Saint Joseph, Our Catholic Treasure:
The 5 Motivations
for Devotion
MOTIVES
FOR DEVOTION TO SAINT JOSEPH
Excerpted From
Devotion to St.
Joseph,
Rev. Fr. Joseph
Anthony Patrignani,
SJ,
Translated from
the French; Approved
by
the Archbishop of
New York, 1887
Christians
will do well to turn to Saint Joseph:
On March 19, 1905, the Saint told the Breton Stigmatist, Marie-Julie
Jahenny,
speaking of the coming chastisement, after announcing that the
punishments
will be increased because no notice was taken of the warnings of Our
Lady
of Salette, added: "Ah, I am invoked very little ... And yet, I come
immediately after Jesus and Mary, Who take pleasure in keeping their
treasures
at my disposition ... And note well, I have more pleasure in granting
your request than you have of having them granted ... Why? Yes, why do
you invoke me so little? ... "
----Marie-Julie
Jahenny: THE BRETON STIGMATIST,
Marquis de la
Franquerie
1
Principal Motive
for Devotion to
St. Joseph------The
Example of Jesus Christ Himself.
When Jesus Christ, while hanging on the Cross,
said to His blessed Mother, pointing at the same time to St. John the
Apostle,
"Woman, behold thy son . . . Behold thy mother." [John 19: 26, 27], He
intended to place all the human race under her protection in the person
of the beloved disciple, who then, says St. Bernardine of Sienna,
represented
all the elect. In like manner, we may believe that the Eternal Father,
in appointing St. Joseph, in his capacity of Head of the Holy Family,
to
guide and protect Jesus and Mary during the flight into Egypt, to watch
over and provide for them, designed to place all men under his fatherly
care, and to inspire them with veneration for a Saint to whom He
confided
the most precious trust---the
Savior of the World, the Incarnate Word, the Source of all Delights,
and
the Center of all the Riches of Paradise. This motive alone suffices to
inspire us with a tender devotion to St. Joseph; but a still more
powerful
one is the example which the Son of the Most High has given us.
The whole life of
the Savior is a perfect, or
to speak more properly, a Divine model proposed to our imitation. "For
I have given you an example, " said He, "that as I have done to you, so
you do also." [St. John, 13: 15.] Now let us consider the example
that He has left us regarding the honor we should pay to St. Joseph.
Jesus was the
first among men to honor him; He
saw in this holy patriarch the representative of the Eternal Father,
Who
had made him His guardian upon earth; therefore He always considered
him
as a father; and had He really been his son, He could not have shown
him
greater respect.
Already,
Christian reader, I imagine that I see
in your heart a pious and eager desire, urging you to inquire more
particularly
into the manner in which Jesus honored St. Joseph; but how can I
satisfy
you when you ask me to reveal to you actions with which the Holy Ghost
has not seen fit to acquaint us? St. Luke, the depository of the
secrets
of the Incarnate Word, and the privileged historian of the mysteries of
His Divine Infancy, includes all that the Man-God did from His twelfth
to His thirtieth year in these three words: Erat subditus illis.
He was subject to them. What! has the Son of God, during the space of
eighteen
years, done nothing great or mysterious to serve us as a lesson? To say
so would be impious. Or, had the Evangelist no circumstantial
information
concerning the private life of Jesus during the many years He passed at
Nazareth? Was it not at the school of the Blessed Virgin, so to speak,
that the sacred writer learned all that he had to recount? Was it not
from
the lips of Mary herself that he drew the smallest details concerning
the
birth of the Savior in a stable, the adoration of the shepherds, the
canticle
of the Angelic Host, and a thousand other particulars relative to the
mystery
of the Incarnation, on which account many authors have not hesitated to
call him the Secretary of the Blessed Virgin? Since, therefore, St.
Luke,
the faithful historian, sums up all that our Savior did during the
greater
part of His life in these three words, He was subject to them, it
follows
thence that Jesus obeyed Mary and Joseph so perfectly that, although He
performed an infinity of heroic acts of piety, humility, patience,
zeal,
and all other virtues, yet He seems, nevertheless, to have had no other
occupation than to do the will of His parents; for which reason,
doubtless,
He wished that His obedience alone should be chronicled in the Gospel,
regarding it as an act at once the most noble, most glorious, and most
worthy of the Incarnate Word.
But the obedience
of Jesus presupposes a right
in the person who commands Him: therefore, in the words just cited, we
find both the abridgment of the life of the Son of God, and also that
of
St. Joseph. What, then, were the acts of Joseph during the eighteen
years
he lived with Jesus at Nazareth? All is comprised in three words: He
commanded
Jesus. He had a perfect right to do so, since, being the head of the
family,
it was his duty to govern it. Mary, doubtless, ruled over Him in her
character
of Mother, but the husband having the principal authority over the
children,
Jesus, Who saw Joseph invested with that authority, practiced special
obedience
to him. This is the opinion of two great theologians, St. Thomas and
Peter
d' Ailly. Let us here address ourselves to the heavenly hosts, and ask
them if they were not often filled with admiration at the sight of the
Infant-God, during His sojourn at Nazareth? Whether, speaking or
acting,
eating or reposing, He was ever submissive to the will of St. Joseph?
But
tell us, blessed spirits, which most excited your wonder and
admiration---the
humility of Jesus in obeying St. Joseph, or the dignity of St. Joseph
in
commanding Jesus? When the just Noah saw the ark resting on the top of
Mt. Ararat, in Armenia, he needed no further measure to enable him to
estimate
the prodigious height of the waters of the deluge. In like manner
Gerson,
that devout servant of St. Joseph, finds in the profound abasement of
Jesus
obeying the holy patriarch, the measure of our Saint's true dignity.
The
latter rises in proportion as the former humbles Himself, so that if
the
submission of Jesus attests His incomparable humility, it also proves
the
eminent dignity of St. Joseph.
Thus all the acts
of submission practiced by the
Son of God, in His obedience to St. Joseph, were so many steps of glory
for the latter.
. . . We have a
right to add, that our Divine
Savior, in thus honoring Joseph as His father, wished doubtless to
leave
to His great family, the Church, a striking example, which should teach
her to pay Joseph special homage as the head of the Holy Family; had
Jesus
Christ submitted but for one hour only to the directions and orders of
Joseph, it would have been sufficient to render that holy patriarch
venerable
among all the Saints; but how much more should he not be honored after
Jesus has consented to be subject to him during so many years! Brought
up, fed, and protected by St. Joseph for more than twenty-five years,
could
the Divine Savior wish otherwise than that all Christians should
endeavor
to acknowledge by particular homage the long and faithful services
which
that good father rendered to His adorable person?
Continued forward
for Motivation 2.
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