19 March is the feast of St Joseph the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus. He has been honoured in the Church for many centuries as a good husband and father. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph was a carpenter and “a son of David”. The Gospels give us a picture of Joseph as a person, like Mary, of great sensitivity to the word of God. He hears and does the word. He is a provider for his family and an example to the young Jesus.

Joseph found happiness not in mere self-sacrifice but in self-gift.
In him, we never see frustration but only trust.
His patient silence was the prelude to concrete expressions of trust.

Our world today needs fathers.
It has no use for tyrants who would dominate others
as a means of compensating for their own needs.

It rejects those who confuse authority with authoritarianism,
service with servility,
discussion with oppression,
charity with a welfare mentality,
power with destruction.

Every true vocation is born of the gift of oneself,
which is the fruit of mature sacrifice.

Whatever our vocation,
Whether to marriage, celibacy or virginity,
our gift of self will not come to fulfilment if it stops at sacrifice;
were that the case, instead of becoming a sign of the beauty and joy of love,
the gift of self would risk being an expression of unhappiness, sadness and frustration.

—Pope Francis, With a Father’s Heart