Saint Joseph as the First Knight

Recently I read a fascinating book, Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love by Carl A. Anderson and Eduardo Chávez.  I will post more about this book in an upcoming religious book meme post, but one passage in particular inspired me to create the Saint Joseph activity that I’m posting about today.  The authors briefly mention during their discussion of the conquistadors that Saint Joseph is regarded by some to be the first knight, for his role protecting Mary and Jesus from Herod, thereby defending and protecting the church.  I found this idea very intriguing.

So, I wanted to create a simple lesson for my children comparing Saint Joseph to a knight, and highlighting his role as Patron of the Church, as well as Patron of Fathers and Workers.  Fortunately, Vee at Paper Dali has a great coloring page of St. Joseph that also includes his tools.  Update: this coloring page is no longer available as a free resource, but it is included in Vee’s advent coloring bookat her Etsy shop. 

We started by discussing Saint Joseph’s occupation.  We also looked at the photographs of Saint Joseph that Jessica at Shower of Roses used to create her St. Joseph Memory Match Game.

Next, I showed my children photographs of knight armor that my husband took at the museum of the Art Institute of Chicago during our recent trip.  Here is a particularly imposing one.

While my girls were coloring Saint Joseph, we talked about why knights were considered protectors, their role as defenders of the faith, and how Saint Joseph may have carried different implements that could be compared to a knight’s.  This is what we discussed:

sword = saw

shield = ruler

jousting pole = shepherd’s crook or walking stick

armor = faith and halo

My oldest daughter also decided that Saint Joseph did not need armor because he was very strong from hitting nails with such a large hammer!  We talked about the ways he watched over Mary and Jesus and made sure they were safe, especially during their journeys to Bethlehem and Egypt.

Here is the paragraph my seven year-old wrote comparing St. Joseph to a knight (in Spanish).  It translates as: “Saint Joseph is a knight who does not wear armor.  Instead of a sword he uses a saw and instead of a shield he uses a ruler.  He also uses a hammer and knights do not.  Knights use a jousting pole and Joseph has a shepherd’s crook.”

There is much more that could be said about the knight/carpenter symbols that we may discuss next week, or maybe next year.  I hope you find this lesson useful!  Here are the finished coloring pages:

In 2014, I am linking with: Welcome Home 

In 2013 I linked with: Faith Formation in Young Children, What are you doing this Lent?, Weekly Kids Co-op, For the Kids Friday, Saints and Scriptures Sunday, We Made That, Making It Count

In 2012 I linked with: St. Joseph Linkup, What are you doing for Lent?, Saints Cele-linky, Catholic Bloggers Network, First Friday