

St. Joseph has two feast days on the Church calendar: March 19, when he is honored for being the spouse of Mary and the earthly father of Jesus, and May 1, when he is acknowledged as the patron of workers. Although a special day is not set aside to recognize St. Joseph’s role as the patron of those seeking a happy death, many people seek his intercession for this reason.

I thought of this when I read the following beautiful passage from the book The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich. After leading quite a remarkable life, the main character, Agnes, feels death coming upon her:

“I am going, I am going, she thought. Underneath her and before her, a wide plain of utter emptiness opened, Trusting, yearning, she put her arms out into that emptiness. She reached as far as she could, farther than she was capable, held her hands out until at last a bigger, work-toughened hand grasped hold of hers. With a yank, she was pulled across.”

One of the joys of literature is the different ways we can interpret the story: The person who grasped Agnes’ hand could have been another character in the book (her deceased husband, a farmer named Berndt), or it could have been Jesus, with whom Agnes had a close relationship, or it could have been St. Joseph, patron of those seeking a happy death, whose carpenter’s hands would have been work-toughened. But I find it comforting to think of St. Joseph being ready to grasp our hand and yanking us into the heavenly realm when we reach out into the seeming emptiness of death with trust and yearning. St. Joseph, pray for us!