March, Month of St. Joseph

[Therese]

Dear Friends,

March is the month of St. Joseph.  Let us each show our love for St. Joseph by doing something special in his honor every day.  After Jesus Christ and Blessed Mary he is our most powerful intercessor.  Let us call upon him frequently and trust in his powerful intercession.  God bless you!

Yours in Jesus and Mary,
Therese

P.S.  The ejaculation: Jesus, Mary and Joseph is indulgenced.  It is very good to pray it often.

[CyrilSebastian]

              The name of Joseph is very special in our family.     
               One of my grandfathers was born on March 21st.     
              He was given the first name of Joseph since the feast day of Saint Joseph is March 19th.

[Therese]

              The name of Joseph is very special in our family.     
               One of my grandfathers was born on March 21st.     
              He was given the first name of Joseph since the feast day of Saint Joseph is March 19th.

That's wonderful that your grandfather's Patron Saint was St. Joseph, CyrilSebastian!  I'm sure good St. Joseph helped him in many ways while he was alive.  Too bad that not as many parents these days are giving their children good baptismal names of Patron Saints.  God bless you!   

[CyrilSebastian]

                  Cardinal Angelo Guiseppe Roncalli was elected Pope in 1958.   
                  Faced with selecting a papal name, he seriously considered "Joseph".         
                  He selected "John" because no Pope had ever had the name Joseph before.

[Therese]

Dear CyrilSebastian,

I have a strong devotion to St. Joseph and know that it pleases him very much whenever I call upon him for help.  I heard that he is displeased that not many souls call upon him for his assistance; when I heard this I began to call upon him more.   St. Teresa of Jesus said that he never had failed her in all her years of asking favors of him.  The Son of God had to have the most worthy of all men for a foster-father, just as he had to have the most worthy of all women for a mother.  I read in Ven. Mary of Agreda's work, City of God that St. Joseph was sanctified in his mother's womb.  This sounds very reasonable, for St. Joseph was to be a superior to his Son Jesus as His foster-parent, guardian and role-model.

[Therese]

St. Teresa's Plea

"Would that I could persuade all men to be devoted to this glorious Saint, for I know by long experience what blessings he can obtain for us from God. I have never known anyone who was truly devoted to him and honored him by particular services who did not advance greatly in virtue: for he helps in a special way those souls who commend themselves to him. It is now very many years since I began asking him for something on his Feast, and I have always received it. If the petition was in any way amiss, he rectified it for my greater good....I ask for the love of God that he who does not believe me will make the trial for himself - then he will find out by experience the great good that results from commending oneself to this glorious Patriarch and in being devoted to him...."

~From her Autobiography, VI, 11-12

[Therese]

"Ite Ad Joseph!" by Msgr. Gentilucci

From the section, Life of St. Joseph as found in Msgr. Gentilucci’s compilation:

Saint Bernardine goes even further and does not hesitate to say: “Beyond all doubt Jesus in heaven not only does not refuse Saint Joseph those marks of familiarity and respect, which he gave him during life as a son to a father, but he crowns it by new regard.”

Observe the words, familiarity and respect! That same Lord who on earth honored Saint Joseph as a father will surely refuse him nothing that he asks in heaven. To which we must add that if Joseph on earth had no authority over Christ’s humanity as his natural father, he had nevertheless, at least in a certain manner as spouse of Mary, who as our Saviour’s natural mother had authority over him. He who has dominion over the tree has too, over the fruit which it bears.

Let us imagine then that the Lord seeing us in pain, says to us the words which Pharao addressed to the people at the time of that great famine which desolated the land of Egypt: “Go to Joseph,” Go to Joseph, if you would be consoled…those certainly receive most grace who invoke him most frequently and most confidently. Let us then not fail every day, and several times a day, to commend ourselves to Saint Joseph, who, next to Our Lady, is the most powerful with God of all the Saints. Let us never fail to address him some particular prayer, and more especially in his novena let us multiply our prayers, and fast on the eve of his feast. Let us ask him for graces and he will obtain all that will be useful for our souls. Above all do I exhort you to ask of him three special graces: pardon for sin, love of Jesus, and a happy death…let us have recourse to Saint Joseph, who is more beloved by Christ in heaven now than he was on earth. Let us moreover ask of Saint Joseph love of Jesus, for I am assured that the most signal grace which Saint Joseph can obtain for those who honor him, is a tender lover for the Incarnate Word, in regard for the affection which Joseph had for Jesus in this world. Moreover, let us ask of him a happy death…Those then who have confidence in him should hope that Saint Joseph at the moment of their death will come to assist them accompanied by Jesus and Mary.

“Saint Joseph possessed the talent of combining in this world the toils of his office and glorious ministry with the most constant and sublime contemplation, as Saint Athanasius[1]assures us, and how that he is reaping in heaven the fruit of the glorious actions of his most holy life, he freely grants his aid to souls devoted to the exercise of prayer….the example offered [is] Saint Teresa of Jesus, who, under the protection of Saint Joseph, soared like the eagle to the highest contemplation, and induced other souls to imitate her flight..

“…among those cited by Father Barri, a great spiritual master, are two, who, desirous of devoting themselves to mental prayer, could not succeed in consequences of the difficulties which they encountered;  but having chosen Saint Joseph as a director, they suddenly beheld all obstacles overcome, and the once thorny and sterile path thick sowed with heavenly delights.  Another person, adds the same author, wishing to be entirely delivered from the distractions which molested him in time of prayer, took the holy patriarch as his advocate, and by his patronage obtained more even than he sought;  for he not only obtained the grace of a most elevated prayer, but a deliverance even in dreams, of the least thoughts against purity, being likened by both favors to the most blessed souls of Saint Joseph, of whom the eloquent Chrysostom said, [2] that his ministry required him to be a spirit free from those disquiets which give rise to importunate thoughts, and those troubles that banish repose and serenity from the heart.

“Saint Joseph bestowed, as Father Barri assures us, the same tranquility on a nun, who was greatly harassed with temptations in time of prayer and other spiritual exercises, to such a degree that she lost the hopes of attaining that precious liberty which is a kind of pledge and sign of divine love; still, far from giving way entirely to distrust, she recurred to the mother of the afflicted with the prayer:  ‘My mother and mistress, free me from this storm of troubles which surrounds me; grant me that peace and perfect tranquility which I need to converse with my God with a serene and fervent heart.  If thou wilt not listen to my humble prayer, vouchsafe to inspire me to address one of those saints most beloved in heaven, whom I may invoke in this anguish that breaks my heart.’  Scarcely had she concluded her petition when Saint Joseph appeared before the eyes of her understanding, filling her with a torrent of serenity and interior delight, which made her forget the cruel afflictions that had deprived her of all hopes of a close union with her Lord in the holy exercise of prayer.”




[1] St. Athanasius, Sermo de descriptione Mariae.  Patrionani, Lib. ch. iii § 7.)


[2] St. Chrysostom, Hom. 5. in Matthaeum.

[Therese]

'He [Joseph, on the day of his espousal to Mary] was then thirty-three years of age, of handsome person and pleasing countenance, but also of incomparable modesty and gravity; above all he was most chaste in thought and conduct, and most saintly in all his inclinations.  From his twelfth year he had made and kept the vow of chastity.  He was related to Mary in the third degree, and was known for the utmost purity of his life, holy and irreprehensible in the eyes of God and of men.'

Ven. Mary of Agreda, City of God, Vol. I, p. 576
(Bk. II, 755)

[Therese]

I wish you all a blessed Feast of St. Joseph!   

St. Joseph, ora pro nobis!

[Therese]

May we all pray to St. Joseph every day for holy purity and for a happy, holy death.

[whiterockdove]

!JMJ!

[Therese]

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, guide and protect us!  Amen.

[CyrilSebastian]

                 St. Joseph was a just and pious man.     
                 He was a most excellent husband and foster father.

[Therese]

                 St. Joseph was a just and pious man.     
                 He was a most excellent husband and foster father.

Nothing but the best for Jesus and Mary!

[CyrilSebastian]

St. Joseph is honored for being the spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary on March 19.     
The Feast of St. Joseph has the rank of a solemnity.

[CyrilSebastian]

Pope Leo XIII wrote an encyclical Quamquam Pluries (On the Devotion to St. Joseph) in 1889.