Need to Know
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Didn’t know the fancy words, but just KNEW.
This is really interesting. St. Joseph was relatively unnoticed in the first millenium of the Church, as far as I can tell, and really only gained noteriety during the Renaissance. The four major basilicas in Rome are named after: Peter, John the Baptist & John the Evangelist, Mary, and Paul. There wasn’t even a church in Rome dedicated to him until the 17th century.
The last two paragraphs of Pope Leo the XIII’s encyclical regarding St Joseph is beautiful and encouraging;
“Fathers of families find in Joseph the best personification of paternal solicitude and vigilance; spouses a perfect example of love, of peace, and of conjugal fidelity; virgins at the same time find in him the model and protector of virginal integrity. The noble of birth will earn of Joseph how to guard their dignity even in misfortune; the rich will understand, by his lessons, what are the goods most to be desired and won at the price of their labour. As to workmen, artisans, and persons of lesser degree, their recourse to Joseph is a special right, and his example is for their particular imitation.
For Joseph, of royal blood, united by marriage to the greatest and holiest of women, reputed the father of the Son of God, passed his life in labour, and won by the toil of the artisan the needful support of his family. It is, then, true that the condition of the lowly has nothing shameful in it, and the work of the labourer is not only not dishonouring, but can, if virtue be joined to it, be singularly ennobled. Joseph, content with his slight possessions, bore the trials consequent on a fortune so slender, with greatness of soul, in imitation of his Son, who having put on the form of a slave, being the Lord of life, subjected himself of his own free-will to the spoliation and loss of everything.”
Not everyone was privileged to see St. Joseph with the Child Jesus in his arms, in the sky, on the October 13th 1917 apparition at Fatima.
St. Joseph, meek and humble of heart, like your step son, make our hearts like unto yours and His.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/catholicbard/2025/03/pope-leo-xiii-on-devotion-to-st-joseph/
Protodulia is news to me!
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