To Saint Joseph in Thanksgiving

 "I am poor, and in labors from my youth and being exalted, I was humbled and troubled." Psalm 87:16

Joseph of Nazareth

On a joiner's bench

You ply your trade.

Hands calloused

Fingers nimble.

Wood chips and shavings

At your feet.

Sawdust

In your beard.

You sing

The song of your people

Longing

For the Face

Of Him

Who is to come.

Joseph of Nazareth

Of David's line

You sing

The wedding song.

"My sister, my spouse

Is a garden

Enclosed..."

Virgin husband

Of the Daughter of Sion

You prepare a

Dwelling

For the Stainless One.

Joseph of Nazareth

In sweat of anguish

You ponder

Another Joseph

Thrown in the cistern.

Your song

Becomes sad.

"Save me

O God

For the waters

Are come in

Even unto

My soul..."

You sing

Then fall silent.

Sleep comes

With the breeze

That stirs

The curls of wood...

And then

The voice: 

"Joseph, Son of David,

Fear not...."

By a Carmelite tertiary

Thirty Days Prayer to St. Joseph

Here is a devotion in honor of the most chaste spouse of Our Lady, the foster father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us offer it for the Christians who are being persecuted throughout the world.

Ever blessed and glorious Joseph, kind and loving father, and helpful friend of all in sorrow!  You are the good father and protector of orphans, the defender of the defenseless, the patron of those in need and sorrow.  Look kindly on my request.  My sins have drawn down on me the just displeasure of my God, and so I am surrounded with unhappiness.  To you, loving guardian of the Family of Nazareth, do I go for help and protection.

Listen, then, I beg you, with fatherly concern, to my earnest prayers, and obtain for me the favors I ask.

I ask it by the infinite mercy of the eternal Son of God, which moved Him to take our nature and to be born into this world of sorrow.

I ask it by the weariness and suffering you endured when you found no shelter at the inn of Bethlehem for the holy Virgin, nor a house where the Son of God could be born.   Then, being everywhere refused, you had to allow the Queen of Heaven to give birth to the world's Redeemer in a cave.

I ask it by that painful torture you felt at the prophecy of holy Simeon, which declared the Child Jesus and His holy Mother future victims of our sins and of their great love for us.

I ask it through your sorrow and pain of soul when the angel declared to you that the life of the Child Jesus was sought by His enemies.  From their evil plan you had to flee with Him and His Blessed Mother to Egypt.  I ask it by all the suffering, weariness, and labors of that long and dangerous journey.

I ask it by all your care to protect the Sacred Child and His Immaculate Mother during your second journey, when you were ordered to return to your own country.  I ask it by your peaceful life in Nazareth where you met with so many joys and sorrows.

I ask it by your great distress when the adorable Child was lost to you and His Mother for three days.  I ask it by your joy at finding Him in the Temple, and by the comfort you found at Nazareth, while living in the company of the Child Jesus.  I ask it by the wonderful submission He showed in His obedience to you.

I ask it by the perfect love and conformity you showed in accepting the Divine order to depart from this life, and from the company of Jesus and Mary.  I ask it by the joy which filled your soul, when the Redeemer of the world, triumphant over death and hell, entered into the possession of His kingdom and led you into it with special honors.

I ask it through Mary's glorious Assumption, and through that endless happiness you have with her in the presence of God.

O good father!  I beg you, by all your sufferings, sorrows, and joys, to hear me and obtain for me what I ask.

(make your request)
Obtain for all those who have asked my prayers everything that is useful to them in the plan of God.  Finally, my dear patron and father, be with me and all who are dear to me in our last moments, that we may eternally sing the praises of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

(Image source.)

Bishop Challoner on Fasting

The holy bishop speaks:

Consider first, that fasting, according to the present discipline of the Church, implies three things. First, we are to abstain from flesh meat on fasting days; secondly, we are to eat but one meal in the day; and thirdly, we are not to take that meal till about noon. The ancient discipline of the Church was more rigorous, both in point of the abstinence, and in not allowing the meal in Lent till the evening. These regulations are calculated to mortify the sensual appetite by penance and self-denial. If you find some difficulty in the observance of them, offer it up to God for your sins. Fasting is not designed to please, but to punish. Your diligent compliance on this occasion with the laws of your mother the Church will also give an additional value to your mortifications, from the virtue of obedience.

Consider 2ndly, that we must not content ourselves with the outward observance of these regulations that relate to our diet on fasting days, but we must principally have regard to the inward spirit, and what we may call the very soul of the fast, which is a penitential spirit; without this the outward observance is but like a carcass without life. This penitential spirit implies a deep sense of the guilt of our sins; a horror and a hearty sorrow for them; a sincere desire to return to God, and to renounce our sinful ways for the future; and particularly a readiness of mind to make the best satisfaction we are capable of to divine justice by penancing ourselves for our sins. Fasting, performed in this spirit, cannot fail of moving God to mercy. O my soul, let thy fasting be always animated with this spirit

Consider 3rdly, that fervent prayer and alms-deeds also, according to each one’s ability, ought to be the inseparable companions of our fasting. These three sisters should go hand-in-hand, Tob. xii. 8, to help us in our warfare against our three mortal enemies, the flesh, the world, and the devil. The practice of these three eminent good works we must oppose to that triple concupiscence which reigns in the world, and by means of which Satan maintains his unhappy reign. By fasting we overcome the lusts of the flesh by alms-deeds we subdue the lusts of the eyes, by which we are apt to covet the mammon of the world, and its empty toys; and by fervent and humble prayer we conquer the pride of life, and put to flight the devil, the king of pride. O let us never forget to call in these powerful auxiliaries to help us in our warfare. Let alms-deeds and prayer ever accompany our fasts.

Conclude to follow these rules, if you desire your fast should be acceptable; if you fail in them, it will not be such a fast as God hath chosen. (Read entire post.)

Tolkien's Poem to Our Lady

From uCatholic:

The ancient dome of heaven sheer
Was pricked with distant light;
A star came shining white and clear
Alone above the night.
In the dale of dark in that hour of birth
One voice on a sudden sang:
Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth
Together at midnight rang.

Mary sang in this world below:
They heard her song arise
O’er mist and over mountain snow
To the walls of Paradise,
And the tongue of many bells was stirred
in Heaven’s towers to ring
When the voice of mortal maid was heard,
That was mother of Heaven’s King.

Glad is the world and fair this night
With stars about its head,
And the hall is filled with laughter and light,
And fires are burning red.
The bells of Paradise now ring
With bells of Christendom,
And Gloria, Gloria we will sing
That God on earth is come.
(Read more.)

Childermas Day

The Feast of the Holy Innocents. From Dr. Eleanor Parker at A Clerk of Oxford:

Medieval writers were honest and clear-eyed about such uncomfortable truths. The idea that thoughts like these are incongruous with the Christmas season (as you often hear people say about the Holy Innocents) is largely a modern scruple, encouraged by the comparatively recent idea that Christmas is primarily a cheery festival for happy children and families. Our images of Christmas joy, both secular and sacred, are all childlike wonder and picture-perfect families gathered round the tree. And this is nice, of course, for those who have children or happy families, but for those who don't - those who have lost children or parents or others dear to them, those who face loneliness or exclusion, those who want but don't have children, family, or home - it can be intensely painful. Not everyone can choose not to think about grief at Christmas; many people will find it intrudes upon them, whether they wish it to or not. 'In sorrow endeth every love but thine, at the last'. The modern version of Christmas tends to sideline and ignore that pain, asking it to at least keep quiet so as not to spoil the 'magic'. But that's not the case with medieval writing about Christmas and the Christ-child. There are, of course, many merry and joyful medieval carols, and the season was celebrated in the Middle Ages with great enthusiasm; but there are also many carols like this which are serious, melancholy, and sad, which acknowledge the fact that the child whose birth is celebrated came to earth to die. Older writings on Christmas, like this lullaby, do not exclude but encompass human pain - it's that pain, they say, which Christ has come to earth to share. The idea is well expressed by John Donne, writing a little later than the medieval period (though only a few decades after the Coventry mystery plays were abolished), in a sermon he preached on Christmas Day 1626:

The whole life of Christ was a continual passion; others die martyrs, but Christ was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha, where he was crucified, even in Bethlehem, where he was born; for, to his tenderness then, the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after; and the manger as uneasy at first, as his cross at last. His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas Day and his Good Friday are but the evening and morning of one and the same day.

(Read more.)

Alma Redemptoris Mater

The Alma Redemptoris Mater is sung after Night Prayer (Compline) throughout Advent until Candlemas on February 2nd.

 

Loving mother of the Redeemer, gate of heaven, star of the sea, assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again, To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator, yet remained a virgin after as before, You who received Gabriel's joyful greeting, have pity on us poor sinners.

 

(Image: Virgin of Vladimir)

Saint Juan Diego

The Aztec who saw Our Lady.

Most historians agree that Juan Diego was born in 1474 in the calpulli or ward of Tlayacac in Cuauhtitlan, which was established in 1168 by Nahua tribesmen and conquered by the Aztec lord Axayacatl in 1467; and was located 20 kilometers (14 miles) north of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City).

His native name was Cuauhtlatoatzin, which could be translated as "One who talks like an eagle" or "eagle that talks". The Nican Mopohua describes him as a 'macehualli' or "poor Indian", one who did not belong to any of the social categories of the Empire, as priests, warriors, merchants,...but not a slave; a member of the lowest and largest class in the Aztec Empire. When talking to Our Lady he calls himself "a nobody", and refers to it as the source of his lack of credibility before the Bishop....(Read more.)