YEAR OF JOSEPH

Pope Francis issued a decree on December 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, dedicating the year following, until the same date in 2021, as a “Year of St. Joseph” in observance of the 150th anniversary of the declaration of St. Joseph as the Universal Patron of the Church by Blessed Pope Pius IX. The Holy Father remarks in the Apostolic Letter announcing the occasion, Patris Corde (“With a Loving Heart”), that after our Blessed Mother Mary, no saint is mentioned more frequently in the papal magisterium than St. Joseph.

Pope Francis gives the reason for deciding to dedicate the year to St. Joseph: “My desire to do so increased during these months of pandemic, when we experienced, amid the crisis, how ‘our lives are woven together and sustained by ordinary people, people often overlooked. People who do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines, or on the latest television show, yet in these very days are surely shaping the decisive events of our history. Doctors, nurses, storekeepers and supermarket workers, cleaning personnel, caregivers, transport workers, men and women working to provide essential services and public safety, volunteers, priests, men and women religious, and so very many others. They understood that no one is saved alone… How many people daily exercise patience and offer hope, taking care to spread not panic, but shared responsibility. How many fathers, mothers, grandparents and teachers are showing our children, in small everyday ways, how to accept and deal with a crisis by adjusting their routines, looking ahead and encouraging the practice of prayer. How many are praying, making sacrifices and interceding for the good of all’ (from the pope’s meditation on the pandemic on March 27, 2020). Each of us can discover in Joseph – the man who goes unnoticed, a daily, discreet and hidden presence – an intercessor, a support and a guide in times of trouble. Saint Joseph reminds us that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation. A word of recognition and of gratitude is due to them all.”

Pope Francis reminds us that “the proper mission of the saints is not only to obtain miracles and graces, but to intercede for us before God, like Abraham and Moses, and like Jesus, the “one mediator” (1 Tim 2:5), who is our “advocate” with the Father (1 Jn 2:1) and who “always lives to make intercession for [us]” (Heb 7:25; cf. Rom 8:34). The saints help all the faithful “to strive for the holiness and the perfection of their particular state of life” (Lumen Gentium 58). Their lives are concrete proof that it is possible to put the Gospel into practice.” For this reason, the Holy Father tells us that “We need only ask Saint Joseph for the grace of graces: our conversion” and he offers a prayer:

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. 

FATHER SCOTT