On the occasion of the declaration of St. Joseph as patron saint of the universal Church, the 150th anniversary promoted by Pope Francis invites a reflection on the Josephine lyric closest in time; to mark some dates, that of the last decades.
First literary references
Going back in history, except on very rare occasions, leads us to discover that he has not yet had his poetic moment, except if we consider him in terms of the role he played in the shadow of Mary and Jesus. The most remote and scarce literary references we know about him are found in Gonzalo de Berceo (xiii century), who puts in Mary's mouth her link to Joseph: "Io so donna Maria de Josep esposa" (Mourning that the Virgin Mary did on the day of the passion of her fixed Jesus Christ).
After the poet from La Rioja, there are allusions of the same kind, although with very different nuances, in Alfonso X the Wise, in the theater of Gómez Manrique, in that of Juan del Enzina and in that of Lucas Fernández and, no doubt, in a few other authors, preferably in 17th century playwrights (Mira de Amescua or Cristóbal de Monroy, to cite two renowned literary figures).
It would be the clergyman José de Valdivieso (1560-1638), a close friend of Lope de Vega, who would give him a particular prominence in the admirable and colossal poem Life, excellence and death of the most glorious Patriarch St. Joseph, spouse of Our Lady.A text composed in royal octaves, theologically very illuminating that, with the support of the little that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke draw about him, what the Apocrypha announce and what a group of authors that precede him (to mention a few) contribute: Bernardino de Laredo or Jerónimo Gracián, the latter so closely linked to the biography of Saint Teresa of Jesus), manages to create the portrait of the Patriarch that, from the Golden Age onwards, has been generated in abundant painting and sculpture, conceiving him as a just man, chaste, protector of his family, advanced in years, a carpenter by profession, so that Jesus would finally end his days on the tree of the cross, and of early death.
At the same time, along with these particular physical features and his work activity, Valdivieso sets his character in a series of events around which his life trajectory unfolds: (1) his betrothal to Mary; (2) the visit she pays to her cousin Elizabeth, accompanied by him on the outward journey; (3) his inner sufferings after realizing that his wife is pregnant; (4) the revelation of the mystery of the Incarnation by the angel of the Lord; (5) the expectation of childbirth; (6) the birth of Jesus in a Bethlehem portal; (7) the various migrations, with the consequent episodes widely spread in popular literature: the adoration of the magi, the slaughter of the innocents, the flight into Egypt, etc.His death and glorification, and, (9) finally, his excellencies and appellations.
Popular tradition
From all this vital journey, the popular tradition has kept alive those eventualities related practically to the celebratory and folkloric events of Christmas without, as in Valdivieso's text, the facts are presented from the point of view of St. Joseph nor do they reach other moments of his existence.
Anthologies as celebrated as the Spanish Christmas Songbook (1412-1942)from 1942, or other more current ones, to cite a sample, such as In the Sun of the Night. Eight poets of today sing of ChristmasThe poem "José", published in 2000, does not highlight the figure of such an illustrious man. It is necessary to search profusely in contemporary cultured poetry to find texts and there are very few in which José turns out to be the main character of the poem. Neither in the rich religious lyric of the Spanish poets of the 40's of the last century, nor later, with some exceptions, is he a motive of particular attention.
Episodes
When it appears, as a precious and surprising jewel in poetry, we see it most of the time linked to his lacerating doubts, always with a happy ending, in the face of the unexpected pregnancy of the Virgin. This is the case of the poem Soliloquies of St. Josephby José María Valverde, presented in hendecasyllabic arrangement, and which bursts forth: "Why did it have to be me? Like a torrent / of broken sky, God was falling / on me: hard, enormous glory making me / my world alien and cruel: my betrothed / white and silent, suddenly dark, / turns towards its secret, until the Angel, / in snowy nightmare of lightning, / came to announce it to me: the great destiny / that so beautiful it would be to have looked / to come on the other side of the village; / the summit of the times, lit / with sun from the other side, and by my doors".. A relatively extensive text, which advances with three predominant ideas. The first: Joseph's joy at having been undeservedly chosen by God as the custodian of Jesus and Mary; the second: his complete willingness to take charge of such crucial characters in the history of salvation as those who have been given to him; and third, his full conviction that his life would end, as it did, developing in an ordinary way, without any great upheavals, attentive to his family and his daily work.
Other times he is set in the enclave of his work, among whose most successful compositions of these last decades we can highlight the one titled Poem for a craftsman named José, by José María Fernández Nieto from Palencia, who, in a set of contemplative quatrains, exalts the virtues of Mary and Joseph in the home of Nazareth, while extolling the value of the manual work of the head of the family: "...".Oh, trembling carpenter's hand / that in drops of sweat and joy, under the love of his carpentry / versified in prayers the wood", stanza thematically rooted in a theology of work that Fernández Nieto extends, in the form of a prayer, with three more stanzas: "You, who held God between your hands / and offered them to him with calloused hands, / offer him the sweat of our lives / to earn the bread of being Christians. / Joseph, laborer of goodness, worker / of God, populate the workshops with joy / and order the world as you wish it, / as an offering to the first Love. / [...] Because since you, Joseph, master / of love, made psalms of your muscles, / work is an offering of twilight, / Hail Mary, Hail Hail and Our Father".
In other contemporary literary texts, on the other hand, he is placed in the scene told by the evangelist Luke of the loss and finding of Jesus in the temple of Jerusalem, of which the poet Manuel Ballesteros expresses, in an untitled poem written in white hendecasyllables, the deep concern of Joseph, guardian of his Son, after his inexplicable neglect: "José is silent. He has taken upon himself / all the blame. He, the father and custodian of the child, [...] / has suffered three days for the / inexplicable loss of Jesus. Perhaps / I have let my guard down and forgotten / that here in Jerusalem the threats / still lurk."
Incentive
Surprisingly, there are no other episodes in his life itinerary that have awakened the interest of today's poets. If only the one referring to one of his titles, in which he is acclaimed as "patron saint of the good death", in reference to these times of pandemic, and which serves the poet Daniel Cotta to ask him to intercede for the souls of so many who die: "Cradling your Good / so that it does not wake up, / you have left behind the death / that is ravaging Bethlehem. / Today that death also / devours the present time, / pray you to the Omnipotent / that, in the midst of the rapine, / carries to heaven the child soul / of so many Holy Innocents".
And having arrived at this point, it is worth asking, what could have happened so that St. Joseph, of such solvency among the people, and who is considered the patron saint of workers or custodian of the Redeemer, has not burst into lyric poetry with the same enthusiasm as in other artistic manifestations? In modern churches he is seen occupying niches with Jesus in his arms or guarding him by the hand; in paintings, he is found young in open contrast with the image traditionally brought, next to Jesus or in the warmth of his family.
In poetry, however, the same does not happen, as if poetic creation were detached from its historical context. As Joseph was a married saint, with an autonomous, popular work, it is possible that his figure has not yet reached that level of enthusiasm and inspiration that drives poets and especially "lay" poets to create praiseworthy works in his honor.
Apostolic letters like this one, Patris corde, from Pope Francis, may well serve as an incentive to give vividness to this man whose greatness of soul deserves verses like the one that prompted the poet Miguel d'Ors to write the text entitled Sonsoneto confidencial (Confidential Sonsonnet): "[...] because I am the heir / of that confidence with which my father / treated him, or because I have for clear and true / that in the History of the World I will not give / with anyone who can be assured that / had with the family so much luck, or because / no one has died better accompanied, but, / as I do not seek vows but sincere singing, / with this sonsonnet I reiterate: my favorite saint, St. Joseph".
