Pope Francis says that never in history has St. Joseph had so much "support, consolation, and guidance" to offer us -- marked as we are by "a global crisis made up of several components."
So in these last few weeks of the Year of St. Joseph that he declared, and following up on his apostolic letter Patris corde, Francis has decided to dedicate the Wednesday audiences of the next few weeks to the theme of Joseph.
On November 17, he began with two biblical observations:
1A man of Providence
2A man of the House of Bethlehem
3A man of the peripheries
Francis also reflected on St. Joseph as a man of the peripheries. "Jesus was not born in Jerusalem, with all the court… no, he was born in a periphery and spent his life, until the age of 30, in that periphery, working as a carpenter like Joseph. For Jesus, the peripheries and marginality were favored," the Pope said.
