St. Joseph was Sanctified in his Mother's Womb
Excerpt from the book St. Joseph: his life, his virtues, his privileges, his power: a month of March in his honor
Though not a dogmatically defined belief of the Catholic faith there is good reason to believe that St. Joseph, due to the role God had planned for him as the protector of the Blessed Virgin and the Child Savior, was sanctified in his mother’s womb as were Jeremias and St. John the Baptist.
Yours in Jesus and Mary.
From the book St. Joseph: his life, his virtues, his privileges, his power: a month of March in his honor by Very Reverend Archbishop Kinane, P.P. (M. H. Gill and Son, 1884, pages 192-198).
St. Joseph was Sanctified in his Mother's Womb
Upon the truth of the above proposition or opinion, we say, at the start, the Gospels and early Fathers are silent. In the early ages the Sacred Humanity was so vividly before the minds of the people, that the great duty of the Christian Apologists in those times was to prove to an unbelieving race the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hence we find in their writings not much on the Sacred Humanity of our Saviour, little upon the Blessed Virgin, and still less upon St. Joseph. We may also remark that God, “who knows the times and the seasons,” reserved Devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and to St. Joseph in special manner, for this nineteenth century.
Let us here state that everyone is at perfect liberty to hold and believe the opposite opinion, vis., that sanctification before birth, after the Blessed Virgin, was the special grace of St. John the Baptist and the Prophet Jeremias alone, and not the privilege of our great Patriarch St. Joseph. We only wish to show that the opinion at the head of this section is tenable, and that everyone can safely hold and believe it, as we ourselves do, on sound theological principles.
The Prophet Jeremias was sanctified in his mother's womb. “And the word of the Lord,” writes the Prophet, “came to me saying: Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee and before thou earnest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and made thee prophet unto the nations.” (Jeremias 1:4-5)
St. John the Baptist was sanctified before his birth. The Gospel says, “And Mary rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste into city of Juda. And she entered into the house of Zachary, and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. And she cried out with loud voice and said, Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me. For behold as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears the infant in my womb leaped for joy” (Luke 1:39-44).
The Blessed Virgin was sanctified in her conception. Sin, whether original or actual, never sullied her immaculate soul.
Now, we have seen elsewhere that God gives graces and special privileges suited and in proportion to the dignity and mission of His Saints. We have also seen that our great Patriarch, St. Joseph, was elevated by God in dignity beyond any Saint of the Old or New Testament and that he ranks next to the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. If, therefore, the Almighty sanctified, as He did, the Prophet Jeremias, before he was born, because his mission was to proclaim His eternal truths, if God sanctified, as He did, the Baptist in his mother's womb, because he was to baptize and to point out the Lamb of God, is it not just and reasonable to believe that the same special privilege of sanctification before birth was bestowed by God upon St. Joseph, whose dignity was greater, whose mission was of higher order, and whose relations with the Savior of the world were more intimate than those of the Prophet Jeremias, of the great Baptist, or of any other saint?
We shall not dwell longer on the intrinsic arguments in favor of the above privilege, but shall content ourselves to cite a few of the many authorities before us, holding the opinion we have adopted.
The learned Cornelius Lapide writes: “Truly, if God gives this privilege of sanctification before birth to any other saint besides the Blessed Virgin, He would not deny it to St. Joseph, her spouse.”
Father Segneri, justly esteemed for piety, eloquence, and solid learning, writes, “St. Joseph was ennobled and singularly privileged with the honour of being the spouse of the Mother of God, a dignity which is a solid principle, from which it follows, with every mark of probability, that St. Joseph was not only sanctified, as we maintain, in his mother's womb, but that he was afterwards confirmed in grace, and exempt from all evil, so that no man, we say it boldly, no man on this earth ever was holier than Joseph.”
The Venerable Maria of Jesus of Agreda holds the same opinion. She writes, “St. Joseph was the greatest Saint of God on earth. He ought to have been, as he was in reality, a prodigy of holiness, and by the special providence of God he was sanctified before his birth. Although he had not the use of reason in his first sanctification, in which he was justified only from original sin, his mother was sensible of new joy in the Holy Spirit and without fully penetrating the mystery, she performed great acts of virtue, and believed that her child would become great before God and man.” (Cite Mistique de Dieu).
The learned Trombelli writes, “Theologians have not been wanting, who have maintained that St. Joseph was sanctified in his mother's womb. Gerson, a name of great authority in theology, confirms this grace by the Breviary of Jerusalem, in which, he says, he read it. He is followed by Isodore Isolano, who, by many arguments, seeks to show the greater probability of this opinion. Among moderns, Father Reiss adorns it and establishes it with many proofs, averring that this opinion has not few defenders, such as Carthagena, Diego de Valencia, Theophilos, and St. Chrysostom, cited by Isolano, and finally Cornelius Lapide.”
We shall cite but one more author, Father Vallejo, the devout Client of St. Joseph.
“The privilege of sanctification in his mother's womb,” he writes, “was bestowed on the Baptist, who was born as the glorious Precursor of the Man-God. And whoever will consider the profound dignity of St. Joseph, who was born the chosen spouse of the Virgin Mary, and the putative father of Jesus, cannot but deem him entitled to this grace of presanctification, which adds a new degree of splendor to his sanctity.” (Life of St. Joseph, p. 19.)
From the above arguments and authorities we conclude that the opinion that the glorious St. Joseph was sanctified in his mother's womb is tenable, and can be safely held and believed. The devout Client of St. Joseph will gladly adopt it, because it redounds to the greater glory of the Holy Family Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.