St. Joseph
The Church traditionally dedicates the month of March to the special veneration of St. Joseph, whose feast day is March 19th. “He was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of his greatest treasures, namely, his divine Son and Mary, Joseph’s wife,” says St. Bernardine of Siena. “He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying ‘Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.’” Due to St. Joseph’s leadership of the Holy Family, he has been declared the protector and patron of the universal Catholic Church.
When Jesus came to cast fire upon earth, and desired that it should be enkindled, He chose some favored souls in which He was sure to find it always burning. It found its expression in the ” Magnificat,” it made the Baptist leap for joy, it brought delight to the home of Saint Zachary and Saint Elizabeth, and shed a bright ray over the aged features of Simeon and Anna.
Who can doubt, then, its power over the loyal and true heart of Saint Joseph, and its daily and hourly increase, whilst in their journeys He was resting on that heart and was filling it with such feelings as Saint John afterwards drew at the Last Supper from that inexhaustible spring of charity? .
.. Saint Joseph, above all, is the Patron and model of those who labor and are heavily burthened. He and our Divine Lord worked side by side for more than eighteen years and were known to their neighbours only by the kind of work which was their only support.
May our lives be guarded by Saint Joseph s powerful intercession; may he soothe us in sickness and cheer us in death, even as he himself sought and gained the only grace he desired to have the grace of dying in the arms of Jesus and Mary. – Bishop Thomas Grant—
May the Lord bless you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen