Lord, Thou hast prevented him with blessings of sweetness: Thou hast set on his head a crown of precious stones. He asked life of Thee, and Thou hast given him length of days for ever and ever.
–Gradual from the Feast of St. Joseph
Happy feast of St. Joseph! What a beautiful day for the holy Church! The fast is lifted (my family, friends and I are so excited :-P), and the day is suffused with joy and excitement as we honor the head of the Holy Family, the protector of the Universal Church!
Joseph, says the Holy Scripture, was a just man; he was innocent and pure, as became the husband of Mary; he was gentle and tender, as one worthy to be named the father of Jesus; he was prudent and a lover of silence, as became the master of the holy house; above all, he was faithful and obedient to divine calls.
Devotion to St. Joseph cannot be over-stressed! Let us all consecrate ourselves to his Most Chaste Heart as, in private revelation (approved by Bishop Carillo Gritti, Prelate of Itacatiara, Amazonas, Brazil, May 31, 2009), he requested in Brazil:
My dear son, Our Lord God has sent me to tell you about all the graces the faithful will receive from my Most Chaste Heart which Jesus and my blessed
spouse wish to be honored. I am St. Joseph and my name means “God will grow,” because I grew every day in grace and divine virtues. Through devotion to
my Chaste Heart many souls will be saved from the hands of the Devil.
I am not one for reading too deeply into dreams, and until today, it never struck me to do anything like blogging about them. As with anything else, I know they can be superstitiously over-emphasized without due cause. Yet, at the same time, some dreams have more weight; God has spoken through dreams; we are encouraged to ask our guardian angels to protect our nightly dreams. Now, most of mine have been crazy and random, a conglomeration of life events and the occasional flying episode and stomach virus (from which I wake up incredibly relieved that none of us are sick!). However, as with anyone else’s dreams, a few of mine have been quite vivid and serious.
There have been a handful over the past few months that I actually mulled over the next day. One had to do with me standing alone on our back deck, looking at the daytime sky, rooted in a combination of terror and awe, watching revolutions and movements of the moon and planets across the sun as they continually increased in size and speed.
And early this morning, when it was still dark, I woke up from a dream even more intense. It began with a storm (again, over our backyard) and what looked like descending funnel clouds; but, without warning, one became a literal finger of fire. Then it transformed into a torrent of fire plunging down to some unseen location–but the fire’s repercussion nearly reached our yard. The terror was palpable. In the dream, my dad was standing beside me and he uttered an overwhelmed prayer to God. I woke up with more than a trace of that terror, and it certainly took a while for the vividness of the dream to fade. It prompted me, after my morning prayers, to return to a chapter from The Four Last Things that I had read a long time ago.
Jesus Christ, the Judge of the living and the dead, Who at His first coming appeared upon the earth in all stillness and tranquillity, under a gentle and attractive form, will come again the second time to judgment with great majesty and glory.
In order that His advent may not find us unprepared, He will send beforehand many and terrible signs to warn us to abandon our sinful life. Of these signs He Himself says: “There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, men withering away for fear and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world. For there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved.”
A very grim chapter follows that introduction; storms, floods, darkness, and a great fire falling from the sky are all discussed. The Church teaches that the end of the world will come on an unknown day, but that undeniable signs will precede it, that there will be universal chaos and destruction before the Last Judgment. It doesn’t take prophetic dreams to reveal that. Our times, while still possessed of hope, are very evil. It is interesting to have such a dream early in the morning on the feast of St. Joseph (who bears the name of his princely Old Testament predecessor), the patron and protector of the universal Church, the Terror of demons, the patron of a happy death. If anything else, it renewed my desire to pray to him, to pursue a life of virtue, and to live always in a state of spiritual vigilance, whether I or not I’m meant to experience the end times (though, humanly speaking, I really hope not! 😉 ).
Today, The Dash and I consecrate ourselves to the Most Chaste Heart of St. Joseph after finishing a novena:
O Blessed St. Joseph, tenderhearted Father, faithful guardian of Jesus, chaste spouse of the Mother of God, I pray and beseech thee to offer to God the Father, His Divine Son, bathed in Blood on the cross for sinners, and through the thrice-Holy Name of Jesus, obtain for us from the Eternal Father the favor we now implore, which is the grace of consecration to thy Most Chaste Heart.
O Joseph, foster father of Jesus, most pure spouse of the Virgin Mary, pray for us daily to the Son of God, so that, armed with the might of His grace and loyally fighting the good fight here on earth, we may be crowned by Him at the hour of our death. Amen.
Here is a beautiful prayer that can be used for consecration:
Bless me, O dearly beloved Father, St. Joseph; bless my body and
my soul; bless my resolutions, my words and deeds, all my actions and omissions, my every step; bless all that I possess, all my interior and exterior goods, that all may redound to the greater honor of God. Bless me for time and eternity, and preserve me from every sin. Obtain for me the grace to make atonement for all my sins by love and contrition here on earth, so that after my last breath I may, without delay, prostrate at thy feet return thee thanks in Heaven for all the love and goodness thou, O dearest Father, hast shown me here below. Amen.
Now pray the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be to the Father,
three times, in thanksgiving to God for the graces and prerogatives
bestowed on St. Joseph.
(I found both of these prayers at Catholic Tradition.)
God bless you all on this beautiful feast day! 🙂 Sancte Joseph, ora pro nobis!
Her Delightful Life 
You must be logged in to post a comment.