Considering Cards - 4. The Problem of Joseph

Two cards that illustrate the Problem of Joseph.

 

Joseph is portrayed as a very good man in the Biblical narrative.  Certainly a step or three ahead of most of the Apostles as things are recorded.  Then he disappears.  For all the attractive whimsy of Jesus working as a twenty-something alongside his father (as it were) in the carpenter's workshop we do not know to what extent this was true.  We do not need to know.

 

Christmas plunges the somewhat obscure good man Joseph next to the world-changing good Man who was God, Jesus.  And, thanks to the unfortunate development of Marian devotion in the ancient Church, taken up with a vengeance (literally) by post-Reformation Roman Catholicism, next to the Divine Child and the obscure man is the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

What is a mere card manufacturer to make of it all?  Giving Jesus a halo is easy.  Giving Mary a halo is, well, Catholically easy.  Giving Joseph a halo?  So-so.