A devotion during this year of St. Joseph

 

PRAYING THE ‘7 SORROWS OF ST. JOSEPH’

This is a real find: a devotion that may be new to a lot of us — it is to me! — but that can have special resonance and meaning during this Year of St. Joseph. 

Among other things, these moments for prayer and meditation, “The 7 Sorrows of St. Joseph,” remind us of Joseph’s humanity, and how often things may not have gone the way he had planned. It’s a litany of setbacks, detours, shocks and disappointments, the heartbreaks of a seemingly ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances, yet called in the midst of it all to become a saint.

These events should remind us of all the trials that this silent member of the Holy Family endured — and how he, too, “carried these things in his heart.”

1. “First, at finding that his honored Lady and amiable spouse had conceived, and at the idea of being obliged by the law to forsake her. (St. Matt. i. 18, 19.)”
2. “Second, at not being able to find lodging in the city of Bethlehem for the King and Queen of heaven, and at seeing Jesus lying shivering on a little straw in a manger, between two animals—His only shelter from the cold, there being no room for Him in the inn. (St. Luke ii. 7.)”
3. “Third, at seeing the divine infant suffer and shed so much of His precious blood in the painful ceremony of His circumcision, when he was but eight days old. (St. Luke ii. 21.)”
4. “Fourth, at hearing, on the day of the purification, the prophecy of holy Simeon, that the child should be an object of contradiction and persecution, and that a sword of sorrow should pierce Mary’s heart. (St. Luke ii. 34, 35.)”
5. “Fifth, his flight into Egypt with the child and His Mother, in the darkness of the night, and in the depth of winter, to escape the persecution raised by Herod against the adorable infant. (St. Matt. ii. 13.)”
6. “Sixth, on his return from Egypt, hearing that Archelaus, more cruel still, reigned in Judea in the room of Herod his father, he was afraid to go thither, and being warned in sleep retired into Galilee. (St. Matt. ii. 22.)”
7. “Seventh, in the celebrated pilgrimage to Jerusalem, not finding the child Jesus, his only solace, among his acquaintance, he sought Him three days, sorrowing for His loss. (St. Luke i. 45, 46, 48.)”