Welcome to Saint Joseph’s
406 Park Street
Metaline Falls, Washington 99153
Telephone (509) 446-2651

Mass Celebrated the 1st, 3rd, and 5th Sundays of each month at 8:00AM (usually)

He was just a man!

Saint Joseph, the husband of Mary the mother of Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth, bore the responsibilities of a father perfectly. Saint Matthew’s Gospel describes him as a just man, but Saint Joseph must have been more than just a man. He had visions from angels of God telling him, “Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto the Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, rising from his sleep, did as the angels of the Lord had commanded him, and took unto him his wife.”

Saint Joseph was with Mary in the stable at Bethlehem when Jesus was born, and he protected them both when the shepherds and the Magi came to worship the Savior of the World. He also learned from an angel that King Herod planned to kill the infant Jesus. Saint Joseph took Mary and Jesus to Egypt, thus saving the life of the Savior of the World, and so Joseph continued to hide Jesus from all those who would cause him harm.

The Holy Family traveled to Jerusalem to present Jesus to God in the Temple there, and, like any parent would, Joseph shared Mary’s anxieties when Jesus was presumed lost. Saint Joseph’s steadfastness as a guardian and husband made him the perfect patron for fathers and families. Joseph was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of His greatest treasures, namely His divine Son and Mary. He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying, “Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.”

The wonderful veneration of Saint Joseph, as the foster-father of Jesus, fired the imagination of the medieval church. Saint John Chrysostome pointed to the anxieties of Joseph as a pattern of the trials of all Christians, and in the fifteenth century, the French churchman Jean Garson wrote twelve poems in his honor. Saint Teresa of Avila chose him as the “practical saint” who should bet he patron of her friars and nuns, and finally, in 1870, Pope Pius IX declared Saint Joseph the Patron of the Universal Church.

He was more than just a man!