The Patronage of Joseph

God never caused the virtues and singular merit of Joseph to shine with greater splendor than when He said to him by the mouth of the angel, “Take the Child and His mother”;¹ for in them He committed to him His most precious treasures, giving him thus the preference over all the blessed spirits of Heaven; and Joseph received these two sacred persons into his care, to be their protector, their guardian, and defender. If, then, Heaven made Joseph the protector of Jesus and Mary, we may rest assured that he was at the same time made the protector and patron of all men. When Jesus Christ hanging on the Cross said to the Blessed Virgin, indicating St. John, “Woman, behold thy son,”² we believe that we were all entrusted to His Mother in the person of the beloved disciple. So also when the Eternal Father confided the Incarnate Word and His Mother to Joseph, He confided us all to this great saint; for the Incarnate Word had us all in His adorable Heart, and the Blessed Virgin, the new Eve, was to conceive us all in her heart of sorrows when she stood beneath the Cross on Calvary. We were to be the children of her pain, as was to Rachel her second-born son, Benoni.³ To be devout to Joseph, therefore, is not merely our interest in the highest sense, neither is it to be considered, on the other hand, as a mere pious practice to be cultivated or not at pleasure, but it is our duty; since that which is the desire of Jesus and Mary comes to us with the force of an obligation, which we cannot disregard without irreverence to them as well as great spiritual detriment to ourselves. Add to which, that the Church’s example powerfully attracts us to this devotion, and the example of this loving mother is meant as a guidance to us, which no faithful child of hers can refuse to follow. But first we will speak only of the desire of Jesus and Mary that we should honor Joseph very greatly.

What is the Savior’s most ardent desire? Is it not that all should imitate Him perfectly? By this imitation we magnify God, and efficaciously promote our own salvation. Now, let us attend to the example He set before us with respect to St. Joseph. He was the first who had recourse to this great saint. Never did son belong so absolutely and entirely to his father as did Jesus to Joseph; and, indeed, it was conformable to reason that He who had written in our hearts that beautiful precept—for it belonged to the natural law before it was proclaimed and enforced from Sinai—“Honor thy father,” should Himself keep it most exactly. Never, also, did son serve his father with such assiduity and love as the Incarnate Word served our saint. Wherefore, when the Savior testifies His earnest desire that we should imitate Him, He at the same time manifests (as the devout Bernardine de Bustis⁴ has pointed out) His wish that we should love and reverence St. Joseph. And, indeed, it would be a monstrous thing if the members of His Body did not honor him to whom their Head paid such profound submission.

This desire of our Lord is grounded on His adorable perfections; on His justice as well as on His gratitude. It is certain that the Savior wills that His saints should be venerated on earth in recompense of their merits. We find Him eulogizing them both before and after their death, giving them power to work miracles like His own, undertaking their defense when unjustly accused, and promising to those who for His sake despised worldly goods a reward a hundred-fold greater even in this present time as well as eternal life in the world to come.⁵ Clearly, then, the Son of God desires that the devotion and love which men pay to His saints should constitute part of the accidental glory which shall crown their merits. His justice also would have regard to the proportion and degree of those merits; and He would have those most highly honored who merited the most. But, amongst the friends of God in Heaven, who has equal merit with Joseph? Having, then, excelled all in sanctity, the Son of God, in order to do him justice, requires that men should acknowledge it by their most profound respect and fervent love.

There is, however, another sublime office which Joseph faithfully discharged as well as that of a tender father and guardian of Jesus, which the Lord will not have forgotten in Heaven or be willing to leave without corresponding exaltation on earth. St. Bernard considered that Joseph was united with the Savior in the quality of a coadjutor, whom God gave to His Son as His associate in the most magnificent of all His works, the redemption of men.⁶ According to the Abbot Rupert, it was not without mystery that Christ was promised to Abraham as man, to David as his successor in his kingdom, but to Joseph under the name of Savior;⁷ in order that we may be persuaded that, although Joseph had no share in the formation of the Body of Jesus, neither did he place the crown upon His head, he nevertheless contributed to making Him the Savior of all men, journeying and laboring and toiling along with Him, and supporting Him by the fruit of his toils for so many years. And thus (he says) he was the last of the Patriarchs to whom the Messias was promised, but in a more excellent manner than all.⁸ Albert the Great held that in this respect he could call Joseph the support of the whole human race, because, in taking the charge of the bringing up of Jesus Christ, he contributed much to the salvation of men. To Him he devoted the best years of his life; for Him he renounced every personal satisfaction, and even every personal thought, in order to aid in bringing about this one affair, the reparation of lost man, and the opening to sinners the way of eternal life.⁹ No wonder, then, that the Church should now give him the title of cooperator with the Savior in the redemption of the human race;¹⁰ for, indeed, the Greeks had anciently called him, by the mouth of St. Chrysostom, the partner and mediator of the mystery of the Incarnation.¹¹ The justice of Jesus, then, requires that Joseph should receive upon earth the honor which he merited by having thus assisted Him in the great work which He came down from Heaven to accomplish.

But the Savior desires that Joseph should be honored by us, not from justice only, but from gratitude. It belongs to noble and generous hearts to feel gratitude, and the more noble and generous they are the more lively is that gratitude. Great souls are tenderly thankful even for small services, while little and mean souls overlook the greatest. But what heart can compare with the Heart of Jesus, that fathomless well of love? The Gospel teems with proofs of His generous appreciation of any affectionate act of homage shown Him, and His magnificent requital of the least services; nay, He makes charity, as done to Himself in the person of the poor and suffering, the rule by which He will judge the nations when He comes to sit on the throne of His majesty: “As long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me”.¹² And what is the recompense? The inheritance of a kingdom! See, too, His treatment of the penitent Magdalen, when she came behind Him silently as He sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, and anointed His feet with ointment and washed them with her tears, kissed them, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Answering the censorious thoughts of the Pharisee with a parable, the Lord then said, “Dost thou see this woman? I entered into thy house, thou gavest Me no water for My feet; but she with tears hath washed My feet, and with her hairs hath wiped them. Thou gavest Me no kiss; but she, since she came in, hath not ceased to kiss My feet.” Thou gavest Me no kiss! Wonderful complaint of injured love! The Lord of all things would, then, have valued a kiss, that token of affection, from His host! Are any words in the Gospel more astounding or more sweetly touching? “My head with oil thou didst not anoint; but she with ointment hath anointed My feet. Wherefore I say to thee, Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much.”¹³ Some tears, some kisses, a little ointment, the offering of a penitent’s love, and the payment—forgiveness of her many sins! Again, when He sat at meat in Bethania, at the supper prepared for Him six days before the Pasch at which He was to suffer, and this same woman, Mary Magdalen, broke an alabaster box of precious spikenard, pouring it over His head, and a murmuring arose among some of the disciples, suggested by the hypocritical traitor, Judas, at this waste of what might have been sold for much and given to the poor, Jesus with holy vehemence defended her, and said, “Amen I say to you wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which she hath done shall be told for a memorial of her”.¹⁴ World-wide glory for this one act of love and honor! The Redeemer desires that it be published and spoken of even as were His Birth, His Circumcision, His journeys and labors, His miracles, His Passion and Death! Her name was to be known as extensively as the Church was to be known; and preachers, evangelizing the world, were at the same time to exalt this holy action by which she had honored Him. But compare for a moment what this loving penitent did for Jesus with Joseph’s thirty years’ service, his paternal care, his journeyings, his fatigues, his exile, his daily unceasing toil, all, in short, which in body and soul he suffered for the God-Man. Can He have forgotten that Joseph was, along with His holy Mother, His first adorer on earth, and for long years His only adorer? Can He have forgotten how He lay in his bosom, and how that tender father shed tears over Him when, as a Babe, He wailed in the crib or wept in his arms; for Jesus gave Himself to Joseph in all the helpless dependence of infancy, and willed to make Himself indebted to him for His earthly sustenance? Can He have forgotten or neglected to pay that debt of gratitude? Is it possible that He should have so magnificently recompensed Magdalen’s testimony of love to the extent of ordaining that the whole earth should esteem her for it, and should not have shown His gratitude to Joseph by holding him up to the veneration of all men, a veneration, too, commensurate with his life-long devotion to Himself? No, we cannot doubt that, alike from justice and from gratitude, the Savior of the world ardently desires that we should honor Joseph in a very special manner. This adorable Son of Mary, as He labored while on earth that all men should know, love, and serve His invisible Father in Heaven, so now that He is in Heaven, He disposes all things by His Providence to exalt the glory of His visible father on earth, and moves all hearts by His Spirit, which dwells in His Church, to an ever-increasing love and veneration of him. The very quality of father of Jesus in itself gives St. Joseph an incontestable title to be called the father of all the faithful. The Savior of the world made no difficulty in recognizing Joseph as His father, and, in so doing, He gave him power to receive us all as his children. And, if Joseph is truly the father of all Christians, so may we be assured that God has given him the heart of a father for us all. The Venerable Mother Magdalen of St. Joseph, one of the first of the Carmelites of St. Teresa’s Reform who passed into France, said, “As it pleased God that Joseph should take the place of father to His Only Son, He gave him in consequence a grace of paternity towards all men, made him incline all his thoughts and all his affections towards them, and moves him to procure for them as much good as could the tenderest of fathers for his children”.¹⁵ Joseph, then, is our patron and more than our patron; he is our father, even as he was the protector and father of Jesus, who in assuming our nature made us His brethren, and in adopting Joseph as His father made him necessarily our father also, and desires with all the love of His adorable Heart that we should consider him as such.

We will now speak of Mary’s desire that her spouse should be honored, which must be with all Catholics a most potent motive and incentive to render him due reverence. The lives of the saints abound in proofs of this her ardent desire. Many a time has the most holy Virgin undertaken the panegyric of her spouse, in order to incite them to be devout to him. We have frequent instances of this in the works of St. Bridget, which are held in high esteem by the Church, and, in particular, in her Revelations.¹⁶ Here she relates how the Mother of God called St. Joseph her dear spouse, and made to her such a magnificent eulogy of him, that the saint’s admiration and love for the father of Jesus were greatly increased thereby for the rest of her days. The Queen of Angels manifested also to St. Gertrude the glory of her spouse, as she tells us in her Revelations.¹⁷ It was on the festival of the Annunciation, when, being rapt in ecstasy, Heaven was opened to her, and she beheld the great St. Joseph seated on his throne; and, each time his name was pronounced, she saw all the other saints reverently bend their heads in token of their profound respect. Mary has also shown herself very desirous that her servants should have recourse to Joseph in all their necessities. The holy director of St. Teresa, P. Balthazar Alvarez, when visiting Loreto, remained for hours in fervent prayer in the chapel where the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was to be the Mother of the Messias. The humility of this holy man bade him conceal what had passed between him and the Blessed Virgin on that occasion; but it transpired subsequently on his deathbed; when, on one of the religious exhorting him to recommend himself to Joseph, and presenting to him a picture of the saint, P. Balthazar replied: “You are right; that is what the Mother of God once said to me”. The astonished religious inquired of the Infirmarian, Brother Sancio, the same who had accompanied the Father to Loreto, whether he knew anything of this circumstance, who replied: “I remember, on leaving the House of Loreto, he said to me, ‘I have just conceived a great devotion to St. Joseph’”.¹⁸ And, indeed, it was most fitting that the Blessed Virgin should specially interest herself in the glory of her spouse in the very place where she received so many services from him, and that she should wish him to be devoutly venerated in that holy dwelling where she was herself exalted to the honor of conceiving the Incarnate Word, who willed to be committed to the paternal care of Joseph, and to be regarded as his son.

Mary rejoices exceedingly when she can associate her pure spouse with herself in the glory and honor paid to her. Hence, to manifest her own love, and procure him a greater number of clients, as well as to testify her gratitude to those who were devout to him, she has frequently appeared in company with him. Alexis of Vigevano, a devout Capuchin lay-brother, had always been most devout to St. Joseph, and, after honoring him in life, enjoyed the consolation of a visit from him on his deathbed, together with the Queen of Heaven. It was on the 19th of March, 1581, the anniversary of Joseph’s transit from earth, when, feeling death to be approaching, Brother Alexis collected what little remaining strength he possessed, to beg the religious, his brethren, who were assisting him, to light some candles, for that St. Joseph was coming to him. They did so, and very soon the dying man exclaimed: “Here is the Queen of Heaven, here is St. Joseph! Kneel down, O fathers, and give them a worthy reception.” So saying he expired. St. Philip of Cantalice had the same grace in death of a visit from Joseph and Mary.

Another proof may be alleged of Mary’s desire that those whom she singularly loved and favored should have a tender devotion to her spouse, in her having more than once bidden them change their name for that of Joseph. It is related, for instance, by Surius in his history of the Premonstratensian Order, and by many other authors who have written the life of the Blessed Joseph de Stinuald, how the Mother of God bade him take the name of her spouse in the place of Hermann, as he was previously called, in order to oblige him to feel increased love and devotion for his new patron. God never changed the names of the ancient patriarchs save for grave reasons, and in order tacitly to reveal to them the great designs which He had with regard to them; and when Jesus Christ gave a new appellation to some of His Apostles, it was also for the purpose of signifying to them the illustrious employments and charges for which He had elected them. Thus, in like manner, we may infer that our Sovereign Lady deemed the promotion of the honor of her spouse a matter of so much importance, that she has even bidden some of her children resign their own names and take that of Joseph, in order that they might never be forgetful of him, even as men never forget their own proper selves.

Our Blessed Lady appeared to St. Teresa, when in an ecstasy, and, after bestowing on her the most loving caresses, clothed her in a robe of beautiful whiteness, and with her own hands put a golden collar and cross round her neck, in recompense (she told her) of the honor which she had procured for St. Joseph.¹⁹ Upon several other occasions also she magnificently rewarded the saint for her devotion to her spouse. It is because Joseph is still her spouse that Mary is thus tender of his honor. What loving wife is there that does not glory in the exaltation of her husband as in her own? She identifies herself with him, and reckons his good name as hers. But what wife ever loved so tenderly as did Mary? And no greater proof can we have that this most holy, most pure, and most perfect union still subsists in Heaven, than her ardent zeal for Joseph’s honor.

But Mary wishes it, not from love only, but, as her Divine Son also does, from gratitude. Joseph was her protector as well as her spouse. Joseph (says St. Chrysostom) was espoused to the Mother of God that he might be to her a tutor and guardian, and an aid near to her in every vicissitude of life. He was to be as a father to her, as well as a spouse, to protect and defend her from all injury. From the very first he began to be her shield and her protection, guarding her reputation from all slanderous attacks. Albert the Great, accordingly, calls him the advocate and patron of the Blessed Virgin,²⁰ because he sheltered her from the penalties which her divine delivery would have brought upon her. He was the protector at once of her virginity and of her honor. She remembers his affectionate care of her, his fatigues, his sufferings, his anxieties, and the perils to which he exposed himself to save the Child and His Mother, for the two were never separated. Both were confided to him, and Mary has not forgotten his self-sacrificing discharge of the stupendous responsibility thus laid upon him. Common gratitude would not have been unmindful of such services as Joseph’s, and Mary’s gratitude is not common. It is worthy of herself. See how she repaid the mere social kindness of an invitation to a marriage-feast, and besought her Son to work a miracle to save the giver of the feast from being humbled and mortified in the eyes of his guests. Now, if the Blessed Virgin had recourse to the power of her Divine Son to reward the slight honor which had been shown her on this occasion, can any one doubt the surpassing desire which she now feels in Heaven that all men should love and honor him who so loved and honored her for the thirty years they dwelt together on earth?

What has been already said of our Lord’s desire that we should copy the example He gave us of reverence and submission to His foster-father, applies equally to Mary; for never did any wife reverence and honor her husband as did the Queen of Heaven and Mother of God the humble carpenter of Nazareth. That carpenter was her husband, her head, her guardian, her pure and spotless companion, and that sufficed to make her honor him as she did. Gerson, carried away with his enthusiasm, does not know which to admire most, the humility of Mary or the sublimity of Joseph, who was thus exalted. But, after giving us this splendid example on earth, and this marvelous testimony of the respect with which she regarded him, could it be possible to believe that Mary, too, as well as her Divine Son, does not ardently long to see us honor Joseph with a special cultus above that which we pay to any other saint?

Both Jesus and Mary, then, desire that we should regard Joseph as our father and our patron. Such is the doctrine of Albert the Great, who, when examining the reasons which rendered the marriage of St. Joseph with the Blessed Virgin, not only most profitable, but in a certain sense necessary, gives as the twelfth of these reasons, that this marriage was ordained in order to make men regard Joseph as their father, even as they recognize Mary as their Mother. Not one of us but desires to be a child of Mary during life, and to experience her accustomed merciful aid at the hour of death. But can we be children of Mary without being children of Joseph? If Jesus would not be called her son without, at the same time, calling Joseph His father, how can a Christian reckon her as his Mother without looking upon Joseph as his father? If the Savior would have deemed it an offense to the most chaste marriage of the Queen of Angels not to have reverenced Joseph as His father, even as He obeyed Mary as His Mother, shall not a Christian fear to offer, in some sort, an insult to those sacred espousals, if he should treat with indifference the spouse of our Lady, whom he owns as his Mother, and thus separate those whom it has pleased God so closely to unite? And, as the Fathers of the Church have drawn from the passage in Holy Scripture which says that Joseph was “the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus,” his right to the title of father of Jesus, so may we also say that Joseph, being the spouse of Mary, who has conceived all Christians in her heart, and will bring them forth to the supernal light of Heaven, is therefore likewise the father of those same Christians. But if these things be true, as they assuredly are, what are we to think of the power of Joseph’s intercession for us, and of its fervor? Their measure is the love of Jesus and Mary for Joseph, and his love for us, and these are beyond our ken, or even our capabilities of comprehension. A great servant of God has said that Joseph holds in his hands, not only a key of Paradise to open the door of Heaven to all his friends, but a certain kind of power over all the riches of Heaven.²¹ Our Joseph, of whom the ancient patriarch was only the figure, merited to be made on earth the steward of the house of God, and of the first family in the world, and now, in glory, the distributor of the heavenly graces conceded to mankind. All the graces which we have received from Heaven, or hope for in the course of our lives, or which all men have ever received or shall receive, are, beyond imagination, inferior in worth to the Sacred Persons of the Savior and His holy Mother; and, as the Eternal Father willed that Joseph should, in a peculiar manner, have them in his keeping and possession, does it not seem more than probable that He should have confided to him the administration of His other treasures, even such as are supernatural, all which are of infinitely less value, and were, indeed, contained in Jesus and Mary? The viceroy of Egypt, as the Abbot Rupert says, possessed all the power of Pharao,²² but our Joseph is far more powerful, for he may be said to hold, after a manner, in his hands all the graces of the Savior, which are the admirable instruments of the supreme power which God exercises over our hearts and wills, without infringing their rights or depriving them of their liberty. Moreover, death, as we have said, did not interrupt the society and community of goods which subsisted between the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph when on earth. A heavenly marriage, such as was that of Joseph and Mary, was to last for ever. Our Sovereign Lady, as St. Bridget tells us in her Revelations, still calls St. Joseph her beloved spouse, and it is indubitable that she never thought of separating herself from him. Now, since the Blessed Virgin is, as it were, the general depositary of all the riches of Heaven, we cannot but infer that St. Joseph shares in the glory of distributing them amongst us. The Spirit of God seems to assure us by the mouth of the Wise Man, that in his chaste spouse Joseph possesses everything and needs no external goods, for such is the interpretation which has been put upon that passage in Proverbs where the valiant woman, the type of Mary, is described: “The heart of her husband trusteth in her, and he shall have no need of spoils”.²³ We should do a kind of injury to St. Joseph if we were contented with calling him the spouse of the Queen of Angels, and to Mary also, if we were not persuaded that through her favor and by her desire he has the glory, not only of sharing her riches, but enjoying the privilege of opening the treasures of Heaven and dispensing them to all who devoutly invoke him; that is, that she wills that he should be associated with her in her patronage of men, and that they should be his children, even as they are hers.

But, to form a judgment of what Joseph can do for us in Heaven, we need not dwell only on the thought of the treasures of graces which we believe God has placed in his hands, but still more must we regard the victorious efficacy of his intercession. Mary’s petitions cannot be refused. Solomon said to his mother, Bethsabee, after placing her on a throne at his right hand when she came to him with a petition, “My mother, ask; for I must not turn away thy face”.²⁴ But Jesus will never disappoint His Mother, as that great king did, for Mary knows what she asks, and cannot ask anything amiss; and, if Mary’s requests cannot be turned away by her Son, neither can she turn away those of her spouse when he addresses them to her. Ill would he know her who should believe her capable of denying anything to him to whom she has bound herself, and whom she loves more than any creature ever loved another. The intercession of Joseph is not less powerful when he turns to Jesus. He goes to Him with the confidence of a father to a son, for this relation still exists between them in Heaven, as we have shown. If the supplications of other saints are so efficacious with the Lord, founded as they are on the claims which their merits have conferred upon them, what must we think of the all-prevailing efficacy of those of Joseph? If the reciprocal love which subsists between Jesus and His saints gives them the well-grounded hope of obtaining what they ask for their clients, what must not be the sure expectation of Joseph, the hearts of this adorable Son and of this virgin father being knit together by so many ties of singular and especial love! We may figure to ourselves that when Joseph presents a request in favor of those who have invoked him, the Son of God would reply, after the manner of the king of Egypt to his type, the ancient Joseph, “The extent of My heavenly kingdom is before thee, give to those thou lovest what thou pleasest”.²⁵ What, again, cannot Joseph do in favor of sinners since we find Moses, when wielding the power of prayer, so mighty to disarm the wrath of God against His rebellious people that this “King of tremendous majesty” speaks as if His suppliant held Him deprived of liberty to chastise the guilty. “Let Me alone,” He says, “that My wrath may be kindled against them, and that I may destroy them.”²⁶ And Moses gained his suit. But how much more irresistible the gentle violence—if we may use the expression—which Joseph exercises over Jesus, the Supreme Judge of the living and the dead! The loving sighs of that great saint, his sweet words, and the looks of mingled tenderness and respect which he turns on Him whose countenance unites in itself every beauty, divine and human, so enthrall Him as to leave Him, as it were, no freedom to pour forth His just anger on the guilty. Joseph will take no denial, and the indignation of Jesus must yield to the request of a father whom He loves so much. Oh, the infinite compassion of the Sacred Heart which has provided sinners with such a patron, who ever has near access to the throne of mercy, and has a right to obtain for them graces and favors which they have long themselves demerited! And, if such be the power of Joseph to impetrate favors for us when we have greatly offended, what may he not obtain for us when the face of the Lord is not averted from us! And how great and overflowing is the testimony to his love for us his children and his power with Jesus, as displayed in the results of his intercession! It would need a volume by itself to treat that subject adequately. Countless as the stars of Heaven revealed by the modern telescope are these proofs of his loving patronage, which have been experienced and are being experienced every day. Such are the fruits of devotion to Joseph; and the tree is known by its fruits. Is not this marvelous—might we not say miraculous?—abundance sufficient alone to demonstrate that Joseph has been divinely given to us for our patron in a singular and incomparable manner?

If Joseph, then, is our patron and the most powerful of patrons on every conceivable ground, and on many more which enter not into our limited powers of comprehension, so also is he the patron of all and every class, not generally only, but for special reasons in each case. He is the patron of families, since he was the head of the Holy Family. He is the patron of the poor, since he voluntarily embraced and followed for all his days a life of poverty. He is the patron of the artisan, as the workshop of Nazareth testified for so many years. He is the patron of the rich who seek a better inheritance, since he held in his possession for nigh upon thirty years the true riches, and, now that he is in Heaven, possesses the key of God’s treasury; he is the patron of the suffering, of travelers, of exiles, of the afflicted; he is the patron of the married, and he is the patron of virgins; he is the patron of the dying, but, above all, we might say, he is the patron of priests. The priest is another Joseph. His whole office repeats and reflects him, not in figure only, but in many ways even literally, since it is given to the priest to be obeyed by our Lord as Joseph was. He comes at his calling and remains in his custody to be carried where he wills and to whom he wills. The priest is privileged to touch and reverently handle Him who was born of Mary, the Incarnate Word, and even to convey Him, concealed in his bosom, to the sick, when due honor would not attend Him on the road if held visibly in his hands, or danger would menace Him, as when Joseph fled with the Divine Child into Egypt. Could the resemblance be more perfect and complete? A priest without devotion to St. Joseph would be a kind of anomaly. Truly it would seem that such a one—if such there be—could not realize the supereminent dignity for which he has been chosen and anointed. And here, in preference to any words of our own on a subject so transcending our capacity, we willingly quote the words of a writer to whom we are so much indebted in these pages:

“To you I now turn, venerable Ministers of the Altar, Priests of the Most High, wise dispensers of the Blood of Jesus Christ, and entreat you to execute the command which God has given to you, by the mouth of a great king: ‘Go to Joseph, and do all that he shall say to you’.²⁷ And, since one of the most illustrious Doctors who have flourished in the schools assures us that St. Joseph must be regarded as the exemplar of all those who held any considerable position in the Church,²⁸ you cannot excuse yourselves from choosing him as the object of your particular devotion. You, then, I conjure who so often touch the Body of Jesus Christ, love this saint, who was the first of all men who had the honor to receive the Savior into his hands. You, who sacrifice Jesus on the altar during the Divine Mysteries, venerate this saint, who may glory in having offered to the Eternal Father the first-fruits of the Adorable Blood of the Incarnate Word in His Circumcision. Consider Jesus on the altar lying on the sacred corporal, as Joseph contemplated Him in the Crib wrapped in His poor swaddling-bands; bear this Man-God through the streets of our cities, and to the houses of the sick, but let it ever be with the same sentiments of piety with which St. Joseph was animated when he held Him in his arms during the journeys he made. Finally, distribute to the faithful this Divine Savior hidden under the appearance of bread, but endeavor at the same time to do this with all the reverence wherewith St. Joseph presented Him to the shepherds who came to adore Him.”²⁹

But, if Joseph is the special patron and model of priests, still more—may we not say?—is he the protector, guardian, guide, and leader of those who to their sacerdotal character have added that of missionary, to bear the Gospel to the heathen, traverse the desolate places of the earth, forego every comfort, and brave every danger for this glorious work. Joseph is the first missionary; first in point of dignity and first in point of time. He carried the Word of God Himself but a few days after His birth to a heathen people. The kingdom of God came nigh to them in Joseph’s arms, and, as we have seen, he himself did the work of an Apostle and an Evangelist among the Egyptian idolaters. It was through the ministry of Joseph that Jesus entered into Egypt, and it has been in like manner that the faith of the Savior has been established in infidel lands. Few, perhaps, are aware, for instance, of the extraordinary devotion to St. Joseph which prevails throughout the continent of America. It came there with the faith. “On the conquest of this New World,” says P. Antonio Paredes, or the unknown author of a work entitled Devotion to St. Joseph in New Spain, generally attributed to him, “the first Fathers planted devotion to St. Joseph with the true faith.”³⁰ And what was true of the whole of Spanish America was true also of the French Canadian missions, and wherever the Gospel was preached to the Indians of the northern continent. Everywhere the missionaries brought with them St. Joseph, and propagated his devotion, seeking from him the graces needed for themselves or for those confided to their ministry; and everywhere was devotion to this gracious saint received and adopted with fervor by their neophytes. What we say of America we say equally of every other land trod by the feet of those who bring the glad tidings of salvation to the heathen. Any one who would convince himself how intimately associated is St. Joseph with the life of the missionary of our day, and how dear he is to his heart, has only to glance at the pages of the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith. St. Joseph, indeed, would seem to be the inseparable companion—nay, we might say, the necessary property—of the missionary. That which first contributed to the propagation of our holy religion is still as powerful as ever to produce the same effects. It was under the leadership of St. Joseph and by his instrumentality that it was first promulgated. He was the first preacher of Jesus, the first confessor of the faith, the first Apostle to make Him known in the lands where he journeyed; and we may therefore well believe that God desires and wills to cause His Church to flourish and spread, and receive an abundant outpouring of graces, through the all-prevailing intercession, and under the patronage of this Enos of the New Covenant, who first began to invoke the Name of the Lord,³¹ and who merited (according to St. Bernardine) to be called the key of the Old Testament, because he opened to it the door of Christianity.³²

It is a great satisfaction to know that the English Missionary College, at Mill Hill, near London, is dedicated to St. Joseph, whose statue crowns the lofty edifice. Nor are testimonies wanting to the singular favor and protection which our glorious Patriarch extended to an institution so dear to his paternal heart, the marvelous answers which he accorded to prayer, and the extraordinary assistance which he afforded in meeting and overcoming the difficulties of its establishment; to which may be added the conspicuous successes with which its operations have already been blessed.³³