Prayer to the Father
Eternal Father, source of all light and of all fatherhood in heaven and on earth:
your Word made flesh, Jesus Christ our Lord, wanted to learn to obey and love
in the silence of the home of Nazareth,
under the watchful and humble gaze of Joseph, your faithful servant.
You wanted to entrust to this just man the two greatest wonders of your love:
Jesus, your beloved Son, and Mary, the one full of grace.
Grant that by contemplating his quiet faith, his prompt obedience,
his hidden strength and his clean and faithful heart,
we too may learn to live the Gospel in the simplicity of each day,
to safeguard the grace received
and to persevere in goodness even when the night seems long.
Your Son wanted to live subject to Joseph on earth,
because in this holy Patriarch you placed a mystery of spiritual fatherhood
for your entire Church.
Grant us, therefore, that by approaching him with filial confidence
we may learn the hidden fidelity of Nazareth,
the prompt obedience to your will
and the silent love that sustains the Christian life.
Through Jesus Christ, your Son,
who wanted to live subject to the earthly authority of the carpenter of Nazareth
and to love him with filial love.
Amen.
Invocation to the Holy Spirit
Come, Holy Spirit, gentle light that filled the house of Nazareth with grace.
Form in us the Heart of Christ according to the strong and faithful model of Saint Joseph,
so that we may learn from him silent obedience,
the purity of the soul and the fidelity that does not tire.
You who inspired in Teresa of Jesus such great love for this glorious Patriarch, kindle in us too that same filial affection,
so that we may experience what she herself affirmed with such simplicity and firmness:
«I took for my advocate and lord the glorious Saint Joseph, and commended myself much to him…
I do not remember up to now having asked him for anything that he has not granted.»
Amen.
Meditation of the Day
Blessed Joseph, when the soul contemplates your figure in the light of the Gospel, there is one trait of your life that impresses with particular force: your silence. The Gospel does not preserve a single word of yours; and yet, your presence permeates the entire childhood of Jesus with a calm authority and a fidelity that fills everything. That silence is not absence or emptiness; it is the silence full of God that characterizes souls deeply united to Him. Your silence, Joseph, arises from a fullness: that of one who lives continually in the presence of God and does not need to explain himself because his entire life is already a response to the divine will.
Teresa of Jesus, who knew well the path of prayer and who experienced your protection so many times, said with a conviction full of experience: «Whoever cannot find a master to teach him prayer, let him take this glorious Saint as his master, and he will not go wrong on the path.» She said it because she understood that your entire life had been a silent school of contemplation.
You lived for years in the daily companionship of Jesus. You saw him grow, you heard him speak, you watched him work in the workshop and share with you the simplicity of daily life. And in that continuous interaction your soul was being filled with an interior light that needed no words. Your prayer was your entire life: it was the prompt obedience when God spoke in dreams; it was the loving vigilance with which you protected the Child; it was the daily fidelity with which you served Jesus and Mary in the house of Nazareth.
In that humble and constant service your heart became more and more recollected, more attentive to the presence of God, more available to fulfill his will. That is why your silence is a teaching. In a world full of noise, where words multiply and the heart easily disperses, your life reminds me that true prayer does not consist only in saying many things to God, but in living close to Him, because interior life begins when the soul learns to recollect itself, to be silent, to listen.
Teach me, Joseph, my father and lord, that difficult and precious art of recollection; teach me to stop the heart when occupations drag us away; to turn my gaze to God in the midst of my daily tasks; to discover his presence in the ordinary things of life; to guard Christ within me as you guarded him in the house of Nazareth.
Thus my soul will be a little interior Nazareth where Jesus will be loved, listened to and served with fidelity.
Give me a recollected heart, capable of living in the presence of God even in the midst of work and worries; a humble heart, that does not seek extraordinary experiences, but the simple fidelity of each day: thus my soul will begin to taste something of the peace of heaven, because it will live continually in the company of God.
Concluding Prayer to the Most Holy Virgin
Most holy Mary, faithful Spouse of the glorious Patriarch Saint Joseph
and blessed Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ:
your life was inseparably united to that of that just man
to whom God entrusted the care of your days and the custody of the eternal Son made Child.
You knew better than anyone the silent nobility of Joseph:
his quiet faith, his prompt obedience, his clean heart,
his humble work in the workshop of Nazareth,
his loving vigilance over the Child who slept under your roof.
You saw how, day after day,
he sustained the life of the Holy Family with the effort of his hands;
how he watched over you in the uncertain nights;
how he obeyed the voice of God
even when the path opened amid shadows.
And alongside him you yourself lived that hidden life that the world scarcely knows,
but which heaven contemplates with admiration:
a life of deep prayer and humble work,
of silent mortification and constant fidelity to God’s plan.
Teach us, Immaculate Mother, to love that hidden life of Nazareth;
to discover the greatness of the small,
the fruitfulness of silent sacrifice
and the peace that comes from living entirely for God.
Oh, Mary, how much Joseph loved you and how his heart rejoiced in serving you;
that is why today, with humble delicacy, he leads us to you.
Because Joseph’s heart, so strong and so noble,
knows that no one approaches Jesus with greater security than through your hand.
That is why we come to you today with filial confidence:
teach us to go to Joseph with love;
help us to learn to take refuge under his patronage,
to trust in his powerful intercession and to imitate the fidelity of his life.
What a sweet rivalry!:
Joseph, with elegant chivalry, leads us toward you;
You, with spousal wisdom, lead us to Joseph;
and both, with the tenderness of parents, always place us with Jesus.
May we, taken by your united hands,
learn to love the Lord more and more
and to desire with all our soul that his reign extend throughout the world.
Make it so, Mary, that the Heart of your Son reign in our lives,
in our families and in the entire Church.
And may we, sustained by your maternal love and by the protection of the glorious Saint Joseph, always live in the fidelity of Nazareth,
until the day when we may contemplate Jesus forever in the glory of heaven.
Amen.