FATHERS must exemplify St. Joseph’s role as a fosterer of family, UST Vice Rector Fr. Isaias Tiongco, O.P. said in his homily during the feast of St. Joseph on Monday, March 20, at the Santisimo Rosario Parish Church.
Tiongco urged husbands to shun the toxicities increasingly seen in modern times.
“St. Joseph has left us a wonderful legacy – the legacy of an authentic husband and provident father to his loved ones – particularly in these increasingly complicated times when families suffer so much from absent, remote, cruel, violent, uncaring, and predatory fathers who have given […] their families the opposite of Joseph’s example: his life, his faith, his fidelity, and love,” he said.
Citing the Gospel of Matthew, Tiongco lauded St. Joseph, the spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for protecting her maternity.
“In the Jewish world at the time, women were looked upon as second-class citizens. They have no rights; they [are] considered properties belonging to a man, as objects and things. A male Jew, when he prayed, would thank God for not making him first, a Gentile, secondly, a slave, and thirdly, a woman,” Tiongco said.
St. Joseph was proclaimed by Pope Pius IX as the patron of the Universal Church on Dec. 8, 1870, in tribute to his paternal care for Jesus.
