St. Joseph, Patron of the Church and of the Dying, Pray for Us!
"St. Joseph with the Infant Christ in his Arms," Guido Reni 1571-1642
I was thrilled when the Church proclaimed a year of St. Joseph from December 8, 2020, to December 8, 2021. In his apostolic letter Patris corde (With a Father’s Heart), Pope Francis urges us “to increase our love for this great saint, . . . to implore his intercession and to imitate his virtues and his zeal.” We need St. Joseph more than ever in the midst of this COVID-19 Pandemic.
In my family, a special devotion to St. Joseph goes back for several generations. My maternal grandfather was named Joseph as was one of my uncles. We cherish a singular event in my grandfather’s life as an example of the beautiful miracles St. Joseph can perform. Joseph Philippe was a captain in the French army in 1940. A sniper’s bullet passed through his helmet and left him dazed but alive and unhurt. As an act of thanksgiving to St. Joseph for protecting his life, he asked my grandmother to support the apostolate of the Little Sisters of the Poor with a generous gift. When she went to the convent, the mother superior greeted her and asked if she had come to make a donation and named a figure. My grandmother was surprised and asked the sister how she could possibly know the exact amount of the gift? The mother superior replied that this was the sum they needed to pay for the coal that was about to delivered. They had to heat their home for the poor and destitute, and the sisters were in the chapel praying to St. Joseph for the needed funds because their coffers were empty.
Needless to say, one of the first things I did as the new president of The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) was to consecrate it to St. Joseph with the special intention of providing for our temporal needs. He has performed admirably in the midst of so much financial uncertainty caused by the pandemic. St. Joseph is a great protector and provider whom the Church proposes to us. St. Joseph, protector of the holy family, be our guardian and help the NCBC in our defense of the dignity of all who are weak and vulnerable. St. Joseph shows us what to do by his example of saving the newborn baby Jesus from danger.
Bioethics does not yet have an official patron saint, but St. Joseph is patron and protector of the dying. End-of-life issues are one of the most important areas of bioethics. It is wonderful to think of St. Joseph dying in the arms of Jesus and Mary. Catholics have invoked his intercession for a happy death for centuries. In the midst of this terrible pandemic, when so many dying persons have had the physical presence of a priest or close family members denied them by draconian hospital or nursing home policies, we can ask for St. Joseph’s intercession for a good death.
St. Joseph is the quintessential “strong, silent type,” as Cardinal Arinze told a small group of us in a sermon a few years ago. He is mentioned and takes decisive action several times in the Bible, but not a single spoken word of his is recorded. In 1660 he appeared on a very hot day to a shepherd near Cotignac, France, as a large and powerful man. He simply pointed at a massive rock and said to the parched young shepherd, “I am Joseph. Move it and you will drink.” The shepherd did so and discovered a spring of refreshing water. He turned to thank St. Joseph, but he had vanished. Later, it took eight strong men to move that same stone.
I recently read that St. Joseph is referred to as a tekton in the Greek used in the Gospels. It is translated in most English-language Bibles as carpenter. This is an impoverished rendering. Tektons did primarily work with wood, but they combined the functions of architects, engineers, builders, and master craftsmen. They were also known to carry huge beams of wood on their shoulders. This was not a person who put chairs together or sawed away in a little shop—the image that comes to my mind when I think of a carpenter. St. Joseph was a strong protector with the characteristics one would expect God to want for the head of the holy family.
Please join me in praying for St. Joseph’s powerful intercession in this special year the Church has dedicated to him on the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of Pope Bl. Pius IX’s declaration of St. Joseph as patron of the universal Church. This special prayer is proposed to the faithful:
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.
