Tuesday, March 19 : Saint Bernadine of Siena

When the divine goodness chooses someone to receive a special grace, it gives him all the charisms he needs, which greatly increases his spiritual beauty. This is wholly confirmed in the case of Saint Joseph, legal father of our Lord Jesus Christ and rightful husband of she who is Queen of the world and Sovereign of angels. The eternal Father chose him to be provider and faithful guardian to his chiefest treasures, namely his Son and his bride – a function he faithfully fulfilled. That is why the Lord said: “Good and faithful servant, come, share your master’s joy” (Mt 25:21). If you compare Joseph with all the rest of Christ’s Church, is he not the one who has been specially chosen, through whom Christ came into the world in regular and respectable fashion? So if the whole of holy Church is indebted to the Virgin Mary because it was she who enabled it to welcome Christ, after her it is to Saint Joseph that it owes a recognition and honor without compare. Indeed, it is he who brings the Old Testament to an end; it is in him that the dignity of patriarchs and prophets receives its promised fruit. He alone possessed in reality what divine goodness had promised to them. Nor indeed should we doubt that the closeness and respect Christ showed to Joseph during his earthly life, as a son to his father, were ever denied in heaven, rather, he enriched and completed them. So, with reason the Lord adds: “Enter into your master’s joy”. Blessed Joseph, remember us; intercede with the help of your prayers to your adopted Son; and may you likewise make the blessed Virgin, your spouse, to be favourable towards us, for she is the mother of him who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns world without end.

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team