Consecration to St. Joseph (3)

Last week we began our preparations for a consecration to the Purest Heart of St. Joseph.  I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who picked up Fr. Calloway’s excellent book for the 33-day preparation for this consecration.  They are available again this weekend; and if you forgot while at church, you can always send me an e-mail with your request.  They are a very reasonable $10 a copy.  We have already discussed the “why?” regarding this consecration.  Let us continue with the “how”.

In any consecration, whether it is a consecration to the Sacred Heart, or to Mary or Joseph, the consecration we experience in Holy Matrimony or Holy Orders, or entrance into an institute of consecrated life, there is a time of preparation.  One can, indeed, simply gather and recite the prayer of consecration and receive the blessing of the bishop, priest, or religious superior; but without a time of preparation the ground will not have been prepared for the seed that will be planted: in other words, we won’t be ready to live the life we are consecrating ourselves to!

Therefore, we prepare for this consecration by coming to know St. Joseph better: through holy Scripture; through the writings of those holy people who themselves have come to know him so well and have benefited by that relationship with him; through the apparitions in which he has taken part and which have been recognized and approved by the Church; in time, becoming more and more like him.

There isn’t a great deal about St. Joseph in Scripture, but what is there is profound.  This is witnessed by the reflections on St. Joseph that have been written by many saints and blesseds.  These reflections have led, in so many of their lives, to an awareness of St. Joseph’s presence in their lives, and even his assistance.

There is indeed something of a “cloud of witnesses” where devotion to St. Joseph is concerned.  If one would refer to the painting commissioned by Fr. Calloway, in the back of his book, one would see no fewer than 26 saints and those on the path canonization: these include well known saints like St. Francis de Sales, St. Teresa of Avila, and venerable Fulton Sheen; as well as more recent and geographically closer saints such as Pope St. John Paul the Great, St. Luigi Guanella, St. Josemaría Escrivá, and St. André Bessette.

Finally, in addition to the apparitions at Fatima and Knock, as well as other earlier apparitions, there is a more recent apparition which gives witness to St. Joseph’s particular relevance to the life of the Church in our time: Brazil (1994-1998).

St. Joseph, indeed wants to draw us closer to our Lord, Jesus Christ, along with his beloved spouse - the ever-virgin Mary.  Let us receive this invitation with gratitude.