When the Son of God became incarnate, he placed himself under the anthropological (human) requirements of needing a human father to love, feed, educate, shelter, cloth, and protect him. Jesus, the Incarnate Word, is not a pure spiritual being. He is the God-Man. He has a divine nature and a human nature.
In his human nature, Jesus had physical, emotional, and psychological needs. God the Father doesn't have a body, emotions, or passions because he never became incarnate like his Son. The Heavenly Father can't physically touch, walk with, or embrace his Incarnate Son. Therefore, God the Father entrusts his Son to the watchful, loving care of a human father. St. Joseph stands in the place of the Heavenly Father. He has been entrusted with taking care of the human nature, growth, and development of Jesus. Through the fatherhood of Saint Joseph, Jesus grew into the fullness of his manhood.
The growth of Jesus “in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man” (Lk 2:52) took place within the Holy Family under the eyes of Joseph, who had the important task of “raising” Jesus, that is, feeding, clothing, and educating him in the Law and in a trade, in keeping with the duties of a father.
Saint John Paul II
The divine nature of Jesus did not need anything from Saint Joseph, but the human nature of Jesus did require the fatherhood of St. Joseph. When the Son of God humbled himself and took on human nature, he placed himself under the laws of human growth and development. In order to grow into the fullness of his manhood, Jesus required a mother, a father, and time. All children require this.
Venerable Fulton Sheen provides an interesting statistic related to this topic. He states:
Let those who think that the Church pays too much attention to Mary give heed to the fact that Our Blessed Lord himself gave ten times as much of his life to her as he gave to his apostles.
In other words, the apostles spent three years with Jesus, but Mary spent more than 30 years with him! Why is this important? It is important because the human nature of Jesus needed to learn certain things from the maternal love and example of his mother. Our Savior is not a robot or an angel. In his human nature, he needed a mother to teach him about human life. But his mother was not the only one who taught him. As important as a mother is in the human development of a child, there is only so much a mother can teach a child, especially a boy.
Jesus is a male. As a male, he needed a father to teach him what it is to be a man. Jesus needed the fatherhood of Saint Joseph as a model of masculinity for him to imitate. Only a father can do this for a son. How did Jesus learn to sacrifice as a man? He witnessed the daily example of his father. Where did Jesus learn to work as a man? He learned it in his father's carpentry shop. How did Jesus learn to pray and acquire the manners of a gentleman? Jesus learned all these things from his father, St. Joseph.
According to the divine plan, an earthly, human father was absolutely necessary in the life of Jesus. You've no doubt heard the adage, “Like father, like son. Well, it's true. In his preaching, Jesus himself spoke of the exemplary power of a good father. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says: “Amen, amen, I say to you, a son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees his father doing; for what he does, his son will do also” (Jn 5:19). Our Lord spoke these words in reference to his Heavenly Father, but they also apply to those aspects of Jesus’ human nature that would be a strengthened by the example of St. Joseph.
Joseph fulfilled every aspect of his paternal role. He must certainly have taught Jesus to pray, together with Mary. In particular Joseph himself must have taken Jesus to the synagogue for the rites of the Sabbath, as well as to Jerusalem for the great feasts of the people of Israel. Joseph, in accordance with the Jewish tradition, would have led the prayers at home both every day -in the morning, in the evening, at meals- and on the principal religious feasts. In the rhythm of the days he spent at Nazareth, in the simple home and in Joseph's workshop, Jesus learned to alternate prayer and work, as well as to offer God his labor in earning the bread the family needed.
Pope Benedict XVI
Jesus spent decades learning the virtues of manhood from his father. Jesus wanted to be like his father, St. Joseph. Jesus thinks so highly of his earthly father that he wants you to be a child of Saint Joseph, too. Jesus wants you to resemble Saint Joseph.
But why do we need the fatherhood of Saint Joseph if we already have a biological father who shares our nature and is supposed to take care of us? Allow me to provide the answer by asking you several other questions:
Is your biological father the Spouse of the Mother of God and father of Jesus Christ?
Does your biological father have the superlative of every virtue?
Is your biological father the Head of the Holy Family, the Patron of the Universal Church, and the terror of demons?
Jesus wants you to have the spiritual fatherhood of Saint Joseph because there is no man more capable of modeling true fatherhood for you than St. Joseph. His loving spiritual fatherhood has the power to draw you extremely close to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, increase your virtue, protect you from Satan, and help you reach heaven.
Now, having stated that, I need to also make clear that the spiritual fatherhood of Saint Joseph is not intended to take the place of the paternity of your biological father any more than the spiritual motherhood of Mary is meant to take the place of your biological mother. The spiritual parentage of St. Joseph and Mary is meant to supplement the witness and love of your earthly parents, helping you grow in the spiritual life, especially in virtue and holiness.
Hopefully, your biological parents have done their best at loving, educating, feeding, sheltering, clothing, protecting, and correcting you. If your parents have been virtuous and saintly, you should consider yourself extremely blessed. Today, sadly, many people have not had this experience. We live in a fallen world, and the majority of people have seen and experienced the flaws and imperfections of their parents. However, with Saint Joseph and Mary as your spiritual parents, you are blessed with perfect parents and perfect models.
We are undoubtedly children of Mary, and this is our glory and our consolation. But we are also adopted children of Saint Joseph and this is no small reason for the confidence that we have in him.
Blessed William Joseph Chaminade
Jesus wants you to accept Saint Joseph as your spiritual father. This is true whether you have had a saintly or a sinful biological father. Saint Joseph is the greatest, most loving, and holiest of all fathers. He is the father of Christians and the perfect model of paternal love.
He (St. Joseph) is the father of Christians, since he is the depository of the seed of grace which begot Christians. Now if Saint Joseph is our father, let us imitate his deeds.
Blessed William Joseph Chaminade
If the spiritual fatherhood of Saint Joseph is so important, why didn't Jesus make us aware of Saint Joseph spiritual fatherhood 2,000 years ago? The simple answer is because it would have led to confusion. When Jesus spoke of the Father to his disciples, it would have been very confusing to them if he also spoke about the spiritual fatherhood of Saint Joseph. This is most likely the reason why Jesus did not initiate his public ministry until after the death of Saint Joseph.
Jesus wants his disciples to know about the virtues, wonders, and a spiritual fatherhood of Saint Joseph, but for the sake of his mission, he had to leave the revealing of this mystery to the Holy Spirit and the Church.
That Jesus did not speak to his disciples about Saint Joseph should in no way indicate to us that Jesus thought little of his father. On the contrary, the silence of Jesus regarding sin Joseph reveals the extreme holiness of Saint Joseph. Jesus understood St. Joseph so well that he knew that his father would be more than willing to step aside so that Jesus could give priority to doing the Heavenly Father's will.
For love of Jesus, Saint Joseph was more than willing to step out of the picture and appear to be of no importance. Saint Joseph desires only one thing: that Jesus accomplish the mission that he was sent to do by his Heavenly Father. It doesn't matter to Saint Joseph if he is not center stage. Jesus loves these about Saint Joseph. The humility of Saint Joseph is a witness to this greatness!
Today, however, the time has come when, for the good of mankind, the Holy Spirit desires to fully reveal the virtues, wonders, and spiritual fatherhood of Saint Joseph to the nations. This great mystery has been reserved for a time when the Church and the world would need it most.
Now is the time of Saint Joseph!
In our day, Jesus wants the Church to know, love, honor, and seek refuge in the spiritual fatherhood of Saint Joseph. There has never been a time in history when God's people have needed Saint Joseph more. Why? Simply put, the majority of men no longer know or understand what it means to be a gentleman, let alone what it means to be a good father. Children have grown up with poor examples of fatherhood, if they have grown up with a father at all.
Contraception, pornography, abortion, gender confusion, moral depravity, empty churches, morally corrupt clergy, and cultural chaos are only a few of the fruits of a society that lacks real men and fathers. Jesus wants to draw our attention to the spiritual fatherhood of Saint Joseph in order to right these wrongs and bring order back to the Church and the world.
What, then, should we expect from the spiritual fatherhood of Saint Joseph? What will he do for us? Saint Joseph loves us and so will joyfully do the exact same things that a biological father does for his children, only on a spiritual level. He will spiritually feed, shelter, cloth, educate, protect, and correct us. This is his role as father.
With the exception of correction, Saint Joseph did all these things for Jesus, our brother. Of course, Saint Joseph also provided for all Jesus’ physical needs for many years.
If Joseph was so engaged, heart and soul, in protecting and providing for that little family of Nazareth, don't you think that now in heaven he is the same loving father and guardian of the whole Church, of all its members, as he was of its Head on earth?
Venerable Pope Pius XII