Day 1 of St. Joseph Novena-SSPX

Day 1 of St. Joseph Novena

Sunday, March 10

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In his book Summa de donis S. Joseph [Summary of the Gifts of St. Joseph], Isidore Isolani, a 16th century Dominican, demonstrated contemporary devotion to St. Joseph.

The Holy Ghost did not cease to move the hearts of the faithful until such time as the universal Church should joyfully renew its veneration for the blessed Joseph, founding monasteries and building churches in his honor. (…)

Jesus Christ, for His greater glory, destined St. Joseph to be the particular and the most important patron of the empire of the Church Militant. For this reason, before the day of judgment, all nations will recognize, venerate and adore the name of our Lord, and honor the magnificent gifts given by God to St. Joseph, gifts that He chose to leave hidden for a long period of time. (…)

Our Lord will send His light into the deepest secret of minds and hearts. Great men will examine the gifts of God hidden in St. Joseph’s interior life, and they will find in him a treasure of ineffable price, greater than any found in the saints of the Old Law. (…)

The Vicar of Christ on earth, inspired by the Holy Ghost, will command that the feast of the foster father of Christ, the spouse of the Queen of the earth, possessor of very great sanctity, be commemorated in all the lands of the true Church. And thus he who is in the very highest ranks of heaven will not be placed lower on earth.

Summa de donis S. Joseph, Part III

St. Joseph in the writings of the Popes

St. Joseph seems to have remained very discreet for centuries. It was only in 1479, after St. Bernardino of Siena, St. Vincent Ferrier, Pierre d’Ailly, and Jean Gerson had sung St. Joseph’s praises, that Sixtus IV (1471-1484) introduced his feast, March 19, into the Roman breviary.

After Sixtus, Innocent VIII (1484-1492) raised the office to the rank of double, and a century later Gregory XIII (1572-1585) extended the feast to the entire Catholic world and declared it a holy day of obligation. Around the same time, in 1522, Isidore Isolani wrote Summa de donis S. Joseph [Summary of the Gifts of St. Joseph], St. Peter of Alcantara praised St. Joseph’s sanctity, and St. Teresa of Avila, miraculously cured by the St. when she was 26, dedicated her first convent in Avila to him, as well as more than two thirds of the houses she founded later in life.

On March 17, 1521, a bull by Leo X (1513-1521) granted indulgences to pilgrims to Cotignac, where St. Joseph appeared together with Our Lady and the Child Jesus, on August 10, 1519. St. Joseph appeared there again alone on June 7, 1660.

Clement X (1670-1676) composed the hymn Te Joseph celebrent and raised the feast to the rank of double of the second-class.

Clement XI (1700-1721) rewrote the entire office of St. Joseph. In the meantime, the carpenters’ guilds had requested that St. Joseph be declared their patron. Rome granted their request in 1680 and the commemoration of St. Joseph’s patronage was added to the feast of March 19th.

Nevertheless, it was only slowly that devotion to St. Joseph touched the hearts of the faithful and gave rise to the development of prayers and pious works in his honor.

Benedict XIII (1724-1730) officially added St. Joseph to the Litany of the Saints on December 19, 1726.

Benedict XIV (1740-1758), inspired by St. Augustine, wrote:

St. Joseph belongs to the saints of the New Testament. John the Baptist, on the other hand, belongs to those of the Old Testament, where he ends the list, just as Mary and Joseph begin the series of saints in the New Testament.

On May 31, 1783, Pius VI (1775-1799) had a miraculous painting, which had been attracting pilgrims since the 1670s, crowned in Kalisz, Poland. The painting was an imposing representation of the Holy Family, invoked by the name of St. Joseph of Kalisz.

Pope Pius VII (1800-1823) added St. Joseph to the prayer A cunctis on September 17, 1815.

A number of relatively recent papal documents call for Catholics to honor St. Joseph and pray to him. The main ideas of several of these documents are summarized below.

Pius IX

Decree of April 27, 1865, Urbis Et Orbis

Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) had a great personal devotion to St. Joseph. On December 10, 1847, he named the third Sunday after Easter as the feast and the liturgy for the Patronage of St. Joseph. In 1854, he stated that St. Joseph, after Our Lady, was the best hope for the Church. Then he promulgated the decree of April 27, 1865.

In this decree, Pius IX attached to the month of March, dedicated to St. Joseph, the same indulgences that were attached to the month of Mary; in other words, a 300 days’ indulgence for devotions to St. Joseph, on any day of the month, and a plenary indulgence for devotions carried out during the whole month, under the usual conditions of confession and Communion, and prayers for the Church.

Decree of December 8, 1870, Quemadmodum Deus

As God established the patriarch Joseph, son of Jacob, as governor over the whole of Egypt, to provide the people with grain for sustenance, so, in the fullness of time, when He was about to send to earth his only begotten Son to redeem the world, He chose another Joseph, of whom the first had been the type, and He made him the Lord and Prince of His household and all His possessions, the guardian of His choicest treasures. Indeed, his spouse was the Immaculate Virgin Mary, of whom was born by the Holy Ghost Jesus Christ our Lord, who deigned to be reputed in the sight of men as the son of Joseph, and was subject to him. Him whom countless kings and prophets had desired to see, Joseph not only saw but conversed with, and embraced in paternal affection, and kissed. He most diligently reared Him whom the faithful were to receive as the bread that came down from heaven whereby they might obtain eternal life.

Because of this sublime dignity… the Church has always most highly honored and praised St. Joseph next to his spouse, the Virgin Mother of God; always, in times of trouble, the Church has besought his intercession…

Accordingly, the Holy Father, Pope Pius IX, solemnly declares St. Joseph Patron of the Catholic Church on this day (December 8) sacred to the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God, spouse of the most chaste Joseph.

This important act was confirmed in the Apostolic Letter Inclytum Patriarcham of July 7, 1871. However, by March 4, 1871, Cardinal Pie (1815-1880), bishop of Poitiers, had already communicated the papal decree to his clergy, in an Instruction Pastorale [Pastoral instruction]. In response to the question "Why has devotion to St. Joseph appeared so late?" the cardinal replies:

Devotion to St. Joseph was one of the gifts that the father of the family, with prudent economy, reserves among his treasures for a later date… The silence surrounding the name and the power of the blessed Joseph during the early ages of Christianity appears as an extension of the silence that surrounded his time on earth; it is a continuation of the hidden life whose splendors proved all the more amazing to the minds and the hearts of the faithful for having remained unrevealed.

Leo XIII

Excerpts from the encyclical Quamquam Pluries, August 15, 1889

In this encyclical, Leo XIII (1878-1903) first recalls that in times of great difficulty, the Church implored God and Our Lady with fervor and perseverance. He recognizes that Christian fervor has greatly cooled in his time, but points out that human means cannot remedy the grave dangers threatening the Church. He exhorts the faithful, therefore, to increase their prayers to Our Lady, particularly during the month of October, the month of the Rosary.

But the Holy Father had another purpose in this encyclical: to invite Catholics "to invoke with great piety and trust, together with the Virgin-Mother of God, her chaste Spouse, the Blessed Joseph; and We regard it as most certain that this will be most pleasing to the Virgin herself." Devotion to St. Joseph is already widespread thanks to the efforts of numerous popes. But it must "engraft itself upon the daily pious practices of Catholics and Catholic institutions," and Leo XIII provides the principal reasons for this:

St. Joseph was the spouse of Mary and he was reputed the Father of Jesus Christ. From these sources have sprung his dignity, his holiness, his glory... As Joseph has been united to the Blessed Virgin by the ties of marriage, it may not be doubted that he approached nearer than any to the eminent dignity by which the Mother of God surpasses so nobly all created natures... Thus in giving Joseph the Blessed Virgin as spouse, God appointed him to be not only her life's companion, the witness of her maidenhood, the protector of her honor, but also, by virtue of the conjugal tie, a participator in her sublime dignity...

Thus Joseph was, by divine will, the guardian of the Son of God and reputed as His father among men.

The Word of God was humbly subject to Joseph, He obeyed him, and He rendered to him all those offices that children are bound to render to their parents.

For his part, Joseph fulfilled the duties that nature lays on the heads of families.

He set himself to protect with a mighty love and a daily solicitude his spouse and the Divine Infant; regularly by his work he earned what was necessary for the one and the other for nourishment and clothing; he guarded from death the Child threatened by a monarch's jealousy, and found for Him a refuge; in the miseries of the journey and in the bitternesses of exile he was ever the companion, the assistance, and the upholder of the Virgin and of Jesus. Now the divine house, which Joseph ruled with the authority of a father, contained within its limits the scarce-born Church…

For this reason the multitude of Catholics who compose the Church are confided specially to his care.

It is, then, natural and worthy that as the Blessed Joseph ministered to all the needs of the family at Nazareth and girt it about with his protection, he should now cover with the cloak of his heavenly patronage and defend the Church of Jesus Christ…

The Church recognizes that "the Joseph of ancient times, son of the patriarch Jacob, was the type of St. Joseph, and the former by his glory prefigured the greatness of the future guardian of the Holy Family." Indeed, in the first patriarch, we may recognize the second:

As the first caused the prosperity of his master's domestic interests and at the same time rendered great services to the whole kingdom, so the second, destined to be the guardian of the Christian religion, should be regarded as the protector and defender of the Church, which is truly the house of the Lord and the kingdom of God on earth.

All men of every rank and country can recommend themselves to St. Joseph:

Fathers of families find in Joseph the best personification of paternal solicitude and vigilance; spouses a perfect example of love, of peace, and of conjugal fidelity; virgins find in him the model and protector of virginal integrity. The noble of birth will learn of Joseph how to guard their dignity even in misfortune; the rich will understand, by his lessons, the goods most to be desired and won at the price of their labor. As to workmen, artisans, and persons of lesser degree, their recourse to Joseph is a special right, and his example is for their particular imitation.

For Joseph, of royal blood, united by marriage to the greatest and holiest of women, reputed the father of the Son of God, passed his life in labor... Joseph, content with his slight possessions, bore the trials consequent on a fortune so slender, with greatness of soul… in imitation of the Lord of all things subjected himself of his own free will to poverty and loss of all.

St. Joseph is truly the model of those who live by the toil of their hands.

If they win the right of emerging from poverty and obtaining a better rank by lawful means, reason and justice uphold them in changing the order established, in the first instance for them by the Providence of God. But recourse to force and struggles by seditious paths to obtain such ends are madnesses which only aggravate the evil which they aim to suppress...

Leo XIII concludes:

We prescribe that during the whole month of October, at the recitation of the Rosary… a prayer to St. Joseph be added… and that this custom should be repeated every year... It is a salutary practice and very praiseworthy… to consecrate the month of March to the honor of the holy Patriarch by daily exercises of piety… We exhort the faithful to sanctify March 19th as far as possible by private pious practices, in honor of their heavenly patron...

St. Pius X

Decree of 1909

St. Pius X (1903-1914) approved the decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites publishing the Litanies of St. Joseph. This decree referred to the pope’s involvement in the following words:

Our Holy Father Pope Pius X has always professed special devotion and profound piety toward the august Patriarch St. Joseph, foster father of our Divine Savior, most chaste spouse of the Virgin Mother of God, and powerful intercessor for the Catholic Church, whose glorious name our Pontiff received at baptism.

Benedict XV

Benedict XV (1914-1922) composed in 1919 several prefaces for Masses in honor of St. Joseph, and a preface for the Mass of the Dead. Here is an excerpt from the latter:

O God, almighty Father, it was Joseph, the just man, whom Thou didst choose to be the spouse of the Virgin Mother of God, that Thou didst set at the head of Thy family, that he might, like a father, guard Thine only begotten Son Jesus Christ our Lord, conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost…

On July 25, 1920, Benedict XV published a motu proprio on the fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of St. Joseph’s patronage over the universal Church, Bonum sane, filled with tenderness and especial confidence in the saint.

In the preamble, Benedict XVI wrote:

As We consider the difficult situation in which the human race struggles today, it seems to Us particularly important to recommend most strongly this devotion to nations, and to spread it much more widely yet.

After recalling the moral distress caused by the war, Benedict XV adds:

Concerned that Our children who earn their bread by the labor of their hands be preserved from the contagion of socialism, a most deadly enemy of Christian doctrine, We suggest St. Joseph as a model and special patron to be imitated and honored. Indeed, St. Joseph led a life similar to theirs; and our Divine Lord Jesus Christ, only begotten Son of the Eternal Father, wished to be known as the "Son of the Carpenter." Joseph adorned the humility and poverty of his condition in life with virtues as numerous as they were notable, fitting virtues to find resplendent in the spouse of the Immaculate Virgin and in the foster father of our Lord Jesus Christ…

He also emphasized the link with the entire Holy Family:

As the faithful’s devotion to St. Joseph grows, so, necessarily, will their devotion to the Holy Family of Nazareth of which he was the august head; the first devotion will naturally bring about the second. Joseph leads us directly to Mary, and through Mary to the source of all sanctity, Jesus Christ, whose obedience to Mary and Joseph has sanctified the virtues proper to the family…

Lastly, in 1921, Benedict XV added St. Joseph to the Divine Praises said at Benediction.

Pius XI

Pius XI (1922-1939), on April 21, 1926, beatified Andre-Hubert Fournet, who founded the Sisters of the Cross, and Jeanne-Antide Thouret, who founded the Daughters of Charity, both French. In his address he spoke of St. Joseph:

This was a saint who entered life and devoted himself entirely to accomplishing a single mission given him by God, the incomparable mission of guarding the chastity of Mary, protecting our Lord, hiding, through his admirable cooperation, the mystery, the secret hidden from all others, excepting the Blessed Trinity, of the Redemption of the human race. The remarkable and incomparable sanctity of St. Joseph was rooted in the greatness of his mission, because no other soul, no other saint was ever given such a mission, and because there is no one between St. Joseph and God but Our Lady with her divine motherhood…

It is clear that because of this lofty mission, the holy Patriarch already held the glorious title of Patron of the universal Church… The Church was already present near St. Joseph, when he carried out his duties as guardian and foster father in the Holy Family.

When he read the decree on the heroic virtue of Jeanne-Elisabeth Bichier des Ages, a co-founder of the Sisters of the Cross, on March 19, 1928, Pius XI said:

Between the two missions of St. John the Baptist and St. Peter appears that of St. Joseph, recollected, silent, almost imperceptible, only to be illuminated centuries later; a silence to be followed, even though long after, with resounding songs of praise. And indeed, where the mystery is deeper, the night is darker, the silence is greater, there is the loftiest mission, the most splendid array of virtues, followed by merits destined, by a happy necessity, to echo them.

How lofty is the mission of cooperating with the Incarnation.

On March 19, 1935, Pius XI, speaking in honor of another French nun, Emilie de Vialar, founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition, referred to the mystery of the Incarnation in these words:

The Blessed Trinity reveals the mystery, the secret of the divine Incarnation and the Redemption. Indeed, it is impossible to attain anything higher than the level of the hypostatic union, the personal union of God with man… No glory can surpass that of the revelation of the hypostatic of the divine Word… St. Joseph received this revelation. He can obtain anything from the divine Redeemer and his Mother, with a manner and an authority beyond those of a simple agent.

In his encyclical Divini Redemptoris of March 19, 1937, Pius XI stated, "We place the vast campaign of the Church against world Communism under the standard of St. Joseph, her mighty Protector."

In this same encyclical we also read:

Joseph belongs to the working-class, and he bore the burden of poverty for himself and the Holy Family, whose tender and vigilant head he was. To him was entrusted the Divine Child when Herod loosed his assassins against Him. In a life of faithful performance of daily duties, he left an example for all those who must gain their bread by the toil of their hands. He won for himself the title of "The Just," serving thus as a living model of that Christian justice which should reign in social life.

On March 19, 1938, Pius XI declared, "As St. Joseph was indeed the head and master of the home, his intercession cannot but be all-powerful."

Pius XII

In a papal document dated April 18, 1940, addressed to newlyweds, Pius XII (1939-1958) encourages young couples to turn their thoughts to St. Joseph who was the guardian of the Mother of Jesus Christ:

Favored by the confidence of God, he who was to act as a veil to the double mystery of the Word made flesh and the virgin birth of Mary seems to have been hidden in the shadows during his earthly life. Nevertheless, the few short passages of the Gospels referring to him suffice to show what a head of the family St. Joseph was, and what a model and especial patron he is therefore for you, newlyweds.

He then recalls the principal steps in the life of St. Joseph, model of all fathers of families:

Providence led the first Joseph by the hand when, betrayed and sold into slavery by his brethren, he became superintendent, master of all the land of Egypt, and breadwinner for his own family. Providence led the second Joseph into the same country, where he arrived without belongings, knowing neither the people, nor their customs, nor the language, and from whence he returned nonetheless alive and well with Mary, always active, and Jesus, who grew in wisdom, age and grace.

Providence is likewise attentive to the needs of those who seek first the Kingdom of God and its justice. The Holy Family’s fidelity to religious practices is explicitly mentioned in the Gospel, "Luke tells us that as was the custom, Jesus accompanied Mary and Joseph to the Temple of Jerusalem for the Passover." It is easy to imagine the Holy Family carrying out their daily devotions, led by Joseph, the head of the family.

In 1945, addressing the members of the first National Congress of Christian Associations of Italian Laborers, Pius XII declared with regard to St. Joseph:

The most effective leaven - We may even say the only effective leaven - this sense of solidarity, this guarantee of social rectitude and peace, resides in the spirit of the Gospel and flows to you from the Heart of the God-Man, the Savior of the world. No laborer has ever been as perfectly and profoundly filled with this leaven as he who lived with Christ in the intimacy of the family and the workshop, His foster father, St. Joseph.

To the members of the Italian Catholic Action, he said in 1947:

There was never a man so close to the Redeemer through domestic ties, daily relations, spiritual harmony and the divine life of grace as Joseph, of the line of David, and nonetheless a humble laborer… How could you not have chosen him as your heavenly patron?

Pius XII instituted in 1955 the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, intended to replace the feast of the patronage of St. Joseph:

There could be no better guardian to help you fill your lives with the spirit of the Gospel… It is certain that no laborer was so perfectly and so profoundly filled with that spirit as the foster father of Jesus who lived with him in the intimacy of the family and the workshop. In the same way, if you would be close to Christ, We repeat, go to Joseph… We have the pleasure of announcing Our intention of instituting - and We institute in reality - the liturgical feast of St. Joseph the Worker, setting its date as May 1st…

Day 1 of St. Joseph Novena-SSPX

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