LA
CROSSE, Wisconsin (May 1, 2012) –
Today, the Feast of St. Joseph the Workman, the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe
instituted a Perpetual Novena to St. Joseph to be prayed every Wednesday afternoon
after the recitation of the Rosary in the Shrine Church. The first public
recitation of the novena will occur on Wednesday, May 2, 2012, following the
Rosary at 3:30 p.m.
Raymond
Leo Cardinal Burke, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura
and Founder of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, encouraged all the faithful
to take part in the perpetual novena. “God called St. Joseph to be the Husband
of Mary and the Foster-Father of Jesus our Savior, and He gave him a most pure
and just heart, in order that he might watch over and care for Jesus and Mary
with true fatherly love and courage,” said Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke. “St.
Joseph continues to exercise his fatherly love on behalf of the members of the
Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. As Patron of the Universal Church, he is a
most powerful intercessor for us all. He is also a most powerful example of how
pure and just we should be in all of our relationships with one another. I
encourage all to take part in the Perpetual Novena to St. Joseph to obtain,
through his intercession, the many graces of which the Church and her
individual members have need today.”
A
devotional area dedicated to St. Joseph the Workman is nestled along the
Meditation Trail on the grounds of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. St.
Joseph is also depicted in statuary in the Shrine Church and in iconography in
the Pilgrim Center.
The
novena prayer to be recited was issued by Pope Leo XIII on August 15, 1889, in
his encyclical on devotion to St. Joseph, Quamquam
Pluries:
“To you, O
blessed Joseph, we have recourse in our affliction, and having implored the help
of your thrice holy Spouse, we now, with hearts filled with confidence,
earnestly beg you also to take us under your protection. By that charity
wherewith you were united to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God, and by that
fatherly love with which you cherished the Child Jesus, we beseech you and we
humbly pray that you will look down with gracious eyes, upon that inheritance which
Jesus Christ purchased by His Blood, and will help us in our need by your power
and strength. Defend, O most watchful guardian of the Holy Family, the chosen
offspring of Jesus Christ. Keep from us, O most loving Father, all blight of
error and corruption. Aid us from on high, most valiant defender, in this
conflict with the powers of darkness. And even as of old you rescued the Child
Jesus from the peril of His life, so now defend God’s Holy Church from the
snares of the enemy and from adversity. Shield us ever under your patronage,
that, following your example and strengthened by your help, we may live a holy
life, die a happy death, and attain to everlasting bliss in heaven. Amen.”
1 comment:
Growing up in Ireland it was customary to say the Prayer to St. Joseph at the end of every Rosary and we have continued that in our family, though in a slightly more archaic version: “To thee O Blessed Joseph we have recourse in our tribulation…”
I never knew that it was from Pope Leo XIII, though. Now if we could just return to another prayer of Pope Leo – to St. Michael the Archangel, at the end of Mass – that would be great and might instill a more reflective end to Mass.
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