3-2. ② St. Joseph: Patron Saint of Three Popes...

 

These Last Days News - March 20, 2012

 

3-2. ② St. Joseph: Patron Saint of Three Popes...

 

 

"You must instruct and bring to your children the knowledge of your saints. Their example is in the light, My children. Those you have set up to idolize upon earth now are the creations of satan. You must accept and follow the example of your saints, those who have been given this honor by your holy Church. They, too, My child, did not win their crowns without trial, rejection, and often, martyrdom."

- The Bayside Prophecies

Jesus, June 5, 1975

 

 

Vatican Insider: reported on March 18, 2012:

 

In a letter written to his grand-daughter in April 1949, during his time as Apostolic Nuncio to Paris, Mgr. Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, defined St. Joseph as “the diplomat saint who knows when to keep quiet and speaks with moderation and always with great generosity.” This definition or rather, the main programmatic aspect that influenced the lives of Roncalli and the future John XXIII. As the Catholic Catechism (no. 2156) recalls: The patron saint provides a model of charity; the baptised person is assured of his intercession. Thus, in Roncalli and also Joseph Ratzinger, one can clearly make out characteristics of their respective patron Saints. In April 1947, Bishop Roncalli wrote to his brother: “There was never a time when St. Joseph did not listen to my prayers. Looking closely at my life, it bears similarities to his. Amongst these scribes and Pharisees – as you call them – I have the task of presenting and defending the Lord. Is that not so?”

 

A few years ago, Benedict XVI illustrated the experience of Christian prayer with the image of “inner silence”, recalling the figure of St. Joseph: “His, is a silence permeated by contemplation of the mystery of God, entrusting himself totally to divine will. In other words, St. Joseph’s silence is not the sign of a hollow interior, but of the fullness of faith which he carries in his heart and which guides all his thoughts and actions [...] It was from his “father” Joseph that Jesus learnt - on a human level – that strong interiority which is a condition for authentic justice, that “superior justice” He would one day teach his disciples (see Matthew 5:20).”

 

The Pope’s words emphasise St. Joseph the Patriarch’s main vocational identity. It would be wrong to consider Mary’s husband as a marginal presence in Christ’s educational growth. Joseph is called - together with the Mother of God – to look after and raise the Son of God, through a very personal act of obedience. It is Joseph who helps us understand to what lengths God will go to ask his creations to surrender themselves completely to His will.

 

The task Joseph is called to fulfil, is that of making space for God, because it is through his personal “authorisation” that the mystery of salvation can be accomplished through the incarnation of Christ. St. Joseph’s fertility is essentially his willingness to give himself up and to embrace God’s will, in its entirety.

 

Another great Pope – renowned for his personal devotion to Mary - also bears St. Joseph’s name: the Blessed John Paul II.

 

In his writings, Pope John Paul II often referred back to the spiritual benefits which the charisma of Carmel had given him during his vocational growth. We also know that Pope John Paul II always carried the Brown Scapular he was consecrated with, wherever he went. But there is another, perhaps less known detail which confirms the spiritual attention that linked John Paul II to Carmelite history. On 16 October 2003, Pope John Paul II gave his papal ring as a gift to the convent - founded by the Carmelitan Raffaele Kalinowski - in his home town Wadowice, where the Pope often used to pray. He did so in order to decorate the picture of St. Joseph, whose name he bears (Karol Józef Wojtyła was the name the Pope had been baptised with). Wojtyla recognised St. Joseph as the second patron saint of his Baptism, devotedly praying to him “every day.”

 

John Paul II’s papal bull reads: “[...] In the city where I was born, St. Joseph, the Patron Saint of my Baptism, bestowed his protection on the People of God in the Discalced Carmelite Church ‘on the hill’, where his painting is venerated above the high altar, the Pope wrote. “I offer the papal ring, in the 25th year of my pontificate, for a similar decoration of the painting of him who nourished the Son of God, venerated in the Carmelite Church, Wadowice. May this ring”, he added, symbol of married love, which will be placed on the hand of St. Joseph in the painting of Wadowice, remind his devotees that the Head of the Holy Family is ‘that just man of Nazareth who possesses the clear characteristics of a husband….and remained faithful to God’s call until the end….and received the same love, through whose power the Eternal Father has predestined us to be His adopted children through Jesus Christ.” (Redemptoris Custos, 1: 17-18).

 

“May the Discalced Carmelites, faithful custodians of the church of Wadowice, in accepting my gratitude for all that I received from the Carmelitan school of spirituality during my childhood, following the example of their Holy Mother Teresa of Jesus, contemplate in St. Joseph, the perfect model of the intimacy with Jesus and Mary, Patron of inner prayer and of tireless service to one’s brothers (see Vita, 6: 6-8 ; 32, 12). ”

 

 

Who is Saint Joseph, according Benedict XVI...

 

Rome Reports reported on March 19, 2012:

 

Monday, March 19th is the feast day of St. Joseph. Benedict XVI talked about this saint during a general audience held on December 28, 2011.

 

His humble and sincere love for his betrothed and his decision to join his life to Mary’s attracted and introduced him, “a just man”, to a special intimacy with God. Indeed, with Mary and later, especially, with Jesus, he began a new way of relating to God, accepting him in his life, entering his project of salvation and doing his will. After trustfully complying with the Angel’s instructions “Do not fear to take Mary your wife” — he took Mary to him and shared his life with her; he truly gave the whole of himself to Mary and to Jesus and this led him to perfect his response to the vocation he had received.

 

As we know, the Gospel has not recorded any of Joseph’s words: his is a silent and faithful, patient and hard-working presence. We may imagine that he too, like his wife and in close harmony with her, lived the years of Jesus’ childhood and adolescence savouring, as it were, his presence in their family.

 

Joseph fulfilled every aspect of his paternal role. He must certainly have taught Jesus to pray, together with Mary. In particular Joseph himself must have taken Jesus to the Synagogue for the rites of the Sabbath, as well as to Jerusalem for the great feasts of the people of Israel. Joseph, in accordance with the Jewish tradition, would have led the prayers at home both every day — in the morning, in the evening, at meals — and on the principal religious feasts.

 

In the rhythm of the days he spent at Nazareth, in the simple home and in Joseph’s workshop, Jesus learned to alternate prayer and work, as well as to offer God his labour in earning the bread the family needed.

 

 

 

Veronica - Our Lady now is rising very high up into the sky, and She's--now the sky is becoming very, very bright, very bright, and Our Lady is pointing upward with Her hand, and there is a tremendous white cross now forming in the sky. It's a brilliant cross. And now--it's a large cross, but behind it, I see many, many smaller crosses. They are also white. It's like a field, a whole field of crosses.

Our Lady - "My child, you are observing many who shall wear the white robes in Heaven. Many martyrs shall be made, My child, in the days ahead. Many shall gain their crowns through suffering. It is truly the way of the cross, My child, to Heaven. Do not let a moment go by, My child, without using, without putting your suffering to good cause."

- The Bayside Prophecies

September 14, 1976

 

 

 

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