The Cultus of Joseph in Later Times

“Joseph is a growing son, a growing son.”¹ Such was the prophetic benediction pronounced upon the ancient Joseph, the type of the second, by his father Jacob. This prediction, fulfilled in the temporal order in the case of the patriarch Joseph, has been spiritually accomplished, after a striking manner, in his antitype, our great Patron. The process of growth is sometimes slow and imperceptible, sometimes more rapid, and in that of plants is preceded by a season when the germination is occult and vitality seems to be suspended, and, to outward appearance, even extinct. And so we have seen it, in a measure, as respects devotion to our Joseph. It had its hidden and inactive season and its slow expansion. Some of the secondary causes which, under the superintending Providence of God and the guidance of His Spirit in the Church, operated in producing this retardment, have been briefly noticed. They offer an intelligible and, to a great degree, a satisfactory explanation of it, but it becomes more difficult to account for the subsequent rapid and extraordinary development and extension of this devotion in the same manner, namely, by the consideration of secondary causes. True it is that it pleased God to raise up holy and eloquent champions of St. Joseph’s claims, yet they would have been like voices crying in the wilderness, or would have produced only a partial and temporary effect, but for the Spirit of God breathing in the hearts of the faithful, and preparing them, like touchwood, to take fire and kindle into flame.

The voice of the Holy Ghost makes itself heard in the Church in divers ways. First and foremost, He speaks by the infallible voice of Peter, defining and proclaiming a doctrine ex cathedrâ, either singly or with the concurrence of the Bishops assembled in Council. Again, He often makes His voice heard through these same Princes of the Church, though not with infallible authority until confirmed by the Sovereign Pontiff. And, again, He speaks through the body of the faithful, lay as well as clerical. How often we have seen the first movement making itself felt from below, welling up, growing in volume, and increasing in extent, and so ascending to the highest ranks, both of laity and clergy, until the final decision of Rome came to put the seal on what was thus plainly shown to be the will of the Holy Ghost. A comparison, or illustration on a smaller scale, may be drawn from what has occurred occasionally in past times in the election of bishops and other superiors in the Church. There would seem to have been no deliberation concerning the persons most eligible for such office among those on whose suffrage the choice rested, but, without being able to say whence the impulse came, or under what impression they concurrently acted, and without regard to prescribed forms, all with one united voice have combined in the same election. “The Spirit breatheth where He will, and thou hearest His voice, but thou knowest not whence He cometh.”²

Something analogous may be observed in the wonderful movement and development of devotion to St. Joseph during the last centuries, a movement and a development which have gone on increasing in intensity, and are continuing to increase from day to day. Truly the growth is now like that of tropical vegetation in its rapidity, or, rather, it is much more marvelous, fed by an occult power, as was Jonas’s ivy, which sprang up in a night to shelter his head from the burning Asiatic sun. Joseph is become, indeed, our acknowledged shield and protector, as he was the shield and protector of Jesus and Mary when on earth. He hides us under the shadow of his patronage, tempering and guarding us from the scorching rays of adversity and the fire of temptation. And this protecting tree, which has so marvelously grown and flourished in these latter days, has no worm at its root to destroy it as had Jonas’s, but will prosper and extend its branches more and more; for it is the tree “planted near the running waters”.³ “Joseph is a growing son, a growing son by the fountain.”⁴

It is to the honor of their Order that “the Fathers of Carmel, according to the general opinion of the learned,” as Benedict XIV. observes, “were the first to import from the East into the West the laudable practice of giving the fullest cultus to St. Joseph”;⁵ which words must, certainly, be taken in the mouth of this great Pontiff to imply a more than ordinary honor, an honor superior to that which was given to other saints. For Benedict XIV. lived in the first half of the 18th century, when the veil which had obscured the resplendent glories of Joseph had been drawn aside; the reasons which had accounted for his quasi-obscurity no longer existed and, indeed, had long ceased to exist. That such there had been Benedict XIV. appears to admit, when he says that it is evident that there was now nothing to form an obstacle to the amplification of the cultus of St. Joseph, particularly after the large concessions made by the Roman Pontiffs in favor of its amplification.⁶ The Carmelites, then, were the first to honor St. Joseph by a special office in Europe. If they possessed a more ancient one while they were in Syria, it seems to have subsequently fallen into disuse and been forgotten. Nevertheless, devotion to this great saint, to the revival and increase of which their illustrious reformatrix, St. Teresa, was in after centuries to contribute so largely, and which the sons of Elias originally transplanted from Carmel, although it may have languished for a time, cannot have died out; for from them it would seem the Franciscans acquired it, and also the Dominicans. The Seraphic Order of St. Francis of Assisi was among the first to fix eyes of affectionate homage on Joseph. Every sympathy of their holy founder’s heart, who so loved Jesus and Mary, and was so great a worshiper of poverty and humility, must have drawn him to cherish and promote that devotion, and to place the most unbounded filial confidence in the great exemplar of these virtues. The Franciscan legends, indeed, are full of marvelous instances of the Saint’s miraculous protection extended to the brethren of their Order.

These two religious families, then, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, began even as early as the 14th century to cultivate devotion to Joseph. They were both of them soon to furnish splendid champions of the Saint’s high claims and prerogatives; but the first to raise aloft his standard and proclaim him as the most powerful Patron to guard and to save the Church from the perils into which the great schism had plunged it, was a son of Catholic France, the celebrated Gerson. His name was Jean Charlier, but he was called Gerson from the village where he was born, in the diocese of Rheims, A.D. 1363. At the age of thirty-two he had already attained the distinction of Canon and Doctor of Sorbonne and of Chancellor of the Church and University of Paris.⁷ In 1414 he was sent as ambassador of Charles VI., King of France, to the Council of Constance, where he used all his endeavors to bring about the extinction of the schism; for there were at that time no less than three claimants to the chair of Peter. Gerson, for this end, had a weapon in his quiver of the potency of which he had no doubt. This eminent man had imbibed sentiments of the deepest devotion for St. Joseph from his master, Pierre d’Ailly, Cardinal of Cambrai, who, writing on the prerogatives of the Saint, had said that he esteemed him worthy of the greatest veneration among men and as deserving to have his festivals celebrated with the utmost solemnity, seeing that the King of kings Himself had been pleased to honor him so highly.⁸ His disciple, the famous Chancellor, had taken up the same cause with all the fervor of his heart and all the vigor of his powerful intellect. He employed the great influence which his learning and high position gave him in many quarters for its promotion; he appealed to doctors, to ecclesiastics, and even kings and princes, to engage them to join with him in procuring the establishment of this devotion; he even wrote a poem in honor of the Saint. But all this was surpassed by what he was moved to do, as we may well believe, by a special impulse of the Spirit of God, when preaching before the Council. To proffer advice on so high a matter to all the Bishops of Holy Church assembled in council required, indeed, no ordinary boldness. The sermon, moreover, which he was appointed to preach and to which such frequent allusion has been made, did not directly embrace the subject on which he was led to enlarge. His sermon was on the Nativity of our Blessed Lady. Yet, leaving his immediate topic, he devoted three parts of his discourse to a splendid laudation of St. Joseph and an exposition of his supereminent prerogatives. Of the Saint’s power of intercession Gerson uses these striking words: “He does not entreat, he commands—Non impetrat, sed imperat”. And these very words were addressed to the assembled Princes of the Church, who heard and approved. Such, then, being the position and power of Joseph, Gerson believed that, in order to put an end to the schism and restore peace to the Church, solemn honors ought to be decreed to him. “If for such an end,” he said, “that is, to obtain peace for the Catholic Church, it may seem good to this most holy Synod to institute something to the praise and honor of the virgin spouse of Mary, which honor shall redound to her and to Him who was born of her, Christ Jesus, let your enlightened devotion, blessed Fathers, consider.”⁹

The Franciscans and Dominicans, as we have said, were soon to furnish ardent promoters of St. Joseph’s honor. St. Bernardine of Siena, one of the glories of the Seraphic Order, was born, in 1383, at Massa Carrara. This great lover of Jesus could not but be most devout to Mary and Joseph. Upon the latter he composed a discourse, to which frequent reference has been made, and delivered it, not only at Padua and Bologna where he chiefly made his abode, but in many other cities of Italy which he visited, striving to calm the dissensions between the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Here we find him employing Gerson’s weapon. It was by magnifying Joseph that peace was to be sought. Everywhere he exalted the glory of the Saint, maintaining that he was sanctified in his mother’s womb, setting forth his dignity as the virgin spouse of Mary and foster-father of Jesus, and asserting that he had been assumed into Heaven in body as well as soul. It was while declaring this prerogative of Joseph from the pulpit at Padua, that a golden cross (as has been related) was seen to shine over his head; of which we possess the sure testimony of the pious Bernardine de Bustis, his brother Franciscan, who was also a fervent advocate of St. Joseph’s honor and of devotion to the Holy Name, of which St. Bernardine of Siena was the great apostle.¹⁰

To St. Bernardine succeeded, in the commencement of the sixteenth century, Isidoro Isolano, a native of Milan and a highly distinguished member of the Dominican Order. His work on the Gifts of St. Joseph, to which frequent allusion has been made, contains almost prophetic announcements of the future glorification of our saint, one of which has been already noticed. The Dominicans, in fact, vied with the Franciscans in striving to establish the glory of St. Joseph. Albert the Great had even in the thirteenth century composed an office in his honor, which was not, however, generally adopted. Later on P. Gaetan, General of the Friars Preachers, commissioned P. Isidoro Isolano to compose a new office, which contributed powerfully to promote the cultus of the Saint in the Order. Isolano must, indeed, be reckoned among the foremost who labored to lay open to the world the heart of Joseph, so full of graces and merits, but as yet so little known, save to a restricted number of persons, chiefly belonging to the religious orders, which all more or less distinguished themselves by their devotion to the holy Patriarch.

Meanwhile in Spain she who merits to be called, not a star only, but the sun of Carmel, had already risen on the horizon of the Church. Teresa of Jesus, born at Avila in Old Castile in 1515, had from her youth up conceived a tender devotion to St. Joseph, greatly strengthened by her recovery through his intercession from a protracted illness, which had baffled the skill of the physicians. She took him as her special patron and protector, and, when she joined the Carmelite Order, she seemed altogether imbued with this devotion, which may be said to be its inheritance, however much neglected and forgotten it had been; and so ardently did she exert herself for its propagation, that many who have not given much attention to the efforts made in the previous century, and particularly to those of the learned and devout Chancellor, Gerson, have attributed its revival solely to her influence. It is true, indeed, to say that none contributed so effectually as did St. Teresa to make the love of St. Joseph take possession of the hearts of the great body of the faithful, and in this we may, possibly, see a special divine dispensation. Jesus Christ did not will that His Gospel should be published by crowned heads, or by doctors of deep erudition, in order that the foundation of the Church might be attributed to Divine Omnipotence alone. For the same reason He would not propagate the glory of His foster-father and move the whole world to love and honor him by means of the credit and reputation of one of the greatest and most learned of men. No doubt, he and others who labored with him and after him have been richly rewarded in Heaven, but they were not to reap the full fruit on earth which might have been expected. Our Lord chose for this end a simple virgin, in order to manifest more clearly that this was the work of His own hand, and that devotion to Joseph was the inspiration of His Spirit. Such, at least, was the opinion of P. Patrignani.¹¹ As it was the Queen of Virgins who manifested to the Jews of old the high and excellent qualities of the Saint by taking him as her spouse, it was also, seemingly, well fitting that one of the most eminent and marvelous virgins who was ever seen upon earth, the seraphic St. Teresa, should take this same saint for her special protector and move all the children of the Church to venerate and love him. Or, rather, we might say, by making use of a simple maiden to stir up the piety of the faithful, the Lord desired the world to be persuaded that it was He Himself who had enlightened the eyes and touched the hearts of Christians in an extraordinary and altogether divine manner to gain them to St. Joseph.

This devotion has established itself among Christians very much after the manner in which some new points of faith have been ruled by the Church, or some changes in discipline have been brought about and practices of piety have been authorized by her. The faith of the Church has always been the same substantially and in principle, although, with the progress of time, it has been more clearly formulated by explanation and expansion of its articles. The faithful were not in the beginning acquainted in detail with all the truths contained in the Canonical Books, but as time went on it pleased the Spirit of God to enlighten their minds to discern the inner meanings of His word, and thus to acquire a perception of dogmas of which they had previously possessed only a scant and imperfect knowledge. Such also has been the commencement of the extraordinary love which the Church now manifests to St. Joseph. From its very foundation it undoubtedly held that he was perfectly just, the true spouse of Mary, and the worthy father of Jesus, and esteemed him to be a great saint, neither has it ever failed in the essential of the devotion due to him. But it is true also that sentiments of piety towards him and veneration for his dignity have very much increased in later times; for, meditating on what Revelation teaches concerning Joseph, and on what the Fathers in all ages have written of him, men have discovered in him a fund of merit which they had hitherto only dimly perceived, and have examined with more attention the great obligations we owe to him, in which they had not been fully instructed, or by which their hearts had not previously been so vividly touched. It was the work of the Holy Ghost, and in the sixteenth century St. Teresa was His most powerful instrument for its furtherance. That century saw the rise and progress of the Protestant (so called) Reformation. Joseph was needed, for the days were “dark and calamitous,” when God (as F. Faber says) is wont to bestow His gifts; devotion to Joseph was needed, and the religious instincts of the faithful were drawn to embrace, and, as it were, seize upon it as soon as it was presented to them. Of the seventeen monasteries, both of men and women, which St. Teresa founded, twelve were dedicated to St. Joseph, and every inmate of those houses was an ardent lover of the Saint, every religious a preacher of his glories, every nun a zealous promoter of his honor. Throughout every province of Spain and Portugal the fire which St. Teresa had kindled spread rapidly. Each Carmelite convent was a center whence it radiated, and it was not long before her daughters had crossed the Pyrenees and were accomplishing the same work in France and Belgium. Teresa’s personal influence, her sanctity, and her writings gave a wonderful impetus to the devotion, which manifested itself in the number of books which now appeared—Lives of the Saint, sermons, panegyrics, manuals of devotion, poems in his honor—all magnifying his virtues, prerogatives, and singular glories, the assured advantages of his protection, and the marvelous power of his intercession. To this St. Teresa had already given a testimony familiar to most Catholics, but which we must not omit to quote. “I cannot,” she says, “call to mind that I have ever asked him at any time for anything which he has not granted; and I am filled with amazement when I consider the great favors which God hath given me through this blessed saint; the dangers from which he hath delivered me, both of body and soul. To other saints our Lord seems to have given grace to succor men in some special necessity; but to this glorious saint grace, as I know by experience, to help us in all. And our Lord would have us to understand that, as He was Himself subject to him upon earth—for, having the title of father and being His guardian, Joseph could command Him—so now in Heaven He does whatever he asks. Many persons whom I have recommended to have recourse to him have known this by experience; and many already devout to him have had fresh evidence of this truth.”¹²

The learned Echius had already recorded his conviction that whatever Joseph might ask for us of Jesus or Mary, it was impossible that he could meet with a refusal; and Bernardine de Bustis expresses the same sentiment. Giovanni Cartagena maintains that Joseph has a quasi-right to obtain what he asks, a right founded on the position he occupied in the Holy Family upon earth, and the services he rendered to the Divine Infant and His Blessed Mother. Many similar testimonies to the claims of Joseph and the power of his intercession, of which St. Teresa has bequeathed to us her personal experience, might be cited. But enough, perhaps, have been given. God’s time had come for “this dear devotion,” as F. Faber calls it. An electric current seemed to circulate through the hearts of the faithful in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, and not through Europe only, but wherever Christians were to be found. The following passage from F. Faber’s work on the Blessed Sacrament gives a concise summary of the extension of this devotion to every country and clime and its diffusion through every class. “Gerson was raised up to be its doctor and theologian, and St. Teresa to be its saint, and St. Francis of Sales to be its popular leader and missioner. The houses of Carmel were like the Holy House of Nazareth to it, and the colleges of the Jesuits its peaceful sojourns in dark Egypt. The contemplative took it up, and fed upon it; the active laid hold of it, and nursed the sick and fed the hungry in its name. The working people fastened on it, for both the saint and his devotion were of them. The young were drawn to it and it made them pure, the aged rested on it, for it made them peaceful. St. Sulpice took it and it became the spirit of the Secular Clergy.¹³ And when the great Society of Jesus had taken refuge in the Sacred Heart, and the Fathers of the Sacred Heart were keeping their lamps burning ready for the resurrection of the Society, devotion to St. Joseph was their stay and their consolation, and they cast the seeds of a new devotion, to the Heart of Joseph, which will some day flourish and abound. So it gathered into itself orders and congregations, high and low, young and old, ecclesiastical and lay, schools and confraternities, hospitals, orphanages, and penitentiaries, everywhere holding up Jesus, everywhere hand in hand with Mary, everywhere the refreshing shadow of the Eternal Father. Then, when it had filled Europe with its odor, it went over the Atlantic, plunged into the damp umbrage of the back-woods, embraced all Canada, became a mighty missionary power, and tens of thousands of savages filled the forests and the rolling prairies at sun-down with hymns to St. Joseph, the praises of the foster-father of our Lord.”¹⁴

The Sovereign Pontiffs responded to the united supplications of the faithful, and proceeded to decree solemn public honors to St. Joseph. We shall not attempt to enumerate these concessions, the most important of which have been recorded by Benedict XIV. as having been made up to the time of his Pontificate in the middle of the 18th century, and must content ourselves with a very brief notice of the principal. The feast of his transit on the 19th of March takes the precedence. We have seen that in Gerson’s time it was only locally and partially observed. In 1481 Sixtus IV. appointed it to be kept by the whole Church, and in 1621 Gregory XV. raised it to the dignity of a festival of obligation, with abstention from servile work. The next remarkable concession was the extension of the Office of St. Joseph to the whole Church, and its elevation to a double of the second class, having the addition of proper hymns in Vespers, Matins, and Lauds, with its antiphons, versicles, and lessons taken from the 39th and 41st Chapters of Genesis, commemorating the wisdom and felicity of the ancient patriarch, who typified the foster-father of Jesus. This elevation to a double of the second class, with the addition of the hymns, &c., was due to the entreaties of a venerable servant of God, Sister Clara Maria of the Passion, one of the noble house of Colonna, who, having joined the Carmelites of St. Teresa, was filled with the zeal of her holy mother and labored energetically to obtain an increase of honor to St. Joseph. The lessons of the first Nocturn, the chapters, antiphons, and responsories, taken for the most part out of the New Testament, were composed by Pope Clement XI., and by his authority added, on the 3rd of February, 1714, to the Office, which had already been extended to the whole Church. The beautiful hymn, Te Joseph celebrent, with the other two at Matins and Lauds, is attributed to Pope Clement X., who was also most devout to St. Joseph.

The next important addition to the public honor of our saint is the Proper Office for the feasts of the Espousals of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, accorded first to various religious orders, dioceses, and provinces, and ultimately extended to the whole Church. Gerson, who had been very urgent for the establishment of this feast, composed an office for it, which seems to have been only partially used. Permission, however, after his time was granted by Paul III. to the Franciscans, and also subsequently to other religious orders, to celebrate the feast, using the Office of the Nativity, but substituting the word Espousals for Nativity. They kept it on various days. The same Pope commissioned an eminent Dominican, Pietro Aurato, to compose a proper office for the feast, which was adopted; and, finally, on the 22nd of August, 1725, Benedict XIII. conceded this office to the States of the Church and to the kingdoms which had solicited it, fixing its celebration universally for the 23rd of January. The last concession recorded by Benedict XIV. was the insertion of St. Joseph in the Litanies, which has been already noticed.

But this was not to close the series. “Joseph is a growing son.” The conviction of his power and will to succor the afflicted and the desire for his aid and patronage had been springing up and increasing in the Church, and the more so as the calamities of the times thickened and threatened around her. A voice seemed to make itself heard saying, “Go to Joseph”. It was that same Order of St. Teresa, ever singularly devout to the Saint, which took the lead in placing itself under his patronage. In the General Chapter held in 1621, the glorious St. Joseph was unanimously chosen as the patron or father of the whole Reformed Order of the Carmelites. An office was afterwards composed for him, and, with the Church’s approbation, in 1689, the feast began to be celebrated under the title of the Patronage of St. Joseph on the third Sunday after Easter. It was generally observed throughout Spain in 1735. Every religious community, every order, every diocese, not to say well-nigh every kingdom, was now seized with a desire to enjoy a like privilege, and place itself under the special patronage of the Saint. The Venetian State was the first that received an indult to this effect from the Holy See, which favor was successively granted to other States as well as Churches at their request. These requests were by no means limited to Europe. Allusion has already been made to the great devotion to St. Joseph which had been propagated in the New World. Mexico took a leading part in promoting it, and a Provincial Synod of New Spain had already, in 1555, chosen St. Joseph as the general patron of that Archiepiscopate and province, and ordered his feast to be observed; but, earlier still, P. Antonio Paredes says the first provincial council had chosen the Saint as patron of the then rising Church. Nowhere, therefore, was the Apostolic indult welcomed with greater joy, and nowhere was the feast observed with greater solemnity.¹⁵ Finally, the immortal Pontiff Pius IX. had scarcely ascended the Pontifical throne when, moved, as he declared, both by the example of his predecessors and by the special devotion which from his youth he had ever entertained for this great Patriarch, on the 10th September, 1847, he joyfully¹⁶ extended to the whole Church the feast of the Patronage of St. Joseph as a double of the first class. St. Joseph was now universally honored by three great feasts, and, with regard to the last, the Patronage, it is evident that the Church desired to mark the lofty opinion she entertained of the efficacy of his intercession, since of two only does she universally celebrate the Patronage, and that also with their own proper Mass and Office, those of Mary and Joseph. Pius IX. did not cease in his frequent Allocutions to recommend to all the most tender devotion to St. Joseph next to Mary; and on the 9th of June, 1862, in his Allocution on the Canonization of the Japanese Martyrs, after having urged all the Bishops to encourage in their respective dioceses devotion to the Saint, on proceeding to implore the divine aid, immediately after the invocation of the Ever-Blessed Virgin he invoked St. Joseph before SS. Peter and Paul. This was the first time that the change was made, and it was significant, as differing from the practice of his predecessors.

But this was not all. It is very remarkable how in all her pressing needs and calamities, the eyes of the Church have ever turned to this great saint, and a desire has been enkindled in the hearts of many to do him honor as a means of obtaining peace. It was the plea urged, as we have seen, by the Chancellor Gerson at the time of the great schism; and again, a century later, when Europe was menaced from without by the increasing Ottoman power and inwardly torn by the Lutheran heresy, the learned and pious Dominican, Isidoro Isolano, was moved to lay his work on the Gifts of St. Joseph at the feet of Adrian VI. in 1522. Believing, as he said, on no light grounds that the most holy prayers of Joseph would restore peace, he besought the Vicar of Christ to institute feasts in his honor, to be observed with much veneration throughout the Church. And elsewhere, in his work, he had said, with a kind of inspired prescience, “The Lord for Himself and for the glory of His Name raised St. Joseph to be the head and special patron of the kingdom of the Church militant”.¹⁷ In the same century, that fervent advocate of the power of Joseph, Teresa of Jesus, never ceased to the day of her death to hold him forth as our most powerful protector, especially in the great necessities of the Church. Such were the feelings and such was the language of the learned and the holy in all the latter ages of the Church with regard to Joseph, but the time had not yet come for his glorification as its Universal Patron. It was reserved for the days of tribulation which marked the Pontificate of Pius IX.; and may we not believe that Mary hastened the day? Pius IX. had defined her Immaculate Conception as an article of the faith on the ever-memorable 8th of December in the year 1854, and Catholics had hoped that now peace was at hand, and the days foretold by the Blessed Grignon de Montfort, and called by F. Faber “the age of Mary,” were about to dawn; a season of triumph and a happy breathing-time to the Church before the last terrible persecution and the coming of Antichrist. But it was not to be so yet; and Canon Vitali entertains the pleasing and pious belief that Mary wished to share her glory with her spouse, and that to the mediation of Joseph, as well as her own, should the restored peace of the Church be attributed, and so she stirred the hearts of the faithful to turn to their Bishops, and the hearts of the Bishops to turn to the Vicar of Christ, and warmly entreat him to deign solemnly to declare the Patriarch St. Joseph Patron of the whole Catholic Church. Many of them now addressed petitions to the Holy Father, submitting for his consideration most learned and solid reasons; and fully did the Pontiff’s heart respond to their desire. Accordingly, when the whole body, gathered round him in the great Vatican Council, unanimously renewed their request, Pius IX., who to his fervent zeal for the glories of Mary had ever united a most tender and affectionate regard for the glories of Joseph, moved by the Spirit of God, made no delay in satisfying the ardent aspirations of the whole Episcopate.¹⁸ Thus, in the calamitous year, 1870, he declared the glorious St. Joseph Patron of the Universal Church, and caused the decree to be promulgated by the Congregation of Rites on the 8th of December, a day sacred to the Immaculate Virgin. By this decree Joseph’s feast of March the 19th was raised to a double of the first class.

We are constrained, as heretofore, to omit many other concessions to the Saint’s honor, as well as to forego the slightest attempt to notice the ever-increasing love and veneration with which he has continued to be regarded, and its exhibition in a thousand ways. It would require a volume by itself to undertake a history of that kind. By the Church’s authority the cultus of St. Joseph has now been so increased and exalted as to exceed very much all that is paid to any other saint, excepting only Mary. The Holy See has now also—not dogmatically, it is true, but virtually, we may say—declared the authority and dignity of Joseph to surpass that of any angel or saint; since, although many have been chosen as patrons of some city, diocese, or kingdom, none has been recognized as Universal Patron, save only Joseph. Nor let it be objected that the Archangel Michael was already the Patron and Guardian of the Church, for it is easy to see that he is not so in the comprehensive sense attributed to St. Joseph. St. Michael, as the vanquisher of Lucifer, is appointed to protect the Church against her fierce invisible foes, like some valiant general who, sword in hand, defends the frontier of the kingdom. He is not, like Joseph, a patron in the sense of having a paternal jurisdiction committed to him by God, who has made Joseph the minister of His court, both in the heavenly and the earthly Jerusalem. That St. Michael is not recognized by the Church as Universal Patron, in the full sense of the term, is proved, moreover, by the fact that his feast was never made one of general precept, or raised to be a double of the first class. The same may be said of the relative positions of St. Joseph and St. Michael as patrons of the suffering souls in Purgatory. The Church, then, has now by implication clearly declared the true position due to Joseph, namely, that next to Mary, his Immaculate Spouse.

After devotion to him had seemed to slumber for thirteen centuries, he began his ascent, and this delay and subsequent glorious development has been, as we have seen, in accordance with the designs of God in His Church. But it is impossible to find any parallel to this in the Church’s annals, and, in spite of all that can be said, it defies explanation by any mere natural causes. Devotion to other saints has arisen in the ordinary way, and has either diminished or increased as time went on from various concurrent circumstances. But not of one, after remaining in the shade for ages, can a similar marvel be recorded, even in the most reduced and limited proportions. The course followed by devotion to our great Patriarch has been in itself a miracle, yet a miracle such as is easy to Him who is described in Scripture as ludens in orbe terrarum,¹⁹ “disporting Himself on the globe of the earth”. Truly the divinely ordered process by which it has been brought about is worthy of our profoundest admiration. “The harmony of the Church’s devotions,” says a writer in the Dublin Review,²⁰ “springs from and is dependent upon the higher harmony of her doctrine, which in its turn is interpenetrated and influenced by the former; for, just as dogmatic definitions are the expressions of the Church’s mind, so devotions are the expressions of the Church’s heart; and, although the heart is guided and ruled by the mind, yet the mind is ever influenced by the heart. This is why (to use the words of F. Faber) ‘the devotions of one age become the dogmas of another, as in the case of the Immaculate Conception; and the dogmas of one age become devotions in others, as it was with the mysteries of the Sacred Humanity and the Maternity of Mary. Thus time goes on, commuting dogma into doctrine and devotion into dogma by a double process continually. There is no safety in devotion if it be separated from dogma, though it may sometimes go before, and sometimes follow after.’”²¹ There is nothing parallel to this outside the living body of the Church, as the writer proceeds to point out. “This mutual harmony of doctrine and of devotion, which may very well be said to correspond with what St. Paul calls the ‘unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,’²² is the exclusive prerogative of the Catholic Church, and therefore a marvelous confirmation to every believer of her divine mission to mankind; for no mere human system could ever have succeeded in weaving together so many countless threads into one harmonious design, as are to be found in the perfect unity of the elaborate lacework of the Church’s definitions and devotions—we might even add, of her Ritual and Office. There is no harmony in false doctrine. The fragmentary Christianity which exists outside the unity of God’s Catholic Church has no beauty of proportion, no slow and sure growth or development, no variety of devotions springing out of and interlacing one another, yet always exactly corresponding with the wants of every age. It is but an orderless succession of distorted and unconnected doctrines, abortive efforts, and stunted growths.”

It does not enter into the necessarily limited scope of this work to describe the joy and exultation with which this definition of the Holy See was received, or its fruitful and splendid effects. There was joy also, doubtless, in Heaven at beholding the spouse of Mary beginning to receive the full honors which are his due. Now, if the Church, ruling and ruled, teaching and taught, combined in a movement so general, and with such a transport of fervor, which may truly be called the work of the Most High, in rendering these great honors to St. Joseph, who can any longer doubt—we are quoting Canon Vitali—the primacy of Joseph over all the saints and angels? Who can henceforth separate him from Mary’s side? Who can deny him a cultus, of dulia it is true, but superior to that which is paid to any of the Blessed?²³ Gerson’s celebrated master, Pierre d’Ailly, Cardinal of Cambrai, had written in his Treatise on St. Joseph that this saint must be highly glorified, for he had greatly humbled himself. Long years had our holy Patriarch been hidden in his profound humility, like a candle under a bushel, and had loved to remain so, but the time was come when he who humbled himself was to be exalted, and to be exalted in proportion to his humility. He was now to become the light set upon its candlestick to illuminate the whole Church with its beneficent rays. But if so, why has not the longed-for peace been granted? Of the power of Joseph’s intercession and of his good-will who can doubt? If the Queen of Heaven and her spouse are both raising their pure hands together in our behalf, why is the Church still left in so much tribulation, and her foes allowed to revile and trample on her? This may be—we again adopt Canon Vitali’s sentiments in preference to hazarding any surmise of our own—this may be either because great graces are only to be obtained by much and prolonged prayer; or, possibly, because the august Virgin, so solicitous for the honor of her holy spouse, desires to see him still more highly exalted in our hearts and minds, occupying his true post on earth as he does in Heaven. She desires that in our public, as in our private, devotions we should honor him inseparably united to herself. God joined him to her by an indissoluble virginal tie, and neither saint nor angel ought to separate them; that is, that throughout the world he should be placed next to her and be exalted above all without exception. Such was the prophetic anticipation of Isidoro Isolano, who, as early as 1522, wrote: “The hidden merits of Joseph shall be by degrees unveiled and made manifest to the whole world; and an inexhaustible treasure be revealed. The Vicar of Christ upon earth will command the feasts of the reputed father of Jesus and spouse of the Queen of the world to be celebrated to the utmost boundaries of the Kingdom of the Church militant. In the calendar of the saints the name of Joseph shall be sung at the head, not in the rear. Even as in Heaven he was ever above, so on earth he shall not be below.”²⁴ This prediction of the pious Dominican is already virtually fulfilled; it remains that it be literally so, and this great truth be declared matter of dogma.

All that in process of time has been formally defined by the Church was, as we know, already included in the deposit of faith. Joseph, as we noted at the time, became patron of the whole mystical Body of Christ from the moment that he was made patron and protector of Jesus and Mary. The less is included in the greater. The Eternal Father made him ruler over all His possessions when He committed these precious treasures to him. He gave him, it is true, a delegated, but by grace a real, jurisdiction and participation of his power, as Pharao gave to his ancient type; and these prerogatives he has not lost in Heaven, but (as St. Bernardine of Siena observes) the familiarity which subsisted between him and the Son of God on earth and the reverence He showed to him as His father are only perfected and consummated in glory. And the same must be said of Mary. No wonder, then, that his intercession should be more powerful than that of all the saints, Mary only excepted; and she shares all she has with him. He has access to all, and, if she is the channel of graces, Joseph is their steward. “Neither power nor goodness,” says Canon Vitali, “are wanting in Joseph; not power, for, being comprised in the order of the Hypostatic Union, being near to Jesus, and most near to Mary, he shares in some way the infinite goods of the one, and the quasi-infinite power of the other. Being, indeed, the most fortunate head of this Sacred Family, he can, in a certain manner, by the provision of the eternal counsel of God, generously dispose of the goods of both; and Jesus and Mary alike rejoice to place at his option and in his trust the dispensation of those heavenly graces which, for the infinite merits of Jesus and by the all-powerful intercession of Mary, are poured down in such abundance upon men.”

Let us join, then, in the pious Canon’s prayer, that the day may not be far distant when Joseph’s surpassing dignity shall be declared matter of faith, and that the Virgin’s wish that, after Jesus and herself, the primacy of St. Joseph over all the Blessed shall be proclaimed, even as his universal patronage has been proclaimed, may be speedily accomplished. It is impossible, when this honor is paid to Joseph and he is invoked by us with faith, that he should not save the Church from the emissaries of Satan, as he saved the Redeemer from the satellites of Herod.

The celebrated theologian, Matthias Navæus, wrote in 1630 thirty-one encomiums of St. Joseph, which he called a crown of thirty-one gems for the spouse of the Virgin. In his fifth prayer he exclaims, in the fervor of his zeal, that it appears quite unbefitting that the blessed Joseph should be invoked after St. John the Baptist or other later saints in the public offices and prayers. Nor let it be imagined that to give Joseph his post of honor next to Mary would be to depose the angels and St. John the Baptist. They would remain in their eminent glory precisely where they were. Honor in Heaven, being bestowed by God, is associated with the place He has chosen for the blessed one, be he angel or saint. There alone is his honorable post exclusively and inalienably his own. It is not as on earth, where honor is given conventionally and relatively, often by a false standard and as often withdrawn. It is real, essential honor. Therefore St. John the Baptist and the angels are not exalted by having Joseph placed beneath them, neither are they lowered by his occupying his proper post. His superior glory is no detriment in Heaven to their own; rather does it add to their radiance, even as the lower ranks of angelic spirits are illuminated by those above them. And if so, neither therefore does it detract from their honor in the Church upon earth, whose worship figures that of the Jerusalem above.

Joseph is a growing son. He will grow until he has attained his full measure and stature, and until the earthly Trinity, the shadow of the Ever-Blessed Trinity in Heaven, shall receive in all its members its adequate and predestined glory. All that remains owing to Joseph will be paid. The Holy Ghost will teach us what that may be, even as our Lord promised His disciples, when speaking of the Paraclete: “He shall receive of Mine and show it to you”.²⁵ But in order that Joseph may thus grow to his perfect stature on earth, he must grow in us. We must learn to know him intimately in order to unlock the treasures of merit and greatness laid up in him. That we may realize fully the transcendent dignity of Joseph, we must draw on the inexhaustible storehouse of Holy Scripture, and reflect on its hidden meanings, hidden to those who pass over its oracles without scrutiny but open to all, unlearned as well as learned, who ponder them in their hearts, while to this fruitful meditation, most fruitful for both wise as well as simple, those who are competent can add the study of ecclesiastical traditions and the writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, which, as well as the monuments which research is ever bringing to light, combine, when examined and compared, in manifesting what is so precious but has so long remained, in a manner, hidden in this great saint. All will thus, in their measure, be forwarding a work most dear to Jesus and Mary and most profitable to themselves.

“In order,” says Canon Vitali, “that Joseph, our most powerful patron, should interpose for us, for our families, for the Catholic Church, for the whole world, what remains for us to do? One thing for us, and one thing for our holy mother the Church. We, by true love to Jesus, by sincere devotion to Mary, by the practice of Christian virtues, by filial tenderness and frequent exercises of piety towards St. Joseph, must render ourselves worthy of his special protection. All, of whatever state or condition, must recognize him as their mirror, master, and leader,—princes, ecclesiastics, seculars, monarchs and subjects, pastors of souls and cloistered religious, priests and laymen, lettered men and artisans, virgins and married, young and old, men and women, rich and poor,—all must hold him as their particular advocate, for he has to protect all in life, in death, and after death, that is, in Purgatory. . . . Then our holy mother the Church will certainly be neither reluctant nor slow to declare that Joseph is in glory and dignity superior, next to Mary, to all the angels and all the saints, thus placing Joseph in his true position, always and immediately close to his spouse, without any exception, in the public prayers, sacred rites, and the Most Holy Sacrifice; and thus on the feasts of Mary her dear spouse, Joseph, will ever be commemorated, and on the feasts of Joseph there will be a sweet memorial of Mary, even as fitly takes place on the feasts of the holy princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul.” Many writers have put forth compendiums of the life of Joseph and devotional exercises in his honor, but how can enough be ever said or written of him? It was to add his testimony of the filial affection which he bears to this good and loving Father that the same devout priest tells us he took up his pen.

The writer, who has borrowed so largely from his pages, may humbly join in expressing a similar sentiment. The love of Joseph, and the desire to lend ever so small a help to the rendering him more fully known and glorified, have been his incentives to undertake this work. Should it, with God’s blessing, have the slightest share in obtaining this result, it will ever be to him a consolation and a joy.