St. Joseph likely raised body and soul
3 min • Digitized on July 27, 2021
From St. Joseph’s Life, Virtues, Privileges, Power, page 155
By Very Rev. Archdeacon Kinane, P.P.
At the death of Our Blessed Lord, we know from the Gospel that many of the Saints arose from their graves, and appeared in the streets of Jerusalem. St. Matthew says: “And the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top even to the bottom, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were rent: And the graves were opened, and the bodies of the saints that had slept arose. And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection came into the holy city and appeared to many” (Matt, xxvii. 51).
That the bodies of these Saints never again returned to their former dust, but ascended to heaven with their Redeemer, is held by St. Thomas and other great authorities. The Angelic Doctor writes: “It may be asked what became of those who rose with our Lord? For we must believe that they returned to life to be witnesses of Christ’s Resurrection. Some think they died again, relapsing into their former dust, like Lazarus and others, whom Our Lord raised up. But these authorities are unworthy of credit; for it would be a greater torture for these Saints to die a second time, than not to have been raised to life. We must then believe, that the Saints, who rose with Jesus, ascended with Him to heaven” (Matt, xxvii.)
That St. Joseph arose from the dead with the “bodies of the Saints,” and ascended to heaven with Our Blessed Lord, is a pious and well-grounded belief. St. Bernardine of Sienna says: “We cannot affirm as certain, but we may piously believe, that Jesus Christ the Son of God, conceded to His foster father the same privilege as to His Mother, that from the day of His glorious Resurrection, St. Joseph might be body and soul with Christ, as His holy spouse, the Blessed Virgin, was ere long to be; and also that the Holy Family, composed of Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and St. Joseph, who lived in the same toils and same union of charity on earth, might live body and soul in glory in heaven.”
The above opinion is confirmed from the fact that no relic of the body of St. Joseph has ever been found in any part of the world. It is easy to believe, that Divine Providence would not have hidden from the veneration of the faithful, so precious a treasure as the relics of St Joseph, did they exist.
In heaven then, as in the Holy House at Nazareth, is the Holy Family, with their glorified bodies, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.