Prayer and meditations for the novena in St. Joseph's honour

Text elaborated by the Bishop Claudio Gatti

This novena has been composed in a particularly sorrowful moment of our life. We have always had a great love and a particular predilection towards St. Joseph; both of them have been trasmitted to us by Our Lady.
The purest bride expressed her thanks for this novena in his chastest spouse's honour and she manifested the wish that it was published before the book of her life, in order to allow us to know and love the one who had the privilege and the responsibility of being called "father" by the Son of God.
St. Joseph himself manifested his thanks in the message he gave on March 19, 1994.
We are confident that the meditation of this novena can do spiritual good to our brothers just like it did to us.

Prayer
Beloved and taciturn St. Joseph, we want to run again through your earthly life very slowly, it is a bright straight line that reaches God. A straight line includes many points as well as your life is full of many precious and important intermediate stages that precede the final finishing line: the happiness and enjoyment of the Paradise.
We invite you to be present in our life to have the guarantee of enjoying the company of your bride and the grace of your putative son who you loved, recognized and adored as your God.

FIRST DAY
The birth of a lily: St. Joseph

At birth St. Joseph was welcome by the complaisance and the smile of the Most Holy Trinity.
Each of the Three Divine Persons acted and left his own imprint in the soul of this creature chosen for tasks as high as silent and hidden.
God the Father prepared him for the mission of being the spouse of Mary and for the responsibility of being the putative father of his Divine Son.
God the Son loved him with a unique and particular love, He called him with the sweet name of "father", He respected and listened to him as a docile and obedient son.
God the Holy Spirit enriched him with gifts, graces and particular charisms so that he could carry out his role with humble abandonment in the plan of salvation.
The birth of St. Joseph is like the first glow that pre-announces in the sky the dawn of the first hours of the day: Mary, and the splendour of the sun at noon: Jesus.
The birth of St. Joseph precedes the birth of Mary and the birth of Jesus, it is a weaker light than the full light of Mary and the bright light of Jesus, but it is a light that God loves, appreciates, recognizes in the midst of many pulsating lights.

SECOND DAY
St. Joseph: humble and docile adolescent

St. Joseph lived his adolescence in the simplicity, docility and respect towards his parents.
In order to carry out important roles and delicate responsibilities in the adult age, it is necessary to acquire in the adolescence a style of life that must be moulded with authority by the educators, because pretending to be trained by ourselves means exposing ourselves to serious dangers and certain defeats.
The respectful and trustful love of St. Joseph towards his parents was an ever growing love because, even if naturally present in all children, it progressively became a virtue sustained by his engagement and by God's help.
Joseph observed with faith and conviction the divine commandment: honour thy father and mother. He saw in them not only mature and expert people, but also God himself, who makes use of his creatures and elevates them to the dignity and responsibility of being his co-workers in the action of spiritual and human growth of man.
St. Joseph carried out his role of spouse and putative father with maturity, responsibility and authority, because he prepared himself with convicted and deep humility to carry out these roles.
St. Joseph is an authentic example of humility because he overcame his ego, he accepted and respected the others. His love was fed by humility and the generous service towards the others fed on humility. St. Joseph reached the highest peaks of humility because he overcame and dominated his pride, he lived with serenity and confidence in a hidden way.
He reserved the first place to God, he put the neighbour immediately after, he always wanted the last place for himself.

THIRD DAY
St. Joseph: pure young man

St. Joseph is a bright and convincing witnessing of a life made precious by a very dear virtue to God: the purity.
In a world that dips more and more in the disordered pleasures of the flesh, the pure people remind the final and definitive condition of man: "You will be like God's angels in heaven" (Matthew 22,30).
The purity allows man to live an intimate relationship with God and to devote himself generously to serve the brothers.
St. Joseph generously kept the virtue of purity during the years of youth and of the married life, even opposing the mentality of his people and time that never considered definitive the choice of living chaste.
St. Joseph defended his purity from the concupiscence of the flesh, from the temptations of the devil and the solicitudes of the world by means of prayer, vigilance and fast.
St. Joseph was ready and happy to offer to God the lily of his purity, the same lily that he offered to God again with Mary during the years of the married life.
The chaste spouse of Our Lady can help us to understand the beauty of the purity, but above all he can pray and intercede for us in the moments of temptation in which our purity can be compromised.

FOURTH DAY
Joseph and Mary engaged couple

Joseph and Mary propose themselves to the young people who love each other as the couple that reached the most sublime heights of love, meant in all its extension, depth and entirety.
When they met for the first time they felt arising in their heart a pure and authentic love. Joseph and Mary felt those feelings, emotions and affections indicating that the flower of love was born, that love whose source and finishing line was God, they were aware that they met because God put the one on the path of the other.
By an interior enlightenment Joseph discovered that his future bride had particular gifts: the natural, preternatural and supernatural gifts. Mary realized that her future spouse was just, respected God's law, loved praying and was ready for sacrifice.
The love of this engaged couple grew more and more every day.
They engaged themselves to know, understand and help each other.
They prayed together and prayer uniteed them with God and with each other more and more. They fasted together and this infused into them new spiritual energies.
They meditated together the Word of God and in their soul increased the light that allowed them to know and accept what God had planned for them.
How many times they read the passages of the Old Testament about the Messiah and their heart felt particular emotions.
The young Joseph and Mary are the brightest and most complete example and witnessing for the young people of all times who prepare for pronouncing their definitive "yes" before God.

FIFTH DAY
The love of the married couple Mary and Joseph

The love that unites Mary with Joseph is the most elevated, complete and authentic conjugal love. They really feel to be husband and wife, they are married by God's will, but also by their personal choice and acceptance. Mary and Joseph wanted to be united by that love whose source and finishing line is God, not by the love arising from physical needs or privileging only some qualities of the body; it could not be in a different way.
The love coming from God leads man to dizzy heights, the love arising from other sources is not able to rise beyond the modest human dimension.
When Mary and Joseph got married, they were beautiful, young, full of reciprocal love, together they constituted a very beautiful couple.
They loved and were amazed at each other's spiritual beauty, they privileged the needs of the soul, the only ones that allow us to live in God's company on the earth and to serve completely the brothers.
They loved and loved each other like all men in the Paradise will love after the resurrection of the bodies as Jesus taught.
Joseph and Mary, authentic and marvellous married couple, teach us that only from God comes the true love that unites a man with a woman for ever.

SIXTH DAY
Joseph and the family

The holy family of Nazareth proposes itself as an example for all christian families.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived their roles with simplicity, authenticity and love.
Jesus was the docile and obedient son, Mary was the bride and generous and responsible mother, Joseph was the spouse and the father animated by an authentic spirit of service.
The hours of the day were cadenced by the common prayer and by reading the Word of God. The most desired and awaited moments were those in which the holy family gathered in conversation, where Jesus was the master and Joseph and Mary the disciples.
Through his incarnation the Son of God had hidden (Phil 2,6), not renounced his divine attributes and in the privacy of the house of Nazareth He manifested himself as "Word of God" (John 1,1).
The good and sincere hearts of Mary and Joseph were the good earth where, falling, the Word of God produced fruit "one hundred times as much" (Luke 8,5-15).
When Joseph and Mary listened to Jesus they were not astonished by his intelligence as the doctors of the temple (Luke 2,47), they knew they were listening to the Son of God and listened to him with love and faith.
Anyway Jesus, Son of God, wanted to obey a man (Luke 2,51) and Joseph did not evade his delicate and exacting task, but he lived it with serenity, responsibility and conviction because he knew this was God's will. Through his life St. Joseph teaches that, whatever the responsibility of a man, he must not allow anything to upset his interior serenity, silence and quietness.

SEVENTH DAY
The silence of St. Joseph

The Gospel doesn't present us with either one word about St. Joseph, even if he is not a simple walk-on, but a protagonist in the Gospel of Jesus' childhood.
It is spontaneous to pass from the outward silence that characterizes St. Joseph to his inward silence.
What's the meaning of inward silence? It means to silence all other voices in order to listen to God's voice only.
God speaks in many ways, to everybody and always, but man doesn't listen to Him voluntarily because he is attracted by messages that stimulate disordered pleasures and by goals unappreciable in God's light.
God spoke to Joseph's heart, free by useless human worries. Joseph lived a constant and conversing union with God.
Only the inward silence is able to change into a dialogue with God rich of love and into a generous willingness towards the brothers.
Speaking about St. Joseph's inward silence means to present a man who is rich of inward life and alert to the outward reality.
St. Joseph was declared patron of the Universal Church because he protected the little Jesus with love, promptness, also at the cost of privations, incomprehensions and suffering. Now through his powerful intercession he defends the Church by the dangers that make an attempt to its existence, integrity and unity, because the Church is the sacrament of Christ and in the Church and for the Church Christ is present in the world.
St. Joseph protect the unity and the harmony in the family and ecclesiastic communities by divisions, incomprehensions, personalisms and errors.

EIGHTH DAY
St. Joseph's abandonment to God

Abandoning oneself to God means saying yes to God with heart and will when man is tempted to say no. At the beginning abandoning oneself to God can cause a deep laceration that is reabsorbed little by little the man is able to lift himself up to a vigorous and serene vision of faith.
St. Joseph always kept in mind this passage of the Old Testament:
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,
says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55,8-9).
One of the most frequent and serious sins in our times is the pretension of man to impose to God plans, methods and solutions that he thinks to be better due to his pride and stupidity.
St. Joseph offers to the Church his style of life submitted with serenity and abandoned with confidence to God.
He always abandoned himself to God also when he was lacerated in the soul and affections, when he lived incomprehensible and dramatic situations from the human point of view: the mysterious maternity of Mary, the flight into Egypt, the losing of the Child Jesus and the silent years of life in Nazareth.
St. Joseph was subjected to very hard trials and his sufferings were very troubled, but his abandonment to God was perfect and convicted.
St. Joseph gave his silent contribution, but it was valid for the redemptrix action of Jesus who called him with the sweet name of abbà: father.

NINTH DAY
The death of St. Joseph

St. Joseph goes silently into the evangelic story and goes out on the tips of his toes. We know only that he worked as "carpenter" (Matthew 13,55) during the years he lived in Nazareth with Jesus and Mary, but we know nothing about when and how his death happened.
Joseph is presented in the Gospel as just (Matthew 1,19) and the meaning of this word is not only "perfect before the law", but especially "the one who reached a moral perfection". The expression "just" finds its place in the beatitudes: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied" (Matthew 5,6) and here the justice indicates the spiritual goods that God gives to man through the salvation. Mary's spouse "in his hunger and thirst of righteousness" has been abundantly satisifed because he got profusely from the source of grace: the Almighty God.
When he was at home either working or with his putative son, it was enough to raise his eyes to see God the Son and adore Him together with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.
He had an uninterrupted union, a close relationship and a personal conversation with the Most Holy Trinity. Streams of light and grace inundated and enriched St. Joseph's soul.
Who is "just" during the life he will present himself to God rich of "justice" at the moment of death and God will welcome him into his arms with infinite love.
During the passing from life to death St. Joseph was helped by Jesus, who prayed with his putative father and suggested to him the words that Joseph repeated with more and more physical tiredness, but with more and more faith, hope and love.
Mary was united with this chorus or prayers and in her mind flowed the years spent secretly with her chaste spouse in prayer, sacrifice, meditation of the Word of God and in the love to God and the neighbour.
St. Joseph was serene and confident because his hands clasped the hands of the Son of God, his putative son and of the Mother of God, his purest bride.
The humble St. Joseph fell asleep in the kiss of God the Son and woke up in the embrace of the Most Holy Trinity.