Go to St Joseph!

by Nthabiseng Maphisa · Published August 23, 2022 · Updated August 23, 2022

Photo: Cathopic

In Genesis 39:4, we read: “He made him Lord of His household and prince over all his possessions.” These are the triumphant words which may apply to Joseph, a wise, just and humble man. And yet, strangely, until the recent year dedicated to him by Pope Francis, the chaste spouse of the Immaculate Heart of Mary so often had been ignored and forgotten.

But I put forward, in chorus with many others, that ours is an age that is in much need of devotion to St Joseph. Our frailties have brought us to a weighted sack of griminesss that is our lives, our sins and our very hearts. May the winds of courage make haste towards us, so that blessed St Joseph, by the virtue of His name, will increase the grace of God in us.

Isn’t it true that many a holy matrimony left its sanctity at the altar? Weary must be the divine head of Jesus who in mercy imparts his grace to those seeking to be united in marriage. As quickly as they race to find rings, so quickly do they abandon his grace.

Are we not in agony from witnessing these unions, so solemnly blessed, decaying to dust in the marriage bed? It is through the example of St Joseph that the sacredness of marriage can once again be made visible.

Let us contemplate the ceaseless streams of virtue needed to be married to a woman without sin and bearing in her womb the Messiah. May God the Father, in his love for humanity, impart to all husbands the grace to be attentive to his divine word, that they may lead their brides in the wisdom of God. Bright will be the day when a husband discerns that what dwells within her is not the fruit of copulation but the seed of the Holy Spirit.

Patron of the Dying

This vicious plague, this haunting tempest ruling over us and bringing the chill of death, should summon us to the heart of St Joseph who breathed his last in the arms of Jesus and Mary.

Let us not deceive ourselves that by the consumption of copious pills we can defeat death. One laments how this world makes us foolish and brings us to place our trust in earthly beings. It is in that final hour, in that last battle of the soul, that we need the intercession of our spiritual father. If St Joseph was sufficient for Jesus, why would he not be sufficient for us?

In that last moment, the devil, knowing the many ways in which we have stumbled, seeks to accuse us once again and to take us for himself. May St Joseph defend us that we may receive a merciful judgement. Then shall death not kill us but bring us to life itself.

Terror of Demons

With the Christ child and with the Blessed Virgin Mary at his side, Joseph fled to Egypt, so that the infant Jesus might escape the bloodlust of Herod. In this sacred procession of the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus, many demons were driven out. As he did it then, so can he do it now.

Aren’t our lives filled with shadows hiding snares? Are our vices not worsened by things which we cannot see nor understand? Let us then, as pharaoh did to another Joseph, entrust ourselves to St Joseph. Let us go to him, the increaser, that our virtue may be rich. Call upon him to be Lord over your household and prince over all your possessions.

Published in the July 2022 issue of The Southern Cross magazine