Virginal Father

 In his chapter on “Joseph’s Fatherhood,” Fr. Gasnier quotes Bossuet, who adapted a maxim from St. John Chrysostom: “God gave Joseph all that belongs to a father without loss of virginity.” He refers to a Congress held at the Oratory of St. Joseph in Montreal, Canada, August 1-9, 1955, which enthusiastically adopted the expression “virginal father” to refer to St. Joseph.  Indeed, such is the invocation at the start of a popular Prayer of Consecration to St. Joseph: “O Glorious Patriarch and Patron of the Church! O Virgin Spouse of the Virgin Mother of God! O Guardian and Virginal Father of the Word Incarnate!”

Fr. Gasnier maintains that “virginal father” is the better expression.  “It is not easy to qualify Joseph’s paternity with precision,” he writes, “because it represents, if one may so express it, a paternity utterly unique in history; something so special, so original as to demand a new vocabulary capable of attributing a proper title to its function.”

This is fascinating. Read it all. 

I am especially intrigued because I always found Montfort's prayer to Joseph a little wanting. Of course, his focus was elsewhere.