St. Joseph ardently desires our Salvation

August 25, 2021 • 3 min

From St. Joseph’s Life, Virtues, Privileges, Power, page 344
By Very Rev. Archdeacon Kinane, P.P.

“There is no beauty in him, nor comeliness. … despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows. … He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows: and we have thought him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God … he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins” (Isai. liii. 5).

“He humbleth himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. ii. 8).

“You are bought with a great price” (1 Cor. vi. 20).

Consider that it is from the value of a soul in the eyes of Jesus Christ that we are to conceive and understand the ardent love of St. Joseph for the salvation of each of us.

To save our souls the Eternal Son of God descended from heaven and assumed human flesh.

To save our souls Jesus was born in poverty and humility, and deprived of all human comforts.

To save our souls Jesus, Our Blessed Lord, at His very Nativity, was persecuted and exiled.

To save our souls Jesus preached and taught, suffered and died.

To save our souls Jesus sweated drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemani, was scourged at the pillar, crowned with thorns, nailed to the cross, and after three hours of agony His Sacred Heart broke of anguish on Mount Calvary.

To save our souls Jesus established His Church, and has given to popes, bishops, and priests power beyond that of the angels of God in heaven.

To save our souls Jesus instituted the seven sacraments, has given to the world to the end of time the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Most Adorable Sacrament of His own Precious Body and Blood.

All this and more did Jesus do for the salvation of our souls.

After Mary, no saint ever loved God so ardently and fervently as St. Joseph. “Love of God and love of our neighbour,” says St. Gregory, “are two rings that compose the same chain, two streams that come from the same source.” “They are not,” says St. Thomas of Aquin, “two virtues, but two branches of one root, two acts of the same habit of virtue, which is charity.” No saint, therefore, ever loved our salvation so ardently as St. Joseph.

Now, after the Blessed Virgin, no saint ever entered so closely and intimately into the designs, desires, and wishes of Jesus, our Blessed Saviour, as St. Joseph.

As we have so often said, St. Joseph was illuminated beyond all other Saints. He lived for years in the light and presence of Jesus. Countless times he felt the very beatings and throbbings of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and knew the ardent desire and the burning love of Jesus for the salvation of souls.

St. Joseph, therefore, knowing so well the value of our souls, the price that Jesus paid for our redemption, the burning thirst of Jesus for our salvation, St. Joseph, to-day in Paradise, longs, loves, and ardently desires the salvation of every one of us.