Part 8
Joseph remained in Egypt until the time of Herod’s death. The angel again appears to him, and bids him return to Judea, as if the divine Infant were not sure of His life until His enemies had disappeared. What frailty, what meekness in this little Child! Can this be a God? Without the least hesitation, Joseph treats the Child with the same reverence, and adores Him, as if he had seen Him working miracles. Never was such a faith found in Israel. Nowadays we could not find such a faith. “From a want of this noble faith,” St. Teresa says, “the world is full of sin.” Ask St. Joseph to obtain for us a faith similar to his. Faith is a gift and a virtue. By this gift our intellect is enlightened, we know God, and confide in Him. By the virtue of faith we use this light, and let it shine on all our actions. Let us not be satisfied to bow down our intellect under the influence of the great grace of the gift of faith; we should regulate all the actions of our life according to the dictates and laws of this faith, and live according to it. St. Joseph can obtain such graces for us, if we pray to him.
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Seventeenth Day.
St. Joseph possesses another great virtue: it is his obedience. From his childhood he observed with conscientious exactitude all the laws of God. Without a murmur he accompanied Mary to Bethlehem in a severe time of the year, and with Mary so soon to give birth to the Child Jesus, to fulfil the command of a heathen prince. When the command was given to take up the Child and flee into Egypt, he was ready. But one word is necessary: he does not consider any plans for flight, but executes the command without a moment’s delay. In many cases he could have alleged causes of inconvenience, or of his not understanding how it could be accomplished; he might have asked the angel for an explanation, saying, how comes it that a few days ago you announced that this Jesus is to be the Redeemer of His people, and now He is to fly before His enemies? He will not be able to free His people afterwards, when now He cannot hold His ground. But he subjected his reason to his faith, and obeyed.
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Eighteenth Day.
Through our faith God leads us to the knowledge of His goodness and His promises, that so the desire and hope of enjoying God may be born in us. St. Joseph’s faith and knowledge of God effected in him a great confidence; he had been peculiarly confirmed in hope. It is a fact that our confidence in God grows with grace when our hope is strengthened by the infinite merits of Jesus Christ, and when we have great devotion and love for the Blessed Virgin; so we must certainly conclude that Joseph’s love of Jesus, Whom he daily carried in his arms, should lay a greater foundation of hope than that of any of the saints. The flight into Egypt is an example of it. His confidence in the providence of God is so implicit that he makes no preparation. There is Jesus, the Son of God, Who is to go with Him; there is Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, who is to be of the party. These are the two strongest pillars of our hope, and why not to the hope of St. Joseph? God the Father will provide. Is He not the God Who, with a strong arm, led the Israelites out of Egypt, and, after forty years of wandering, introduced them according to promise into the land flowing with milk and honey?
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Nineteenth Day.
In Joseph’s flight into Egypt, he knew that Jesus was a more powerful protector of a perilous journey than the Ark of the Covenant which was carried before the tribes of Israel, or the column of smoke that led them during the day and the pillar of fire that protected them at night. He would be the manna, the inexhaustible food, in a desert and strange land. Accompanied by this treasure, St. Joseph is content to suffer for Jesus, and under the eyes of Jesus. We can imagine the sympathy of Joseph for his charge, when he relieved the Blessed Virgin of her burden, and had Him to rest on his bosom. Good and faithful Christian, in all the trials of life keep Jesus close to your heart, and when the world storms and frets, be faithful to your promises made in Baptism, and often repeated during your Christian life by receiving the sacraments.
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Twentieth Day.
The providence of God knows what our destiny is, and what is the best for us. Then let us be resigned to His will. All our anxieties would disappear if we were thoroughly convinced of the goodness of God in our behalf; but because we want to do everything without God, not only do we feel anxiety for the future, but disaster will really overtake us. Let us trust in Providence and give Him entire control of all that concerns us. In all our necessities let us pray and wait, until it is God’s pleasure to step in, and do away with our troubles, if it be to His greater glory; or if not, then let us patiently bear them. We know that Providence so watches over us, that not a hair falls from our head without His approval. God has His reasons for all that He does, and for all the evil that He permits, though we may not be able to see them. In this way the Christian soul sleeps softly and peacefully in the arms of God, as a child in the arms of its mother. As David, the prophet king, sang in his psalms: “I will sleep and rest in peace because Thou, O Lord, hast founded my hope on Thy providence. Thy mercy shall accompany me all the days of my life.”
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Twenty‐first Day.
Joseph lived in Egypt for eight years, among a pagan people, without repining, without being distressed at the prolonged stay, an exile from his own country and relatives. There, far from the sacred Temple of God, he remained in seclusion, serving God in his soul. Who can tell the suffering he underwent among the barbarians, amid their shocking practises of religion, which were abhorrent to him who was so closely united to God? Good people are in the same condition in the wickedness of the world: it is a cross to them. But crosses are to be met with everywhere; you cannot escape. If you get rid of one cross, another is waiting for you, and perhaps a far heavier one; but your consolation should be the knowledge that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph endured the same sufferings. Joseph lived in the Holy Family with the greatest recollection. This should also be the case with those who live in the world, that fiery oven of the trials of God; they should sing the praises of God in the very midst of distractions, and be perfectly recollected, serving God without being led away from the path of duty.
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Twenty‐second Day.
So greatly did Jesus love poverty, that, not finding it in heaven, He came upon the earth to practise it. All those principally associated with Our Lord in the salvation of mankind were obliged to endure poverty. Since the Lord loved poverty so much, St. Joseph, too, had to practise this virtue. Even before St. Joseph was selected to become the foster‐father of Our Lord, he was poor according to the will of God, but afterwards he learned the virtue still more from the example of Our Lord. If one single sentence that he had heard from the Gospel, induced St. Antony, abbot and patriarch of monks, to give all his wealth to the poor, how much more did the example of Our Lord act effectively on Joseph, so that he renounced all expectation of worldly advancement. Often in their communing with each other, the question of their destitution must have been the topic; but it was not to find ways and means to avoid it; on the contrary that they should be patient in the trial. Joseph possessed nothing; hence he witnessed the Lord in His poverty laid in a manger after His birth. At the presentation he could make no other offering but that of very poor people, a pair of pigeons which could be bought for very little money. He also had to undergo many hardships on his journey to Egypt.
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Twenty‐third Day.
In Egypt, so tradition has it, Joseph had to labor for others in order to bring in the means of a livelihood for himself and the Holy Family. Even then their income was by no means superfluous, and according to St. Liguori they often had to suffer actual want. In this manner Joseph spent eight years in Egypt. When he was recalled by the voice of the angel, he settled in Nazareth; though his circumstances there were probably better, they were by no means luxurious. Bossuet says: “Imagine a poor laborer, who had no other fortune than the labor of his willing hands, no other means of subsistence but his work. Every day he saw the end of his provision, and he had to begin again on the following day, like our poor working people. Still he was rich in contentment; he had enough, because he had nothing which might be coveted by others; he possessed all because he stood in need of everything; he was happy, quiet, secure, although he had no place whereon to rest his head. He was continually constrained to labor with the sweat of his brow. He divided all his income with Jesus and Mary. Was it not a consolation for him to do this? even according to our weak reason, guided by religion.”
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Twenty‐fourth Day.
When we have contemplated the willing poverty of Joseph, the thought naturally comes to us to imitate him in the practise of this virtue. Poverty makes us like to the Lord. Our Lord walks before us with giant strides in the practise of this virtue. The rich, burdened with the goods of this world, can hardly follow Him. Let us consider that, after all, our happiness is not to be found in the possession of wealth. He is happy, according to St. Augustine, who possesses what he wants, and who wants nothing beyond what God has sent him. The rich are frequently unhappy, because they are carried along to desire the things which they cannot reach. Not only is poverty a source of virtue and of peace; but also it is a means by which we can make progress in our perfection. For as avarice is the source of all evils, so also poverty is the power by which all our vices are corrected, and held in check. This virtue watches over humility: a virtue so very necessary to our perfection, and it preserves chastity by reason of the mortification of our senses.
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Twenty‐fifth Day.
The interior life of the Holy Family in Nazareth must have been a most beautiful one. They were joined so closely to God, that there was no earthly distraction which could separate them from contemplating and communing with Him. They formed a kind of trinity on earth, a representation of the Trinity in heaven. These three were one, because they were united by the bond of union, Jesus Christ. The people of Nazareth did not know the adorable person of the Lord, nor the dignity of the Mother of God. They knew Joseph by sight, for he had often gone out to look for work, and necessarily came more in contact with his neighbors. That holy house of Nazareth was a perfect paradise, full of peace, of order, recollection, unity, and happiness. Their conversation was about God and the best means to comply with His holy will. Joseph and Mary adored the Lord because He was God; but they exacted His obedience because He was their Son.
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Twenty‐sixth Day.
Let us think to‐day, of the social life between Joseph and Mary. St. Joseph was a very great saint, and Mary was unstained by sin: so pure, so holy, that no created being could be compared to her. What can we suppose was the conversation of these heavenly beings? When Mary visited her cousin, St. Elizabeth, John, in his mother’s womb, leaped for joy. In other words, the presence of the God‐man in the womb of the Blessed Virgin scattered graces about her with god‐like profusion, and certainly St. Joseph, too, was affected by it. With as lively a faith as we have before the tabernacle on the altar, St. Joseph must have recognized the presence of the Lord, for he was acquainted with the mystery of the incarnation, as it had been revealed by the mouth of the angel. We are silent, and sunk in deep devotion in church, where God dwells. Was St. Joseph less impressed than we, when he recognized Him Who was the Son of God, and Who was to redeem His people Israel from their sins? How great was their devotion to the hidden Lord, how fervent their prayers! Still St. Joseph was the master in that house; he was the head of the family, and was obeyed in all his instructions.
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Twenty‐seventh Day.
Joseph was obedient to the Law of Moses; scrupulously exact in following the instructions of the Jewish ceremonial, as all good Jews were. Poor as he was, and notwithstanding the loss of time it necessarily entailed, he still went every year, as was the custom, to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of the Passover. He did this because it was a law of Moses. The Blessed Virgin and the Child Jesus were equally anxious to fulfil the law. And when the feast was over, all went back to Nazareth, but Jesus remained behind, and hid Himself from Joseph for three days, making him feel wretched, because he thought that he had been delinquent in his trust of the divine Jesus. But Jesus wants to be looked for, not with an ordinary desire, but with a real love, and the longer we are separated from Him the more loving should we become, because our heart is desolate without His holy presence. O my God, I have sought Thee all my life! but I have not found Thee because I do not look for Thee where Thou art to be found. Indeed Thou art in my heart, but I go out and look for Thee in distractions where Thou shalt not be found.
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Twenty‐eighth Day.
St. Joseph, as we have seen, earned his livelihood by the sweat of his brow. When Jesus grew up and was stronger, He helped His father, and tradition tells us that the Blessed Virgin was not idle. She sewed and embroidered in order that they might live. The lot of the laborer is always hard, and St. Joseph’s life, beyond the consolations of religion, was no exception. Day after day work was necessary, and pleasures and recreations few. That Joseph was of the royal house of David was forgotten because he was poor; had he been rich people would have honored him, would have given him political prominence. Let us also sanctify our labors; Joseph’s work made him holy, because it was honest work, done with a good intention and in the spirit of prayer. Prayer and work were the constant employment of St. Joseph; this is the way that God wishes us to spend our time. He wishes us to pursue an active, laborious life, while we keep our eyes on Him.
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Twenty‐ninth Day.
The whole life of St. Joseph is a perfect model of a Christian life, a life which we must necessarily lead in order to go to heaven; a life of piety and faithful fulfilment of the duties of our station, and the performance of our daily actions in the best manner. In this way St. Joseph reached heaven, and we cannot choose another road. Joseph did nothing extraordinary in a worldly sense; he was no king, with great command of men; he was not a literary man; but he was great, because he made himself, with the grace of God, a great saint. He lived a simple life as far as possible, he strove to perfect himself more and more in the presence of Jesus, his daily companion, and consequently he was always impressed with the omnipresence of God, before Whom he walked in the simplicity of his heart all the days of his life. He is the best model of obedience to Jesus and Mary. In his life we can find a great example of all Christian virtues.
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Thirtieth Day.
As the life of St. Joseph was such a perfect one, the seal of approval from almighty God was placed upon it by the grace of a happy death. For thirty years St. Joseph was the head of the Holy Family, and now Jesus was to go forth on His public mission. By the disposition of divine Providence, when his course had been completed and the purpose of his life was over, he was called away to another world to be rewarded for his holy life. What death was ever more precious in the sight of God, than that of St. Joseph! St. Paul exclaimed that the grace of God was not ineffectual in him, and it gave him great joy. But much more did Joseph co‐operate with the graces received, so that he was sure that every moment of his life was spent for the greater glory of God. Holy Scripture describes the death of the just as a peaceful falling asleep in the Lord. Precious in the sight of God is the death of His holy ones. They can exclaim, “I know that my Redeemer liveth and mine eyes shall behold Him on the Last Day.” St. Joseph died in peace and happiness in the embrace of Jesus and Mary; his soul was sent forth to the abode of the patriarchs at the bidding of Jesus, Who had created him. What words can describe the consolations that filled this noble breast, and with what confidence he looked up to his Redeemer! And so St. Joseph has become the patron of a happy death.
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Thirty‐first Day.
On this last day of the month, let us consider the power of St. Joseph for our good in heaven, so that we may draw from it confidence in his willingness to use it for our spiritual and temporal welfare. The general principle is, the greater the saint the greater friend he is of almighty God; and the greater is the power given him by God for the benefit of those who live in this vale of tears. We may with reason assert that after the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph is the greatest saint in heaven. He has been distinguished by God with the greatest privileges on earth, which certainly did not cease in heaven but rather increased. The heavenly Father loved him, because he represented the paternity of His divine Son on earth. God the Son loved him because he was the protector of His infancy and youth, and the faithful guardian and spouse of the Blessed Virgin. The Holy Ghost loved him, because he complied so faithfully to His inspirations. In this predilection for him by the Holy Trinity, lies the secret of his great power. Who will say, if he asks for anything from God, that his prayer will be rejected? Let us turn with confidence to the patronage of St. Joseph, and entreat him to pray for us in all our necessities.
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.
Efficacious Prayers.
Thirty Days’ Prayer To St. Joseph.
_To Obtain a Happy Death and Other Good Intentions._
Ever‐blessed and glorious Joseph, kind and indulgent father, and compassionate friend of all in sorrow, through that bitter grief with which thy heart was saturated, when thou didst behold the sufferings of the Infant Saviour, and in thy prophetic view didst contemplate His most ignominious Passion and death, take pity, I beseech thee, on my poverty and necessities, counsel me in my doubts, and console me in all my anxieties. Thou art the good father and protector of orphans, the advocate of the defenceless, the patron of those who are in need and desolation. Do not, then, disregard the petition of thy poor child; my sins have drawn down upon me the just displeasure of my God, and hence I am surrounded with sorrows. To thee, O amiable guardian of the poor neglected family of Nazareth, do I fly for shelter and protection. Listen, then, I entreat of thee, with a father’s solicitude, to the earnest prayer of thy poor supplicant, and obtain for me the objects of my petition. I ask it by the infinite mercy of the eternal Son of God, which induced Him to assume our nature and be born into this world of sorrow. I ask it by the grief which filled thy heart when, ignorant of the mystery wrought in thy immaculate spouse, thou didst fear thou shouldst be separated from her. I ask it by that weariness, solicitude, and suffering which thou didst endure when thou soughtest in vain at the inns of Bethlehem a shelter for the sacred Virgin and a birthplace for the Infant God, and when, being everywhere refused, thou wert obliged to consent that the Queen of heaven should give birth to the world’s Redeemer in a wretched stable. I ask it by that most sad and painful duty imposed on thee when, the divine Child being eight days old, thou wert obliged to inflict a deep wound on His tender body, and thus be the first to make flow that sacred blood which was to wash away the sins of the world. I ask it by the sweetness and power of that sacred name, Jesus, which thou didst confer on the adorable Infant. I ask it by that mortal anguish inflicted on thee by the prophecy of holy Simeon, which declared the Child Jesus and His holy Mother the future victims of their love and our sins. I ask it through that sorrow and anguish which filled thy soul when the angel declared to thee that the life of the Child Jesus was sought by His enemies, from whose impious designs thou wert obliged to fly with Him and His blessed Mother into Egypt. I ask it by all the pains, fatigues, and toils of that long and perilous pilgrimage. I ask it by all the sorrows thou didst endure when in Egypt thou wert not able, even by the sweat of thy brow, to procure poor food and clothing for thy most poor family. I ask it by all the grief thou didst feel each time the divine Child asked for a morsel of bread, and thou hadst it not to give Him. I ask it by all thy solicitude to preserve the sacred Child and the immaculate Mary during thy second journey, when thou wert ordered to return to thy native country. I ask it by thy peaceful dwelling in Nazareth, in which so many joys and sorrows were mingled. I ask it by thy extreme affliction in being deprived three days of the company of the adorable Child. I ask it by thy joy at finding Him in the Temple, and by the ineffable consolation imparted to thee in the cottage of Nazareth with the company and society of the little Jesus. I ask it by that wonderful condescension by which He subjected Himself to thy will. I ask it through that dolorous view, continually in thy mind, of all thy Jesus was to suffer. I ask it by that painful contemplation, which made thee foresee the divine little hands and feet, now so active in serving thee, one day to be pierced with cruel nails; that head which rested gently on thy bosom, crowned with sharp thorns; that delicate body which thou didst tenderly fold in thy mantle and press to thy heart, stripped and extended on a cross. I ask it by that heroic sacrifice of thy will and best affection by which thou didst offer up to the eternal Father the last awful moment when the Man‐God was to expire for our salvation. I ask it by that perfect love and conformity with which thou didst receive the divine order to depart from this life, and from the company of Jesus and Mary. I ask it by that exceeding great joy which filled thy soul when the Redeemer of the world, triumphant over death and hell, entered into the possession of His kingdom, and conducted thee also into it with especial honors. I ask it through Mary’s glorious assumption, and through that interminable bliss, which with her, thou wilt eternally derive from the presence of God. O good father! I beseech thee by all thy sufferings, sorrows, and joys, to hear me and to obtain the grant of my earnest petitions. (_Here name them or reflect on them._) Obtain for all those who have asked thy prayers all that is useful to them in the designs of God; and finally, my dear protector, be thou with me and all who are dear to me in our last moments, that we may eternally chant the praises of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Amen.