March 15 Sunday dedicated to St. Joseph

Pater noster - Saint Joseph, pray for us!

One day San Bernardino da Siena preached in Padua about Patriarch San Giuseppe. Suddenly he exclaimed: St. Joseph is glorious in Heaven, in body and soul. - Immediately a shining golden cross appeared on the head of the holy preacher, as a heavenly testimony to the truth of this statement. The whole audience noticed the prodigy.

Our saint died and was buried; however not a few believe that his body has risen and is now in Heaven. Yet the Church has not defined this truth as a domma of faith, but the Holy Fathers and the major Theologians agree in affirming that Saint Joseph is already in Paradise in body and soul, as is Jesus and Our Lady. No one researches or claims to have any relics of the body of St. Joseph.

It reads in the Gospel of St. Matthew: When Jesus rose from the dead, the tombs opened and many bodies of Saints, who had died, rose again and appeared to many. (S. Matthew XXVII - 52).

The resurrection of these righteous was not temporary, like that of Lazarus, but it was definitive, that is, instead of resurrecting them like the others at the end of the world, they rose first, to honor Jesus, Triumpher of death.

When Jesus ascended to Heaven on Ascension Day, they gloriously entered Paradise.

If so many Saints of the Old Testament had this privilege, it is to be thought that St. Joseph, who was more dear to Jesus than any other Saint, had it in preference. Among those who formed the cortege of the risen Christ, no one more than Saint Joseph had the right to approach his Sacred Person.

St. Francis de Sales in the Treatise on the Virtues of St. Joseph says: If we believe that by virtue of the Blessed Sacrament we receive, our bodies will rise on the day of Judgment, how can we doubt that Jesus did not bring up to Heaven with himself, in soul and body, the glorious Saint Joseph, who had had the honor and the grace to carry him so often on his arms and to bring him close to his heart? ... I hold for certain that Saint Joseph is in Heaven in body and soul. -

St. Thomas Aquinas says: The more a thing approaches its principle, in any genre, the more it participates in the effects of that principle. As the water is much purer, the closer it is to the source, the heat is more ardent, the closer you get to the fire, so St. Joseph, who was very close to Jesus Christ, had to obtain from him a greater fullness of grace and predilection.

As has been said, those who rose when Jesus was resurrected appeared to many. It is logical to say that St. Joseph, just risen, appeared to the Blessed Virgin and comforted her by showing her his glorious state.

It concludes with San Bernardino of Siena: As Jesus made the Virgin Mary in glorious body and soul rise to Heaven, so on the day of his resurrection he also united with him in glory St. Joseph.

Just as the Holy Family lived a laborious and loving life together, so it is right that now in the glory of Heaven reign together with the soul and the body.

Example
A count of the city of Fermo honored San Giuseppe especially on Wednesday, reciting a particular prayer in the evening. On the wall by the bed he held a picture of the saint.

One Wednesday evening he had made the usual deed of respect to the Patriarch and had taken a rest. In the morning, while he was still in bed, a small cyclone with electric shocks struck his home. Several lightning bolts, divided into various sparks, flickered across the upper floor, while others, following the wires of the bells, going down to the lower floor, walked through the kitchen and entered all the rooms. There were other people in the house and none received damage. Lightning also entered the count's room, who frightened observed the scene. When an electric discharge, directed to the wall, reached the painting of San Giuseppe, it changed direction, leaving it intact.

The count shouted: Miracle! Miracle! When those terrible moments ceased, that gentleman thanked St. Joseph for protecting him and attributed that grace to the prayer he had recited the previous evening.

Fioretto - Recite the Holy Rosary for the most devoted souls of St. Joseph, who are in Purgatory.

Cumshot - I think I'll rise again at the end of the world!