One of my great lights at Yale, the preeminent historical theologian Jaroslav Pelikan, in his Jesus Through the Centuries, wrote:

If a public opinion poll were to ask a representative group of informed and thoughtful people, “Which historical figure of the past two thousand years has most fully embodied the life and teaching of Jesus Christ?” the person mentioned most often would certainly be Francis of Assisi. That answer might, if anything, be even more frequent if the people polled were not affiliated with any church. And it is probably also the answer that many of his own contemporaries would have given to such a question — or at any rate, those who lived within a century or so after him. For in Francis of Assisi the imitation of the life of Jesus and the obedience to his teachings (which were, at least in principle, binding on every believer) attained such a level of fidelity as to earn for him the designation, eventually made official by Pope Pius XI, of “the second Christ [alter Christus].”

On 23rd February of the Christian kalendar, we commemorate Polycarp, one of my favorite saints. Polycarp was the elderly Bishop of Smyrna in the year of our Lord 155 when he was arrested by the Roman proconsul, brought on an ass to an arena, and told to renounce his faith in Jesus and pledge his fealty instead to Caesar. At the entrance to the arena, he was transferred from the ass to a chariot where two Roman soldiers who had no enthusiasm for seeing an old man die said to him, “What harm would it be for you to say Caesar Kurios? Just do it, old man, just renounce your allegiance to Jesus.” At first Polycarp did not answer them; but when they persisted, he said, “I’m not going to do that.”

They took him into the arena. And there the proconsul asked him, “Are you Polycarp?”

“Yes.”

“Will you deny this Jesus whom you call Lord?”

Polycarp didn’t reply.

“Think about your age, old man. Swear by the fortunes of Caesar and I will release you. Revile Christ!”

Polycarp said, “Eighty and six years have I served him and he never did me any wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”

The proconsul persisted. “I have wild beasts. I can burn you at the stake unless you repent.”

Polycarp said, “I am a Christian. What are you waiting for? Do whatever you wish to.”

They burned Polycarp at the stake.

I do not well remember what reply I made to her about this. However, it was scarcely five days later — certainly not much more — that she was prostrated by fever. While she was sick, she fainted one day and was for a short time quite unconscious. We hurried to her, and when she soon regained her senses, she looked at me and my brother as we stood by her, and said, in inquiry, “Where was I?” Then looking intently at us, dumb in our grief, she said, “Here in this place shall you bury your mother.” I was silent and held back my tears; but my brother said something, wishing her the happier lot of dying in her own country and not abroad. When she heard this, she fixed him with her eye and an anxious countenance, because he savored of such earthly concerns, and then gazing at me she said, “See how he speaks.” Soon after, she said to us both: “Lay this body anywhere, and do not let the care of it be a trouble to you at all. Only this I ask: that you will remember me at the Lord’s altar, wherever you are.” And when she had expressed her wish in such words as she could, she fell silent, in heavy pain with her increasing sickness.

But as I thought about thy gifts, O invisible God, which thou plantest in the heart of thy faithful ones, from which such marvelous fruits spring up, I rejoiced and gave thanks to thee, remembering what I had known of how she had always been much concerned about her burial place, which she had provided and prepared for herself by the body of her husband. For as they had lived very peacefully together, her desire had always been — so little is the human mind capable of grasping things divine — that this last should be added to all that happiness, and commented on by others: that, after her pilgrimage beyond the sea, it would be granted her that the two of them, so united on earth, should lie in the same grave.

When this vanity, through the bounty of thy goodness, had begun to be no longer in her heart, I do not know; but I joyfully marveled at what she had thus disclosed to me — though indeed in our conversation in the window, when she said, “What is there here for me to do any more?” she appeared not to desire to die in her own country. I heard later on that, during our stay in Ostia, she had been talking in maternal confidence to some of my friends about her contempt of this life and the blessing of death. When they were amazed at the courage which was given her, a woman, and had asked her whether she did not dread having her body buried so far from her own city, she replied: “Nothing is far from God. I do not fear that, at the end of time, he should not know the place whence he is to resurrect me.” And so on the ninth day of her sickness, in the fifty-sixth year of her life and the thirty-third of mine, that religious and devout soul was set loose from the body.

I closed her eyes; and there flowed in a great sadness on my heart and it was passing into tears, when at the strong behest of my mind my eyes sucked back the fountain dry, and sorrow was in me like a convulsion.

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Augustine, Confessions, Book IX, chapter xii. These are some of the best lines in any literature. Saint Monica is commemorated May 4th on the Church kalendar. The thought of dying away from home is unwelcome in any age, but this was especially the case in the cultures of the Ancient Near East. Monica reminds me of my father. When I asked him some years ago where he wanted to be buried, he said, “Son, you can tell the mortician when he lays me out to point my toes. You can get a maul and pound me in the ground wherever you want. The Lord will know where to find me.”

The strength of Joseph’s manly character was tested when he discovered that his betrothed was pregnant even though he had not yet “known her.” This was a situation that, to put it mildly, would have bruised anyone’s manly honor. As yet, the angel had not reassured Joseph that this was part of God’s plan. A lesser man, seeking only to defend his personal honor, might have demanded that Mary be stoned as an adulteress. Consider that “honor killings” still occur in the Middle East. Instead, the Gospel tells us that Joseph was “unwilling to expose her to shame” and that “he decided to divorce her quietly.” Putting aside his own bruised ego, Joseph acted charitably and without malice. He sought to handle the matter discreetly without further harm or humiliation to Mary.

Joseph’s restraint in this regard provides an important lesson in learning how to manage one’s impulsive rage and to control one’s temper. This is a particularly important lesson for those of us who were inclined in our youth to be “hot-blooded.” A spiritually mature man, like Joseph, is not governed by the tempests of wounded masculine pride. Patience and circumspection may lead us to discover that our initial judgment was wrong. This means standing back from the heat of the moment to listen to God, to our spouse, and to our children, just as Joseph listened to the angel and Mary, rather than succumbing to impulse and “snap judgments.”

Joseph further embodies Christian manliness in his role as protector of the Holy Family. Tradition refers to him as custos Domini (guardian of the Lord). One can point to Joseph as the greatest advocate of adoption, which is often ridiculed today and asserted to be a cause of dysfunctional families. Joseph testifies to the nobility of a self-giving love that transcends blood and genetics.

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Joseph Fornieri in Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity. Joseph exists for us all as the very icon of the faithful servant of God. No celebrity. No klieg lights. The Most High asked Joseph to do something for him, to protect Mary, to be the guardian father of Jesus. Joseph found the grace to do it. He became a source of joy to the Blessed Mother, to their son, and to the Most High himself.