The year of St. Joseph: what the popes from Pius IX to Francis said about the saint

Pope Francis has proclaimed that the Church will honor St. Joseph in a particular way over the next year.

The pope's announcement of the Year of St. Joseph purposely coincided with the 150th anniversary of the saint's proclamation as patron saint of the universal Church by Pope Pius IX on December 8, 1870.

“Jesus Christ our Lord… whom countless kings and prophets had desired to see, Joseph not only saw, but conversed, embraced with fatherly affection and kissed. He diligently raised Him whom the faithful were to receive as the bread which came down from heaven by which they could obtain eternal life, ”states the proclamation“ Quemadmodum Deus ”.

Pius IX's successor, Pope Leo XIII, continued to dedicate an encyclical letter to the devotion to St. Joseph, "Quamquam pluries".

“Joseph became the guardian, the administrator and the legal defender of the divine house of which he was the head”, wrote Leo XIII in the encyclical published in 1889.

"Now the divine house that Joseph ruled with the authority of a father, contained within its limits the Church born in scarcity," he added.

Leo XIII presented Saint Joseph as a model in an age when the world and the Church were struggling with the challenges posed by modernity. A few years later, the pope published "Rerum novarum", an encyclical on capital and work that outlined the principles for guaranteeing the dignity of workers.

Over the past 150 years, nearly every pope has worked towards further devotion to St. Joseph in the Church and to use the humble father and carpenter as a witness to the modern world.

"If you want to be close to Christ, I repeat 'Ite ad Ioseph': go to Joseph!" said the Ven. Pius XII in 1955 instituted the feast of San Giuseppe Lavoratore, to be celebrated on 1 May.

The new festival was intentionally included in the calendar to counter the communist demonstrations of May Day. But this was not the first time that the Church presented the example of St. Joseph as an alternative path towards the dignity of workers.

In 1889, the International Socialist Conference established May 1 as a Labor Day in remembrance of the Chicago trade union protests "Haymarket affair". In that same year, Leo XIII warned the poor against the false promises of "seditious men", calling them instead to turn to St. Joseph, recalling that Mother Church "every day takes more and more compassion for their fate".

According to the pontiff, the testimony of the life of St. Joseph taught the rich "what are the most desirable goods", while the workers could claim the recourse of St. Joseph as their "special right, and his example is for their particular imitation" .

"It is therefore true that the condition of the humble has nothing shameful about it, and the work of the worker is not only not dishonorable, but can, if virtue is united with it, be singularly ennobled", wrote Leo XIII in “Quamquam pleasures. "

In 1920, Benedict XV devotedly offered St. Joseph as a "special guide" and "heavenly patron" of the workers "to keep them immune from the contagion of socialism, the archenemy of Christian princes".

And, in the 1937 encyclical on atheist communism, "Divini Redemptoris", Pius XI placed "the vast campaign of the Church against world communism under the banner of St. Joseph, its powerful protector".

“He belongs to the working class and bore the burdens of poverty for himself and for the Holy Family, of which he was the tender and vigilant leader. The Divine Child was entrusted to him when Herod freed his assassins against him ”, Pope XI continued. “He won for himself the title of 'The Righteous', thus serving as a living model of that Christian justice which should reign in social life.

Yet, despite the twentieth-century Church's emphasis on Saint Joseph the Worker, Joseph's life was not only defined by his work, but also by his calling to fatherhood.

“For Saint Joseph, life with Jesus was a continuous discovery of his own vocation as a father”, wrote Saint John Paul II in his 2004 book “Let's get up, let's go on a journey”.

He continued: “Jesus himself, as a man, experienced the fatherhood of God through the father-son relationship with Saint Joseph. This filial encounter with Joseph then nourished Our Lord's revelation of God's paternal name. What a profound mystery! "

John Paul II saw firsthand the Communist attempts to weaken family unity and undermine parental authority in Poland. He said he looked to the paternity of St. Joseph as a model for his own priestly paternity.

In 1989 - 100 years after the encyclical of Leo XIII - Saint John Paul II wrote “Redemptoris custos”, an apostolic exhortation on the person and mission of Saint Joseph in the life of Christ and of the Church.

In his announcement of the Year of St. Joseph, Pope Francis issued a letter, "Patris corde" ("With the heart of a father"), explaining that he wanted to share some "personal reflections" on the bride of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

"My desire to do so has increased during these months of the pandemic," he said, noting that many people had made hidden sacrifices during the crisis to protect others.

“Each of us can discover in Joseph - the man who goes unnoticed, a daily, discreet and hidden presence - an intercessor, a support and a guide in times of difficulty,” he wrote.

"St. Joseph reminds us that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation “.

The Year of Saint Joseph offers Catholics the opportunity to receive a plenary indulgence by reciting any approved prayer or act of piety in honor of Saint Joseph, especially on March 19, the solemnity of the saint, and May 1, the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.

For an approved prayer, one can use the Litany of Saint Joseph, which Pope Saint Pius X approved for public use in 1909.

Pope Leo XIII also asked that the following prayer to Saint Joseph be recited at the end of the rosary in his encyclical on Saint Joseph:

“To you, blessed Joseph, we have recourse to our affliction and, after having implored the help of your thrice holy Spouse, now, with a heart full of trust, we earnestly beg you to take us also under your protection. For that charity with which you were united to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God, and for that paternal love with which you loved the Child Jesus, we beseech you and humbly pray that you look down upon with a benevolent eye on that inheritance that Jesus Christ bought by His blood, and you will help us in our need with your power and your strength “.

“Defend, or most careful guardian of the Holy Family, the chosen offspring of Jesus Christ. Remove from us, O loving Father, every scourge of error and corruption. Help us from above, valiant defender, in this conflict with the powers of darkness. And even as you once saved the Child Jesus from the danger of his life, so now you defend the holy church of God from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity. Always protect us under your patronage, so that, following your example and strengthened by your help, we can live a holy life, die a happy death and attain eternal bliss in Heaven. Amen."