Description
This collection of the most beautiful texts composed by saints and other holy authors about St. Joseph, Guardian and Head of the Holy Family, will help you to learn more about the powerful intercession and the glories of this heavenly patron whom the Holy Catholic Church delights in calling her Universal Protector.
Discover in this work a series of considerations about St. Joseph for each day of the month, accompanied by stories of favors obtained through his intercession. Here you will find practical pointers and prayers for each day, which will be a great help for your progress in the spiritual life.
St. Joseph is the descendant of David whom God chose as a husband for Mary and as a putative father for the Infant Jesus. Assuring a husband for the Virgin Mother, God preserved the honor of Mary while keeping secret the virginal conception of Mary. Saint Joseph also had the role of supporting the material need of the Holy Family by his work as a carpenter. For this reason as well he is called the Foster Father of the Infant Jesus. The blessed Virgin Mary herself put it merely: “Your Father and I were seeking you” (Lc 2, 48). In the Old Testament, Patriarch Joseph, son of Jacob, is an image of St. Joseph, the husband of Mary.
Devotion to Saint Joseph is fairly recent in the Catholic Church. Saint Francis de Sales had a great devotion to this saint, but for the development of this devotion we owe a great deal to Saint Teresa of Avila.
“I took as my lawyer and patron the glorious Saint Joseph, and I strongly recommended me to him, and his assistance procured me more goods than I could ask of him, and I do not remember ever having made a petition to him that he had not answered. This is a marvelous thing to think at: the innumerable and wonderful graces which God have favored me through his intercession. The others saints seem to have received from God the power to assist us in a special necessity, but this glorious saint, I know by experience, assists us in all our needs. ” (Saint Teresa of Avila)
