St.Joseph, Virgin Father of Jesus

St. Joseph, Virgin-Father of Jesus: Model of Humility and Obedience

(Diary, Our Lady of America,® Sister Mildred Neuzil, pg. 34.)

“I am the protector of the Church and the home, as I was the protector of Christ and His Mother while I lived upon earth. Jesus and Mary desire that my pure heart, so long hidden and unknown, be now honored in a special way. Let my children honor my most pure heart in a special manner on the First Wednesday of the month by reciting the Joyful Mysteries of the rosary in memory of my life with Jesus and Mary and the love I bore them, the sorrow I suffered with them. Let them receive Holy Communion in union with the love with which I received the Savior for the first time and each time I held Him in my arms.”

St. Joseph is often referred to as the “forgotten saint,” but it was not always so. The early Church greatly revered him and the early traditions of the Church did indeed honor him on the first Wednesdays of the month. The promotion of devotion to him was interrupted by the need to refute heresy which preoccupied the Church for some time.

St. Teresa of Avila proclaimed St. Joseph never failed her. She recognized that the authority he had over Jesus on earth continued even in heaven and his power of intercession with Jesus and Mary is beyond comprehension.

Our Lady herself told Venerable Mary of Agreda that her holy spouse, St. Joseph, had the greatest intimacy with her and Jesus in heaven, and that St. Joseph has been granted great power to avert the punishment of divine justice from sinners.

The 16^th century prophet Isidore of Isolanis proclaimed the “sound of victory” will be heard in the Church Militant “when the faithful recognize the sanctity of St. Joseph.”

Fr. Paul of Moll, in the 1800’s, had an ecstasy in which he saw the body of St. Joseph preserved intact in a tomb, the site of which is yet unknown. He stated that the more the glorious spouse of the most Blessed Virgin is honored, the sooner will the finding of his body take place, which will be a day of great joy for the Church.

(Notes from Favorite Prayers to St. Joseph, Tan Books, 1997.)

It is no surprise that Our Lady of America® should focus on the role St. Joseph shared so intensely with Jesus and Her in the work of our redemption. It was precisely through his humility and obedience that, like Jesus and Mary, they reversed the power of sin brought into our world by pride and disobedience. In the 1958 apparitions to Sister Mildred Mary Neuzil, St. Joseph himself states:

“I bring to souls the purity of my life and the obedience that crowned it….My spiritual fatherhood extends to all God’s children, and together with my Virgin Spouse I watch over them with great love and solicitude. Fathers must come to me, small one, to learn obedience to authority: to the Church always, as the mouthpiece of God, to the laws of the country in which they live, insofar as these do not go against God and their neighbor. Mine was perfect obedience to the Divine Will, as it was shown and made known to me by the Jewish law and religion. To be careless in this is most displeasing to God and will be severely punished in the next world.

The Holy Trinity desires thus to honor me that in my unique fatherhood all fatherhood might be blessed….In honoring in a special way my fatherhood, you also honor Jesus and Mary. The Divine Trinity has placed into our keeping the peace of the world…I desire souls to come to my heart that they may learn true union with the Divine Will.”

What great favor has been given to the Church and to us in the heart of Joseph. Like the wise ones of the past, let us “Go to Joseph” with all our needs, together with Mary, and enter the inmost chambers of the Heart of Jesus to plead for peace in our homes and in our world. St. Joseph, Virgin-Father of Jesus, Virgin-Spouse of Mary, pray for us!