Joe, the High Priest

I came across this icon of the Holy Family several months back, and it greatly intrigued me because Joe is clothed in the vestments of a Greek bishop. Since encountering the icon, I have been thinking a great deal about why he would, or should, be clothed as bishop. I think I might finally have an answer.

Last week, I shared St. Francis de Sales analogy of two mirrors and the sun for the Holy Family. I'm currently in a class entitled "Sacraments and the Christian Mystical Tradition" and in this course we're reading a short book written by Dr. David Fagerberg entitled Consecrating the World: On Mundane Liturgical Theology. In this book, Dr. Fagerberg speaks about the proper understanding of the term 'hierarchy', which comes from two Greek words: hiereus (priestly/sacred) arche (source of power). Then, quoting from Dionysius's Celestial Hierarchy, Chapter 3:

The aim of Hierarchy is the greatest possible assimilation to and union with God, and by taking Him as leader in all holy wisdom, to become like Him, so far as is permitted, by contemplating intently His most Divine Beauty. Also it moulds and perfects its participants in the holy image of God like bright and spotless mirrors which receive the Ray of the Supreme Deity — which is the Source of Light; and being mystically filled with the Gift of Light, it pours it forth again abundantly, according to the Divine Law, upon those below itself.

In other words, the hierarchy should be seen as a series of mirrors that each receive the Light of Christ from another and shares the same Light with another. The first mirror in the hierarchy is Mary; the second is Joe, all the way down to you and I. Joe is clothed as a bishop, that is a high-priest, because he is the first to receive the Light of Christ from another mirror (i.e. Mary, who receive the Light of Christ, not from another "mirror", but from Christ Himself). We too are called to be priests who sanctify this world (as Dr. Fagerberg write throughout his book).

For this reason I have begun to extend the phrase "To Jesus, through Mary" to "To Jesus, through Mary, with Joseph."