St Joseph
Model in All Virtues

„You are dis­tin­guished by jus­tice, wis­dom and puri­ty. Pro­tect the youth, who are exposed to so many dan­gers, and let them go through life inno­cent­ly. You are a lover of puri­ty, keep Your hands over chil­dren and young peo­ple. Saint Joseph, You were ini­ti­at­ed into the mys­te­ri­ous plan of the redemp­tion of the world.“

The three wise men (kings) from the East came as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of all mankind to pay homage to the new­born King, the Mes­si­ah, and to present Him with gifts. Joseph was over­joyed at this wor­ship of his JESUS. Nev­er­the­less, he was sad­dened by Simeon’s prophe­cy, which spoke of the suf­fer­ings of JESUS and Mary, but also of the great sal-
vation and Res­ur­rec­tion, which again was a com­fort to Joseph. In his life, joy and sor­row were always close­ly inter­twined. – The three kings received instruc­tions in a dream not to return to Herod so as to pro­tect the divine Child from his per­se­cu­tion. They returned to their coun­try by anoth­er route.

„Saint Joseph, obtain for us the grace to belong to those peo­ple who joy­ful­ly bring to the dear LORD the gold of love, the incense of prayer and the myrrh of mor­ti­fi­ca­tion, of renun­ci­a­tion and also of poverty.“

St Joseph lived all this – a won­der­ful exam-ple for us. He lived a dou­ble pover­ty: a great out­ward pover­ty and a deep one in spir­it. The sim­plic­i­ty of the lit­tle house in Nazareth was already an expres­sion of out­ward pover­ty and many pri­va­tions. Nev­er­the­less, there was a crown … more