Marriage between Mary and Joseph

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ConstantineTG said:
Joseph and Mary were not married under any Catholic Church canon. What we see as valid or invalid in our eyes today does not apply to them. They’re not even Catholic, they were Jewish.
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I was not speaking of Mary and Joseph. Nor would their marriage have been invalid by the standards of today as far as we know.
 
ConstantineTG said:
There is no evidence that Joseph was a virgin. Tradition says that he is a widower and had 6 children by the first wife. They are the brothers and sisters of Jesus referred to in the bible.
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What???:confused:
Which Joseph are you speaking about?

Where is it written the Saint Joseph the Blessed Virgin Mary’s husband was married previous to meeting Mary.

I always understood (“both”) remained chaste their entire life.

I’ve heard of very old writings that Saint Joachim and Saint Anne the Blessed Virgin Mary’s parents were also (“both”) virgins. So much so that even some legend writings say even the Blessed Virgin herself was conceived miraculously at birth.

Like Jesus the Son of God, Mary’s son. Mary too was born without the original stain of sin on her soul. Thus she is called the Immaculate Conception.
 
centurionguard said:
What???:confused:
Which Joseph are you speaking about?

Where is it written the Saint Joseph the Blessed Virgin Mary’s husband was married previous to meeting Mary.

I always understood (“both”) remained chaste their entire life.
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Go back and reread the thread. This has already been addressed.
 
girl4truestyle said:
Although there is no historical evidence of Joseph’s age, why choose to view him as a old man married to a 16 year old. Albeit protecting/guardian image, but wouldn’t God choose a man pure and chaste through will-power/virtue rather and aged man with a decreased sex-drive, who is the foster-father of Jesus. This is the Holy Family we are talking about here, not another blessed couple in the bible.
Yes, you are right that chastity is different from virginity, in a marriage. I apologize for that statement was an afterthought. I do believe Joseph was so Just and pure that he indeed was a virgin. I believe that the Holy Family was a threesome other families wanted to be around and emulate because of their humility, beauty, and love for God.
I see that you are a nonpracticing Catholic. If you are looking for the right answer, there is none. This topic is subjective in the Catholic Church because it is a small (t) tradition. This makes sense to me and I know others share my view.
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We do not know the mind of God. We cannot presume why God would go for an older man than a younger one. And thus we cannot assign our own understanding of the situation and make it appear as it is God’s understanding of the situation. For me, I follow what is in the tradition that is believed by Christians since the second century. If God chose and older man, why would I question it? The obvious answer is God knows more than we can hope to know. Why do we even try to make sense of it?
 
centurionguard said:
What???:confused:
Which Joseph are you speaking about?

Where is it written the Saint Joseph the Blessed Virgin Mary’s husband was married previous to meeting Mary.

I always understood (“both”) remained chaste their entire life.
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Again, chastity and virginity are two different things. They are related, but not the same thing. A chaste person before marriage should always be a virgin. A married man and woman can have as much sex as they want within their marriage and lose their virginity, but continue to be chaste.
centurionguard said:
I’ve heard of very old writings that Saint Joachim and Saint Anne the Blessed Virgin Mary’s parents were also (“both”) virgins. So much so that even some legend writings say even the Blessed Virgin herself was conceived miraculously at birth.
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Like Jesus the Son of God, Mary’s son. Mary too was born without the original stain of sin on her soul. Thus she is called the Immaculate Conception.

That has nothing to do with how a person is physically conceived though. Original Sin is a mark on the soul, not the body.
 
girl4truestyle said:
The only statement linking that argument is “Brethren of the Lord,” which is also proven to be “cousins” or other family members of Christ.
If Joseph was not a virgin it would change the entire idea of the Holy Family completely. St. Joseph gave himself to Mary through their spiritual union. Why would God give Mary a husband had already given himself to another woman. Why couldn’t he have been a young, attractive man full of passion and fire? If we think of Joseph as an old, widowed man there is a definite downplaying of what our beautiful Lord can do.
Why do you think we say in the Divine Praisies …Blessed be Saint Joseph her Most Chaste Spouse…?
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maybe you should learn what chaste means. 😃 One can be chaste and NOT a virgin.😛
 
I have still yet to see anybody show scriptural proof that Saint Joseph was a widower and had six children to some claimed previous marriage before he met Mary.

This is new to me.
 
centurionguard said:
I have still yet to see anybody show scriptural proof that Saint Joseph was a widower and had six children to some claimed previous marriage before he met Mary.
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There is no scriptural proof. It is an old tradition. You don’t have to believe it.

One piece of circumstantial evidence to support the suggestion that he was much older than Mary is the fact that he is not mentioned at all in the gospels after the finding of the child Jesus in the temple. It is often assumed that this is because he had already died.

It is common in religious art to portray St. Joseph as an older man:

http://www.faithandfamilylive.com/images/dailyBlog/blog/cache/St.Joseph-300x418.jpg

http://www.faithandfamilylive.com/images/dailyBlog/blog/cache/st_joseph_worker-300x393.gif

http://www.faithandfamilylive.com/images/dailyBlog/blog/cache/joseph1-300x361.jpg
 
Will_S said:
There is no scriptural proof. It is an old tradition. You don’t have to believe it.

One piece of circumstantial evidence to support the suggestion that he was much older than Mary is the fact that he is not mentioned at all in the gospels after the finding of the child Jesus in the temple. It is often assumed that this is because he had already died.

It is common in religious art to portray St. Joseph as an older man:

http://www.faithandfamilylive.com/images/dailyBlog/blog/cache/St.Joseph-300x418.jpg

http://www.faithandfamilylive.com/images/dailyBlog/blog/cache/st_joseph_worker-300x393.gif

http://www.faithandfamilylive.com/images/dailyBlog/blog/cache/joseph1-300x361.jpg
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OK after a little research I did find some information.
newadvent.org/cathen/08504a.htm
**It will not be without interest to recall here, unreliable though they are, the lengthy stories concerning St. Joseph’s marriage contained in the apocryphal writings. When forty years of age, Joseph married a woman called Melcha or Escha by some, Salome by others; they lived forty-nine years together and had six children, two daughters and four sons, the youngest of whom was James (the Less, “the Lord’s brother”). A year after his wife’s death, as the priests announced through Judea that they wished to find in the tribe of Juda a respectable man to espouse Mary, then twelve to fourteen years of age. Joseph, who was at the time ninety years old, went up to Jerusalem among the candidates; a miracle manifested the choice God had made of Joseph, and two years later the Annunciation took place. These dreams, as St. Jerome styles them, from which many a Christian artist has drawn his inspiration (see, for instance, Raphael’s “Espousals of the Virgin”), are void of authority; they nevertheless acquired in the course of ages some popularity; in them some ecclesiastical writers sought the answer to the well-known difficulty arising from the mention in the Gospel of “the Lord’s brothers”; from them also popular credulity has, contrary to all probability, as well as to the tradition witnessed by old works of art, retained the belief that St. Joseph was an old man at the time of marriage with the Mother of God. **
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I read somewhere (can’t remember where) that the idea that St. Joseph was a young man started with St. Teresa of Avila, and the whole devotion of the Holy Family.
 
Will_S said:
That he was ninety years old at the time does seem quite improbable. Forty or Fifty years old, however, seems entirely possible.
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I would tend to agree with you. But as to the narrative in the web-link I suggested newadvent.org/cathen/08504a.htm

Aside from the actual espousal and narrative of Joseph being married to Mary, the history of Joseph being previously married is at best spotty and unreliable.

I’m sure within the inspired wisdom of Catholic biblical historians, they had reason to spiritually omit some of the narrative from the apocryphal writings concerning (“plausibility”) of Joseph’s previous marriage.

In reality it does nothing to bring importance to Joseph’s espoused role with Mary and her miraculous Birth and specifically that of the Christ-Child.
 
ConstantineTG said:
We do not know the mind of God. We cannot presume why God would go for an older man than a younger one. And thus we cannot assign our own understanding of the situation and make it appear as it is God’s understanding of the situation. For me, I follow what is in the tradition that is believed by Christians since the second century. If God chose and older man, why would I question it? The obvious answer is God knows more than we can hope to know. Why do we even try to make sense of it?
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Do you know where the 2nd century Christians came by their information? Wasn’t it through art because they couldn’t read and that is how they passed down stories and information. And couldn’t that have been the artist license to have portrayed Joseph as aged because it was a better protector of Mary’s Virginity; as well as the fact that Joseph is not in the later chapters of the bible, therefore we presume that he was died of old age and there is no real evidence.
As for the virginity… (I can’t remember my source) I believe there was a Saint that Mary appeared to and she had spoken of Joseph being “Just” which in turn took to be a virgin.
I will have to find that Saint and source for you.
 
ciero said:
I read somewhere (can’t remember where) that the idea that St. Joseph was a young man started with St. Teresa of Avila, and the whole devotion of the Holy Family.
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Can you find your source? I would like to know.
 
girl4truestyle said:
Do you know where the 2nd century Christians came by their information? Wasn’t it through art because they couldn’t read and that is how they passed down stories and information.
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Second century Roman culture was highly literate especially in the Mediterreanean if less so in the far-flung provinces.

I don’t know where you got the idea it wasn’t.
 
1ke said:
Second century Roman culture was highly literate especially in the Mediterreanean if less so in the far-flung provinces.

I don’t know where you got the idea it wasn’t.
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I was under the impression it was just the elders and those who were closest to Jesus who were the educated individuals.
 
Well I must bow out of this thread, for it seems that my original question has been answered and I am now way off topic. Thank you to those who answered me, but I do not have enough knowledge on the topics I am defending.
Enjoy the rest of the conversations.
 
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