I prepared during the last 100 days before my ordination in 2020 by consecrating myself to God through the Holy Family, the three patrons of the Congregation of Holy Cross given to us by Blessed Basil Moreau. A “consecration” to God through a saint typically involves a period of preparation by studying the life of the saint and asking for his or her intercession that you might be drawn closer to the Lord. At the end of the preparation, you make a formal “consecration” prayer to renew your faith in God, strengthened by the example and prayers of the saint in heaven.
During my time of preparation, I spent the first 33 days with a consecration to God through the immaculate heart of Mary, the second 33 days with a consecration to God through the heart of St. Joseph, and the final 33 days to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. On the final day, which was the morning of my priestly ordination, I prayed the formal consecration to God through the Holy Family to ask for the grace to remain in their tender love and proclaim that same love throughout the rest of my life as a priest in Holy Cross.
Despite all that preparation, I did not feel a close connection with St. Joseph. There is so little explicitly written about him in Scripture, and so I found it hard to be moved by my own imagination of what St. Joseph might have been like, even after reading through a book on St. Joseph by Fr. Donald Calloway, MIC.
This all changed in 2023 when I arrived in Santiago, Chile, where I have been working as a “formator,” which is a person in charge of forming the new brothers and seminarians preparing themselves for life in Holy Cross. The arrival here proved incredibly challenging. Not only did I feel out of place in a culture and a language not my own, but I also had to learn to do the truly challenging work of formation, which is not as easy as it sounds! This was made even more daunting by the fact that we have religious from so many different countries in our house—Peru, Mexico, Haiti, United States, Chile, and now also Colombia and Uganda. I felt ill-equipped and, quite frankly, a bit alone amid so much transition and newness. I asked myself and God, “How am I, a priest for just a handful of years, worthy to form priests and brothers for the Church? What am I to do to accomplish such a formidable task?”
During those challenging first months of life here in Chile, I suddenly began to feel an intense draw to St. Joseph. Not knowing where this would take me, I decided to reconsecrate myself to God through St. Joseph by using Fr. Calloway’s book translated into Spanish. During those 33 days, I came to this realization: like me, St. Joseph was a formator! He, together with his beloved spouse, Mary, was in charge of the formation of Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Universe. What an overwhelming task!
Jesus was still an infant when Herod sent his soldiers to find and murder Him. In the dark of night, St. Joseph valiantly took the Virgin Mary and Jesus and fled into exile into the foreign land of Egypt. There, St. Joseph began the hard task of forming his beloved Son in a land not his own. I found myself in the situation of St. Joseph. I, too, had left my home country and entered a foreign land with the call to form sons of the Heavenly Father.
Yet, how did St. Joseph form Jesus there in that foreign land and then in his home in Nazareth? It does not seem like he did many extraordinary things. We have no record of him training Jesus how to work miracles or how to proclaim the Good News in front of crowds of thousands or how to rise from the dead. We just know that he simply embraced Jesus, taking Him and His Mother into the intimate space of his home, and caring for the child Jesus day in and day out. That seems to be it: St. Joseph quietly passed his days with the child Jesus, letting Him learn not so much by his words but by his simple, humble example. Yet, what great good that did!
By living in the “house of formation” of St. Joseph, the child Jesus learned the virtues of his adoptive father. For that reason, Jesus was “meek and humble of heart” like St. Joseph (Matthew 11:29). He would have learned how to pray from the example of St. Joseph, how to worship in the Temple, how to speak the truth in love, how to work and sacrifice oneself for the good of the family, and how to remain faithful in the worst of times and the best of times. Yet, St. Joseph required no complicated preparation. He simply lived his life humbly and faithfully together with Jesus and the Virgin Mary. God’s grace did the rest.
No doubt, St. Joseph’s life with Jesus formed him as well. Living with the Lord of the Universe in his own home, adoring Him in that intimate space, would have radically sanctified St. Joseph. It is no wonder that the world has begun to recognize just how great a saint he is.
I also realized in those days that St. Joseph had already become a good spiritual father for me, like he was for Jesus. He remained quiet and in the background, walking with me as an adoptive father in a foreign land, protecting me all the while. In those days of reconsecration, I finally recognized his presence in my life and heard his gentle voice inviting me to be a father and a formator after his own heart: to try to walk meekly and humbly with our men in formation here, trusting that God’s providence will slowly transform them and me by living in communion in the same home. I do not need to work miracles or know all the right words to speak. I only need to live faithfully to my vowed life in Holy Cross while striving to care for those entrusted to me, letting them be formed first and foremost by God’s grace through the life we share together.
I invite you, too, to draw closer to the adoptive father of Jesus, especially if you feel lost or alone, if you feel like you lack direction in life, if you feel like you need to grow in virtue, or if you need a good father to help you discern the will of God for you and to encourage you firmly to fulfill that will. Fr. Calloway’s book might be a good place to start! St. Joseph is there quietly waiting for you as a good father, as he already recognizes his Son present in you from the day of your baptism.
Fr. Zach Rathke, C.S.C.
Published on July 2, 2025
