My dear St Joseph pray to Jesus for me. Certainly, He can never refuse you anything, as He obeyed all your orders while on earth. Tell Him to detach me from all creatures and from myself, to inflame me with His holy love, and then do with me what he pleases.
–St. Alphonsus Liguori
“If it is true that the Blessed Virgin is the keeper of all heavenly graces, that her love for the elect is the source of their glory and happiness, what must be the glory of St. Joseph whom she was obliged to love above all the saints, just as a good wife must love her husband above all men. Meditate on this.”
Blessed Boleslava Lament
“If Joseph was so engaged, heart and soul, in protecting and providing for that little family at Nazareth, don’t you think that now in heaven he is the same loving father and guardian of the whole Church, of all its members, as he was of its Head on earth?”
Pope Pius XII
“Both Mary and Joseph had made a vow to remain virgins all the days of their lives; and God wished them to be united in the bonds of marriage, not because they repented of the vow already made, but to be confirmed in it and to encourage each other to continue in this holy relation.”
St. Francis De Sales
[/dflip“Since Mary is what might be called a ‘virginizer’ of young men as well as women, and the greatest inspiration of Christian purity, should she not logically have begun by inspiring and virginizing the first youth whom she had probably ever met – Joseph, the Just? It was not by diminishing his power to love but by elevating it that she would have her first conquest, and in her own spouse, the man who was a man, and not a senile watchman!”
Ven. Fulton J. Shenn
“Both Mary and Joseph had made a vow to remain virgins all the days of their lives; and God wished them to be united in the bonds of marriage, not because they repented of the vow already made, but to be confirmed in it and to encourage each other to continue in this holy relation.”
St. Francis De Sales
“Truly, I doubt not that the angels, wondering and adoring, came thronging in countless multitudes to that poor workshop to admire the humility of him who guarded that dear and divine child, and labored at his carpenter’s trade to support the son and the mother who were committed to his care.”
St. Francis de Sales
“Jesus and Mary themselves obey and offer their homage to Joseph, for the reverence what the hand of God has established in him, namely, the authority of spouse and the authority of father.”
Pope Pius XI
“In human life, Joseph was Jesus’ teacher in their daily contact, full of refined affection, glad to deny himself to take better care of Jesus. Isn’t that reason enough for us to consider this just man, this holy patriarch, in whom the faith of the Old Covenant comes to full fruition, as a master of interior life? Interior life is nothing but continual and direct conversation with Christ, so as to become one with him. And Joseph can tell us many things about Jesus. Therefore, never neglect devotion to him—Ite ad Ioseph: “Go to Joseph”—as Christian tradition puts it in the words of the Old Testament
St. Thomas Aquinas
“Truly, I doubt not that the angels, wondering and adoring, came thronging in countless multitudes to that poor workshop to admire the humility of him who guarded that dear and divine child, and labored at his carpenter’s trade to support the son and the mother who were committed to his care.”
St. Francis de Sales
