St. Joseph's Labour of Love to support Jesus

       MARCH 6

 SIXTH MEDITATION 

Invocation of the Holy Ghost

Come, O Holy Ghost, replenish the hearts of thy servants, and enkindle in them the fire of Thy divine love.

V. Send forth Thy Spirit, and our hearts shall be regenerated.

R. And Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.

Let us Pray

O God, who by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, didst instruct the hearts of the faithful; grant that by the same Divine Spirit we may have a right understanding in all things, and evermore rejoice in His holy consolations, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.  St. Joseph, pray for us.

St. Joseph's Labour of Love to support Jesus

“Arise and take the child and his mother and fly into Egypt, and be there until I shall tell thee."

Reflect on the happiness of St. Joseph to be privileged to supply the wants and com forts of Jesus and Mary by the labour of his hands. During the long and fatiguing journey from Bethlehem to Egypt, St. Joseph's labour of love was to mitigate, by every means in his power, the wants and privations of Jesus and Mary. How long the Holy Family stayed in Egypt we know not for certain; but it was St. Joseph's glorious privilege to support by the labour of his hands the Holy Exiles in a strange land. With what anxious love did St. Joseph help and comfort Jesus and Mary during their return to their native country. At Nazareth, whilst Jesus and Mary prayed, St. Joseph toiled in his little shop to supply the modest wants and comforts of the Holy Family. If the most perfect religious find, as they do, their supreme happiness in doing the will of Jesus, made known to them by their lawful superiors, what must be the happiness of St. Joseph in doing for so many years the will of Jesus, made known to him by Jesus Himself. If in heaven above the highest spirits find their most perfect sanctity in hanging, so to speak, upon the breath of God, to know and to do His holy will, how holy and happy did St. Joseph feel whilst he constantly and reverentially looked into the divine countenance of Jesus, there to know and anticipate His wants and wishes. How willingly did the hands of Joseph work whilst his mind ever told him that the bliss of the happiest Angel in heaven would be increased a million fold were he privileged to do once what St. Joseph did for so many years, to win bread to support the Eternal Son of God, the Saviour of the world! "What our Blessed Saviour said of His Eternal Father, St. Joseph could say of Jesus, "I do always the things that please Him."

St. Joseph the Carpenter, by Georges de La Tour

Practical Resolution

"The will of God is your sanctification" (Thess. iv. 3), writes St. Paul; and again, Whatever you do in word or work, do all for the glory of God. Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God. To please Jesus alone St. Joseph lived and laboured. That I too may labour and live to please God alone; that all the affections of my heart, the thoughts of my mind, and the labour of my hands may belong to God alone; I resolve, by the grace of God, every day of my life to make a fervent "Morning Offering," and from time to time during the day to renew the offering, and thus to do each and every action for the greater glory of God. May Jesus in His infinite mercy grant me grace to keep my resolutions. St. Joseph, pray for me.

Prayer

Morning Offering

O my good God! I now consecrate and offer to Thy greater glory every thought, word, action, pain and suffering, the pulsations of my heart and the motions of my senses, not only of this day, but all the days of my life; in union with the actions and the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, and His Sacred Humanity in heaven; in union with all the Masses that have been said, that now are being said, and that will be said throughout Christendom; and in union with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in all the tabernacles throughout the world. O my good God! grant me the grace in all my works to seek Thy divine will alone. May I do all my actions to please God alone; may the greater glory of God be the sole aim of my life! may the light of God's presence over shine upon my soul; may I see and do all things in God; may God's holy will be ever done in me, and by me. When pain and sickness touch me, may God's holy will be done. In trials and troubles may God's holy will be done. In losses and disappointments may God's holy will be done. I accept life and death from the hands of God. Living and dying may God's holy will be done.

Prayer to St. Joseph to obtain the Holy Virtue of Purity

O faithful guardian and father of virgins, glorious St. Joseph, to whom was confided the care of Jesus and of Mary, the Queen of Virgins, I most humbly supplicate thee, by the love thou didst bear Jesus and Mary, to obtain for me that, being preserved from every stain during life, I may serve them with unspotted purity of mind and body.