Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary and foster-father of Jesus Christ, St. Joseph faithfully and humbly carried out the difficult and glorious mission entrusted to him by God and thus became the model of domestic virtues and humble daily toil, the guardian of chaste souls and the protector of Christian homes. Veneration of St. Joseph is of relatively recent introduction in the Church’s liturgy. The feast, observed locally on various dates, was fixed during the fifteenth century on March 19 and added to the general calendar of the Church in 1621 by Gregory XV. Pius IX named him patron of the universal Church.