Year of Saint Joseph

Dec. 8, 2020 – Dec. 8, 2021

This is a photograph of the mosaic on the front of the church, to the left of the doorway.

Ite ad Joseph (Go to Joseph)

During this Year of Saint Joseph, Pope Francis, writes in his Apostolic letter, “With a Father’s Heart,” to encourage us to keep Wednesdays and the 19^th of each month as a day dedicated to Joseph. 

While Joseph never speaks in the Gospels, he is a man of action. Caring for Mary and the child Jesus, protecting them from Herod, and working in his carpenter shop in Nazareth. An opportunity of grace awaits us by putting in action the Corporal Works of Mercy, offering your daily work and prayer. The church offers a plenary indulgence to those who do one of these approved acts by the Apostolic Penitentiary. These acts must be accompanied by sacramental confession, Holy Communion, prayer for the Holy Father intentions, and detachment from sin.

CONSECRATION TO SAINT JOSEPH

The Year of Saint Joseph give us the opportunity of growing and developing a personal and parish devotion to our parish patron, Saint Joseph. Now is the time to prepare for the Solemnity of Saint Joseph on March 19th and our Parish Feast Day – Saint Joseph the Worker on May 1st. As Deacon Tony points out in his book, our Parish feast day is Saint Joseph the Worker.

During this year, add and remember Joseph as part of your daily prayers, especially on Wednesdays. Wednesdays are a day devoted to honor him and we should make the 19th of every month a day of special recognition for Joseph. Please reference the published list on this flyer of the Apostolic Penitentiary ways of gaining a plenary indulgence during this year of grace. Devotions to Saint Joseph focus on his role as: a spouse of Mary, foster-father of Jesus, Fatherhood, the Worker, Protector of the Holy Family and the Protector of the Universal Church, patron of a happy death and for the invocation titles in the Litany of Saint Joseph.

Saints from the earliest times of the Church and Church Fathers of today have made a devotion to Saint Joseph. On January 6, the Church celebrated the Feast of Saint Andre Bessette, a Canadian born saint, who dedicated his life as a Holy Cross brother, devoted to Saint Joseph. St. Andre professed great confidence in Saint Joseph, through whom he attributed many miracles. He burned oil in a sanctuary lamp, which he gave to the people of Montréal to use to heal the sick. He called it: “Saint Joseph Oil.” A small oratory was built in honor of St. Joseph on the top of a hill in Montréal, where a beautiful basilica now stands and continues to be a site of pilgrimage to this day.

As a parish family under the patronage of Saint Joseph, Let’s go the Joseph! Ite ad Joseph! Together let us give thanks to God for this holy man’s life and thank Joseph for the protection of the Church and our lives during this pandemic.

May this Year of Saint Joseph be a time of God’s outpouring of His Grace. May we learn from Joseph’s life and for our trust in our Heavenly Father. May all of the parish families follow the example of the Holy Family; Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and find ways as a family to live our lives devoted to God and to each other.

Saint Joseph watch over us!

MAKE A CONSECRATION TO SAINT JOSEPH 

To help inspire us with a devotion to Saint Joseph, please reference a recent book published in 2020 by Fr. Donald Callaway called Consecration to Saint Joseph. Fr. Callaway’s book is written to help us make a personal consecration and devotion to the foster-father of Jesus, in the same style as a popular consecration of St. Louis de Montfort to the Blessed Mother Mary. St. Louis developed a 33 days method of prayers to consecrate oneself to Mary. The books are available for purchase at the Church and PAC.

Follow the 33 days of prayer in order to end on a specific feast day related to Saint Joseph:

• For the Solemnity of Saint Joseph (March 19) – Begin on February 15
• For the Feast day of Saint Joseph the Worker (May 1) – Begin on March 30

Each day, read and pray over one of the invocations from the Litany of Saint Joseph and recite the Litany.

If you miss a day, make it up and continue your preparation.

On day 33 – Recite the Prayer of Consecration.

Fr. Callaway’s book: Consecration to Joseph is available for sale in the Church and at the PAC for $16.00.

PRAYERS TO SAINT JOSEPH

Pope Francis – Prayer to Saint Joseph
Hail, Guardian of the Redeemer, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary. To you God entrusted his only Son; in you Mary placed her trust; with you Christ became man. Blessed Joseph, to us too, show yourself a father and guide us in the path of life. Obtain for us grace, mercy and courage, and defend us from every evil. Amen.

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION TO ST. JOSEPH
O Glorious Patriarch and Patron of the Church! O Virgin Spouse of the Virgin Mother of God! O Guardian and Virginal Father of the Word Incarnate! In the presence of Jesus and Mary, I choose you this day to be my father, my guardian, and my protector.

O great St. Joseph, whom God has made the Head of the Holy Family, accept me, I beseech you, though utterly unworthy, to be a member of your “Holy House.” Present me to your Immaculate Spouse; ask her also to adopt me as her child. With her, pray that I may constantly think of Jesus, and serve him faithfully to the end of my life. O Terror of Demons, increase in me virtue, protect me from the evil one, and help me not to offend God in any way.

O my Spiritual Father, I hereby consecrate myself to you. In faithful imitation of Jesus and Mary, I place myself and all my concerns under your care and protection. To you, after Jesus and Mary, I consecrate my body and soul, with all their faculties, my spiritual growth, my home, and all my affairs and undertakings.

Forsake me not, but adopt me as a servant and child of the Holy Family. Watch over me at all times, but especially at the hour of my death. Console and strengthen me with the presence of Jesus and Mary so that, with you, I may praise and adore the Holy Trinity for all eternity. Amen.

Daily Novena Prayer to St. Joseph
O Saint Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God, I place in you all my interests and desires.

O Saint Joseph, do assist me by your powerful intercession and obtain for me from your divine Son all spiritual blessings through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, so that having experienced here below your heavenly power, I may offer my thanksgiving and homage to the most loving of fathers.

O Saint Joseph, I never weary of contemplating you and Jesus asleep in your arms. I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Hold Him close in my name and kiss His fine head from me, and ask Him to return the kiss when I draw my dying breath. St. Joseph, patron of departing souls, pray for me. Amen.

Prayer Before Work to St. Joseph the Worker
O Glorious Saint Joseph, model of all those who are devoted to labor, obtain for me the grace to work in a spirit of penance for the expiation of my many sins; to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my natural inclinations; to work with thankfulness and joy, considering it an honor to employ and develop by means of labor the gifts received from God; to work with order, peace, moderation, and patience, never shrinking from weariness and trials; to work above all with purity of intention and detachment from self, keeping unceasingly before my eyes death and the account that I must give of time lost, talents unused, good omitted, and vain complacency in success, so fatal to the work of God.

All for Jesus, all through Mary, all after thy example, O Patriarch, Saint Joseph. Such shall be my watch-word in life and in death. Amen. (Composed by Pope St. Pius X)

Ways to Prayerfully and Devoutly Keep the 19th of the Month Focused on the Life of Saint Joseph

The church offers a plenary indulgence to those who do one of these approved acts by the Apostolic Penitentiary. These acts must be accompanied by sacramental confession, Holy Communion, prayer for the Holy Father intentions, and detachment from sin.

There are ways to receive this grace:

• Participate in a spiritual retreat for at least one day that includes a meditation on St. Joseph.
• Pray for St. Joseph’s intercession for the unemployed that they might find dignifying work.
• Recite the Litany of St. Joseph for persecuted Christians. Byzantine Catholics have the option of an Akathist to St. Joseph.
• Entrust one’s daily work and activity to the protection of St. Joseph the Worker.
• Follow St. Joseph’s example in performing a corporal work of mercy. These include feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the imprisoned, visiting the sick, and burying the dead.
• Perform one of the spiritual works of mercy, such as comforting the sorrowful, counseling the doubtful, instructing the ignorant, admonishing the sinner, bearing wrongs patiently, forgiving injuries, and praying for the living and the dead.
• Pray the rosary together with one’s family in order that “all Christian families may be stimulated to recreate the same atmosphere of intimate communion, love and prayer that was in the Holy Family.”
• Engaged couples can also receive an indulgence from praying the rosary together.
• Meditate for at least 30 minutes on the Lord’s Prayer, because St. Joseph “invites us to rediscover our filial relationship with the Father, to renew fidelity to prayer, to listen and correspond with profound discernment to God’s will.”
• Celebrate the feast of St. Joseph on March 19 with an act of piety in honor of St. Joseph.
• Pray an approved prayer to St. Joseph on the 19th of any month.
• Honor Joseph with an act of piety or approved prayer on a Wednesday, the day traditionally dedicated to St. Joseph.
• Celebrate the feast of St. Joseph the Worker on May 1 with an act of piety or prayer.

The Decree permits the elderly, the sick, and the dying who are unable to leave their homes due to the coronavirus pandemic to have special permission to receive an indulgence by “offering with trust in God the pains and discomforts” of their lives with a prayer to St. Joseph, hope of the sick and patron of a happy death.