As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Pope Francis has designated this year to be a Year of St. Joseph, marking the 150^th Anniversary of the Proclamation of St. Joseph as the Patron of the Universal Church by Blessed Pope Pius IX on December 8, 1870.  To kick off the year, Pope Francis released a beautiful reflection on St. Joseph in his Apostolic Letter, Patris corde.  I highly encourage you to read this relatively short letter, especially during this month dedicated to him.

There is a hidden nugget to be found in this letter that I did not discover when I first read it.  That nugget is found not in the main text of the letter, but in the footnotes!  The footnote is referenced by the following line in the text which seems rather insignificant.  The Holy Father writes:

Every prayer book contains prayers to Saint Joseph. Special prayers are offered to him each Wednesday and especially during the month of March, which is traditionally dedicated to him.

Great.  Thanks for the heads up, but who takes the time to jump to read every footnote?  But reading this footnote is like finding gold, as it offers something very personal and beautiful about Pope Francis and his personal devotion to St. Joseph.  Here is how the footnote reads:

Every day, for over forty years, following Lauds I have recited a prayer to Saint Joseph taken from a nineteenth-century French prayer book of the Congregation of the Sisters of Jesus and Mary. It expresses devotion and trust, and even poses a certain challenge to Saint Joseph: “Glorious Patriarch Saint Joseph, whose power makes the impossible possible, come to my aid in these times of anguish and difficulty. Take under your protection the serious and troubling situations that I commend to you, that they may have a happy outcome. My beloved father, all my trust is in you. Let it not be said that I invoked you in vain, and since you can do everything with Jesus and Mary, show me that your goodness is as great as your power. Amen.”

What a moving prayer that is!  When we think of St. Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church, we might think that our own needs are so minor in comparison to all of the needs of the Church throughout the world.  Does he really have time to listen to my prayers and struggles?  Absolutely!  Just as a good father has time and concern for the individual needs of each of his children, so too with St. Joseph, our father and lord (as St. Josemaria Escriva likes to call him).  I think the above prayer prayed each day by our Holy Father is a witness to that reality.  Perhaps you and I could adopt that same practice of turning to St. Joseph each day, asking for his help in bringing about a happy outcome to every struggle we entrust to his intercession. 

Father Alford     

We all know that the Anointing of the Sick should be offered to all Catholics who are nearing death, and also those who are facing a serious illness or weakness from old age. The Church talks about four specific graces that Jesus offers to those who receive this special sacrament. This can be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1520-1523. 

The first grace is described as “a particular gift of the Holy Spirit.” People who have received this sacrament can probably testify to the effects of this gift of the Holy Spirit. In this moment, God gives strength, peace, and courage in the face of difficulty. This courage also helps one to be victorious in the battle that takes place “at the hour of our death” as we pray in the Hail Mary. In the moments before death, the devil knows that it is his last chance to tempt us to despair. The grace of God comes in at this very moment to strengthen us! Also, one’s sins can be forgiven if they were not able to receive Reconciliation. The soul is healed and the body is also healed, if God wills it for one’s spiritual good. 

The second grace of this sacrament is a special union with the passion of Christ. Through our baptism, we are all united with Christ’s death and resurrection in a spiritual way. However, when our bodies die, we share with Christ’s death in a physical way. As we near this moment, our suffering is especially close to the suffering that Jesus endured in his Passion. As St. Paul tells us, our suffering fills up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, and Jesus uses our suffering for the salvation of the world. 

The third grace is called an ecclesial grace. “Ecclesial” refers to the Church. In addition to uniting one to Christ, the Anointing unites one more fully to the Church. They can experience a special closeness to the saints in heaven, and their suffering becomes a gift to the entire Church throughout the world. 

The fourth and final grace of the Anointing of the Sick is a preparation for the final journey. This is the last sacrament many will receive before passing away (except for Viaticum hopefully). We all receive several anointings during the celebration of the sacraments: two anointings in Baptism, one in Confirmation, and for priests, at the reception of Holy Orders. This final anointing fortifies the end of our earthly life as we prepare for the journey from earthly life to eternal life. 

The Anointing of the Sick certainly offers us many graces at what may be the lowest point of our lives. “Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful.” The Lord is very close to us in our suffering, and especially in our death. This past Friday, we just celebrated the Solemnity of St. Joseph. He is the patron saint of a happy death, and we should all pray that we will die a “happy death.” God did not make death, but he has transformed it into the gateway of eternal life. May we all pray that we will receive the gift of the Anointing of the Sick before we die, so that we can receive all these gifts that Jesus desires to offer us. 

The lightning had struck early in the morning, on the tenth day of Nisan, the very day on which the procurator returned to the city for his usual stay during the Passover.  Not unheralded – for some days past the clouds had been gathering.  Agents reported a growing feeling of unrest among the early pilgrims, a few rumors, many rumors, a sea of rumors that “he” was coming, that this time “he” would declare himself openly for what he was, that nothing and nobody would be able to stop the beginning of the “new time”, that the events at the Feast of Tabernacles were no more than a prelude, that no other day but the Passover feast could usher in the coming of the Messiah, the day commemorating Israel’s delivery from bondage.

The old quotations ran from mouth to mouth again, about the “Son of David”, the Anointed One, who would bring peace and happiness to the world, the one of whom Jaqob spoke in the forty-ninth chapter of Genesis: “The scepter shall not be taken away from Judah, or a ruler from his thigh, till he come that is to be sent, and he shall be the expectation of the nations”; quotations from the psalms of David foretelling the coming of the Messiah and Isaias’ dak cry, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God.”  And they were talking of Jochanaan, the Baptist, as the forerunner Isais mentioned.  They called up the prophets one by one, Jeremiah and Ezechiel, Amos and Zacharias and Daniel – but they meant that the day was approaching when the Messiah would scatter the Romans and make an end to their rule.

Then suddenly somebody spread the news that “he” had arrived, that “he” was in Bethany and preparing to enter “his” city, and the news raced across Jerusalem like wildfire, and everywhere people bunched together and shouted with excitement and broke off palm branches and streamed out to receive the King Messiah.  

And from then on the messengers came in wild-eyed, spluttering and stammering, scarcely any one of them able to deliver a cold, clear report.  And no wonder.

It was incredible but true.  He really dared to come out in the open.  He came riding on a donkey.  Of course!  He knew his Scripture.  He had read his Zacharias: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion, shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem; Behold thy King will come to thee, the just and Savior; he is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.”

Many hundreds of people came with him.  They had gone out to Bethany to fetch him in state, and they found him, of course, as the Romans did not, the Romans who could have prevented all this so easily, if only they had acted at once when the High Priest sent them the message.  

That man Eleazar was with the Nazarene telling everyone that he had been raised from the dead, and a number of witnesses cried that they had seen it with their own eyes.  And the crowds swelled bigger and bigger, and they shouted “Hosanna!”, “Save…”, and “Blessed be he who cometh in the name of the Lord!”  The priest who came to tell the High Priest about it could scarcely articulate for anger against such blasphemy.

– From The Spear, by Louis de Wohl, 1998. p275-276.

I certainly recommend all of Louis de Wohl’s books, many which bring the reader vividly into the lives of different saints, but this one, The Spear, he rightly considered his best.  If you read it, you will find in yourself the same fears and scheming that consumed Caiaphas, the same love and ardor of Martha and Mary, alongside the wonder-struck crowd as Lazarus stepped from his tomb, and moved to see Christ, filled with longing and loneliness, enter into the city of Jerusalem and take up his cross.  This bringing ourselves into the Passion of Jesus, is not the story of a saint, it is the story of every saint!

– Fr. Dominic Rankin was on a mission trip in Tanzania when he first read this tremendous historical fiction by Louis de Wohl.  He read it over Holy week and Easter week two years ago, and his imagination has remained transformed by the imagery and characters ever since.  It is books like this that have fostered his desire to vibrantly recount the stories of the saints, as well as inspired in him a new and vivid meditation on the stories we know so well in Scripture.