Josephology Appendix 1: Apparitions & Visitations

While not nearly as popular as the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph or someone pretending to be him has indeed appeared to many Christians over the centuries. What follows is a brief overview of his many manifestations to the faithful.

Fairly Reputable

Mt. Bessillon – 1660

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St. Joseph is said to have appeared to a young man named Gaspard Ricard on June 7, 1660. Ricard was herding his sheep on the eastern side of Mt. Bessillon in Cotignac, France. In the heat of the day, the young shepherd grew thirsty and rested on the rocky terrain. A tall, old man appeared, pointed to a large rock nearby and said, “I am Joseph. Lift the rock and you will drink.” Thinking the rock too heavy for even seven men to lift, Ricard tried it anyway, succeeded, and found a spring of fresh water underneath. When he looked up, the old man had vanished.

On this very day, Maria Theresa of Spain left her native country to marry King Louis XIV of France. Perhaps interpreting the miraculous spring as a sign, the very next year the Sun King decreed March 19 to be celebrated as the Feast of St. Joseph throughout his kingdom.

New Mexico – 1878

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After the chapel for the Sisters of Loretto in Sante Fe was completed in the late 19th century, the Mother Superior was very perturbed that there was no good way to access the choir loft twenty-two feet above the ground floor. The sisters began a novena to St. Joseph to send them a carpenter who could build something better than a ladder, and on the ninth day a grey-haired man appeared with a donkey and a toolbox looking for work.

After three months, and using only a few humble tools, the staircase was finished, and the man disappeared without a trace. The sisters ran an ad in the newspaper asking him to return for his pay, but he never did. The stairs themselves are described as “mysterious” and “miraculous” due to their surprisingly superior construction and durable nature.

The sisters came to the conclusion that St. Joseph himself had come down from Heaven to build them a staircase, although it is not outside the realm of possibility that Joseph sent a local woodworker to do a good deed on his behalf. The chapel has since been deconsecrated and now operates as a private museum.

County Mayo – 1879

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The Virgin Mary appeared silently with St. John the Apostle and St. Joseph on August 21, 1879 to fifteen people in the village of Knock, Ireland. One of the witnesses, Mary Byrne O’Connell, said of Joseph that “he looked old,” and other witnesses described his beard as being colored an “iron grey.” Very little happened during the apparition besides prayer.

Multiple popes have lent their support to the Knock apparition, including Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, and (especially) John Paul II. The lack of a message being delivered from Heaven probably made the apparition much easier to approve.

Ourém Municipality – 1917

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During the Miracle of the Sun (October 13, 1917) at Fátima, Portugal, Sr. Lúcia de Jesus Rosa Santos says that St. Joseph appeared next to Mary and holding the Child Jesus. This vision is strange in that she says Jesus and Joseph both “seemed to be blessing the world, making the sign of the Cross.” Since Joseph was no priest (Jewish or Christian), it is odd that he would appear to be giving a blessing. He soon vanished and only Mary remained in the sky, appearing now in the Carmelite habit.

Somewhat Less Reputable

Germany – 13th Century

During one of her mystical visions, St. Gertrude the Great (1256-1302) is said to have caught a glimpse of St. Joseph during the readings on the Vigil of the Annunciation. As one later religious of the Order of St. Benedict describes it: “At the name of St. Joseph, all the saints made a profound inclination to him, testifying, by the serenity and sweetness of their looks, that they rejoiced with him for his exalted dignity.”

I have been unable to find any such event described in an original source, but that may simply be because some of her works are not readily available in English.

Belgium – 16th Century

The devotion of the “Seven Sorrows and Joys of St. Joseph” is said to have been requested by the saint himself after rescuing two shipwrecked Franciscan priests off the coast of Flanders. Their ship destroyed, the priests had grabbed onto a large plank to keep from sinking. A radiant man appeared in answer to their prayers, and led them into safe harbor. After revealing himself as St. Joseph, he asked for the “Sorrows and Joys” devotion to be prayed in his honor.

Only a handful of sources claim this story as the origin of that particular devotion. In spite of this, most claimants say that this event is “never omitted by any historian of the saint,” which is clearly untrue.

The German Woods – 19th Century

In one of the folktales collected by the Grimm brothers Jacob and Wilhelm, “St. Joseph in the Forest,” the saint appears as an old man who lives in the forest and looks out for little girls who are lost or turned out of their homes. In this tale, he meets three sisters in succession, and rewards them each according to their virtue or lack thereof.

Another of the brothers’ tales is untitled, having been discovered in 1983 in a letter written by Wilhelm Grimm to a little girl in 1816. Published in 1988 as Dear Mili, this story is of another lost girl who is sent into the woods after her mother fears the approach of war. The elderly St. Joseph gives her shelter in his forest hut, and after three days sends her on her way with a rosebud. She returns to find that thirty years have passed, and she dies after finding her now-aged mother.

The Americas – 20th Century

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The Americas have been home to quite a few visionaries who claim to have seen and heard from St. Joseph. Whereas previous apparitions proved him to be taciturn, the last century has apparently given him much to talk about.

In the late 1950s St. Joseph is reported to have spoken, and eventually appeared, to Sr. Mary Ephrem of the Congregation of the Precious Blood while in Indiana and Ohio, USA. He spoke at length about his sanctification in his mother’s womb “immediately after my conception,” and when he appeared visibly it was as a man “quite youthful.” These mystical experiences were a piece of the larger “Our Lady of America” devotion, so they have gained some purchase in the traddy world thanks in no small part to the approval of Cdl. Raymond Burke.

The 1960s saw the start of purported messages from St. Joseph and other saints given to a certain Frances Marie Klug (1921-2009) in Southern California. Mrs. Klug claimed to be passing on new revelations from God, including the novel idea that Joseph was the physical manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Klug’s visions and cult (St. Joseph’s Hill of Hope) were unambiguously condemned by a joint letter from three bishops—of Los Angeles, Orange, and San Bernardino—in 1981.

Since the mid-1990s Mary and Joseph have supposedly been appearing to Edson Glauber (b. 1972) in Itapiranga, Brazil with various messages. The visionary has some episcopal approval through the current archbishop, but the visions appear to be ongoing. He describes St. Joseph as “very young with an indescribable beauty,” but also as possessing “brilliant green eyes.” The main thrust of the Josephite devotion here is a call to venerate his Most Chaste Heart (also described as “most pure”) along with the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.