St. Joseph
From Father:
St. Joseph is an effective model of obedience to God the Father’s most holy will. The Gospels record not a single word he spoke, but his actions are a virtuous model of trust and obedience. The message of St. Gabriel to St. Joseph: “To rise and take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you”(Matthew 2:13), are met with trust and obedience. There are no attempts to place conditions on God’s will, revealed through St. Gabriel, only a dutiful fulfillment. There are no clarifying questions about the perilous 430 mile journey into pagan Egypt, only an immediate rising to protect his wife and the life of the Divine Child.
This is contrasted to Lucifer’s rebellion to the will of God the Father. When the plan of the Incarnation is revealed to Lucifer, it is summarily rejected through pride. Lucifer means Light-bearer, so Lucifer’s assigned task from God the Father was to reveal to the angelic hosts the Incarnation. He sought to supplant God’s will by his pride, as he demanded that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity should take an angelic nature to redeem mankind.
St. Gabriel(Strength of God), faithful to God’s commands, announces the Incarnation to the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Annunciation, and in doing so he announces the war for souls, as foretold in Genesis: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed”(Genesis 3:15). According to Cornelius a Lapide, S.J.,(1637), St. Gabriel oversees the conflicts of the faithful, thus he truly is the strength of God.
With her fiat, the Blessed Virgin Mary confirms the war, spoken of in Genesis. For at the Annunciation The Word was made Flesh in the womb of the Immaculate Virgin. St. Joseph was charged to guard his wife and the Divine Child and because of this he frustrates the infernal schemes of the ancient serpent. He is the terror of demons. For as the dragon attempts to kill the Baby Jesus, through the malevolent machinations of Herod, it is St. Joseph dutiful fulfillment of the command of God that protects the Divine Child.
The sanctity of St. Joseph terrorizes the enemies of our soul. He is the pure man; pure in thought, pure in heart, pure in body and pure in the faculties of the soul. He is chosen by God to be the most chaste spouse of the the Immaculate Virgin Mary. Due to his exalted purity and holiness, the perverted and perverting demons recoil in fear at his presence. Devotion to St. Joseph is invaluable is the fight to obtain the virtue of purity.
Every Catholic man should cultivate a devotion to St. Joseph. For relying on natural powers alone, we can not hope to overcome the preternatural strength of the demonic, whose nature exceeds ours in strength, tenacity and intelligence. The Catholic father, whose vocation is to protect his family by establishing a order, rooted in the laws of Christ, which brings the chaos of modernism to a halt. One cannot be traditional on Sunday morning and then submit to the idols of modernity Monday through Saturday. Husbands must lay down their lives for their families. To fulfil his vocation to protect his family and leading them to heaven, the father must call on heavenly aid and grace. It requires supernatural aid. A salient aspect of this aid is for the father to model his life and vocation on the life of St. Joseph and to seek his intercession daily. St. Joseph has great authority and power over the demons, who seek to subvert our response to the will of the Blessed Lord.
St. Joseph intercession is powerful no matter what one’s vocation. For St. Teresa of Avila states with powerful conviction: ” I do not remember ever having asked anything of St. Joseph that he did not grant me, nor can I think without wonder the graces God has given me through his intercession, nor the dangers of soul and body from which he has delivered me. It seems to me that God grants to other saints the power to help us in such and such a need. But I know by experience that St. Joseph helps us in every need, as if our Lord wanted us to understand that, as He Himself was subject to him on earth because there he held the place of a father, now in heaven He can refuse him nothing.”
Sancte Joseph, Terror daemonum ……..ora pro nobis