Grateful and Humble 
in Life and Death

The Blessed Pass­ing Away of St Joseph

Dur­ing his many years of ill­ness, Joseph’s strength increas­ing­ly dwin­dled due to infir­mi­ty and suf­fer­ing. When Mary recog­nised that St Joseph’s pass­ing away was immi­nent, she asked JESUS to stand by His Nurs­ing and Fos­ter Father in the hour of death. The SAVIOUR replied: „My Moth­er, your requests are pleas­ing to Me, and Joseph’s mer­its are before My Spir­it. I will now stand by him. But one day I will assign him such an exalt­ed seat amongst the princes of My peo­ple that Angels and men will mar­vel at it and praise GOD. For no one I will do the same as for your Spouse.“

On the day before his death, St Joseph was even allowed to see the essence of GOD and all the mys­ter­ies of faith and eter­nal life in a won­der­ful and unveiled man­ner. When he returned from his ecsta­sy, his face shone with beau­ty and won­der­ful radi­ance, and his soul was com­plete­ly trans­formed in GOD. Joseph now asked his most holy Spouse for her bless­ing. But she asked JESUS to grant the desired bless­ing. Then Mary knelt down, asked in her turn St Joseph for his farewell bless­ing, and kissed his bless­ing hand with great gratitude.

St Joseph want­ed to be grate­ful and hum­ble even in his dying hour, as he had prac­tised through­out his life. He thanked his most holy Spouse and asked her for­give­ness for every­thing that he as a weak human being had failed … more