According to the tradition I know, St. Joseph was young and also a virgin, so this is one of those things we have to settle with not knowing for sure.
Here are excerpts and links for further reading.
He was the true and worthy Spouse of Mary, supplying in a visible manner the place of Mary’s Invisible Spouse, the Holy Ghost. He was a virgin, and his virginity was the faithful mirror of the virginity of Mary. He was the Cherub, placed to guard the new terrestrial Paradise from the intrusion of every foe.
From the Triduo to St. Joseph by Blessed John Henry Newman.
newmanreader.org/works/meditations/meditations8.html#triduojoseph
But when one searches for the reasons why Christian art should have pictured Joseph as aged, we discover it was in order better to safeguard the virginity of Mary. Somehow, the assumption had crept in that senility was a better protector of virginity than adolescence. Art thus unconsciously made Joseph a spouse chaste and pure by age rather than by virtue. But this is like assuming that the best way to show that a man would never steal is to picture him without hands; it also forgets that old men can have unlawful desires, as well as young men. It was the old men in the garden who tempted Susanna. But more than that, to make Joseph out as old portrays for us a man who had little vital energy left, rather than one who, having it, kept it in chains for God’s sake and for His holy purposes. To make Joseph appear pure only because his flesh has aged is like glorifying a mountain stream that has dried. The Church will not ordain a man to his priesthood who has not his vital powers. She wants men who have something to tame, rather than those who are tame because they have no energy to be wild. It should be no different with God.
….
Mary and Joseph needed no consummation in the flesh, for, in the beautiful language of Leo XIII: "The consummation of their love was in Jesus.”
….
Leaning over the manger crib of the Infant Jesus, then, are not age and youth, but youth and youth, the consecration of beauty in a maid and the surrender of strong comeliness in a man. If the Ancient of Days turned back eternity and became young again – if the condition of entering Heaven is to be reborn and to become young again, then, to all young married couples: here is your model, your prototype, your Divine Imaginal. From these two spouses, who loved as no couple on earth has ever loved, learn that it takes not two to love, but three: you and you and Jesus.
From Chapter 7 of “The World’s First Love” by Archbishop Fulton Sheen.
books.google.com/books?id=bfdNFS5MheYC&dq=World%E2%80%99s+First+Love+sheen&source=gbs_navlinks_s (chapter 7 starts at p. 88)
O Joseph, virgin-father of Jesus, most pure spouse of the Virgin Mary, pray every day for us to the same Jesus, the Son of God, that we, being defended by the power of His grace and striving dutifully in life, may be crowned by Him at the hour of death.
Indulgence of 100 days, twice a day. Pius X, Nov. 26, 1906.
Prayer to St. Joseph:
institute-christ-king.org/uploads/oakland/bulletins/3-8-09_Bulletin.pdf
take care!
amsjj
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Jesus, God and man,
imprisoned by love in Thy most holy Sacrament,
have mercy upon us.
- Blessed John Henry Newman, December 22, 1851
Tú y yo sabemos por la fe que oculto en las especies sacramentales está Cristo,
ese Cristo con su Cuerpo, con su Sangre, con su Alma, y con su Divinidad,
prisonero de amor.
- San Josemaría Escrivá, 1 junio 1974
… Our Lord Himself frequently said; and it is recorded as an
Apostolic tradition from Him by St. Justin the Martyr. He says
‘Jesus often said, “They who are near Me are near a fire”’.
- Abp. W. B. Ullathorne, August 1st 1886
