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Day Four
Faithful Servant
Saint Joseph, you lived for one purpose
to be the personal servant of Jesus Christ,
the Word made flesh.
Your noble birth and ancestry,
the graces and gifts,
so generously poured out on you by God
all this was yours to serve our Lord better.
Every thought, word, and action of yours
was a homage to the love
and glory of the Incarnate Word.
You fulfilled most faithfully
the role of a good and faithful servant
who cared for the House of God.
How perfect was your obedience!
Your position in the Holy Family
obliged you to command,
but besides being the foster-father of Jesus,
you were also His disciple.
For almost thirty years,
you watched the God-Man display
a simple and prompt obedience,
and you grew to love and practice it
very perfectly yourself.
Without exception you submitted to God,
to the civil rulers,
and to the voice of your conscience.
When God sent an angel
to tell you to care for Mary,
you obeyed in spite of the mystery
which surrounded her motherhood.
When you were told to flee into Egypt
under painful conditions,
you obeyed without the slightest word of complaint.
When God advised you in a dream
to return to Nazareth, you obeyed.
In every situation
your obedience was as simple as your faith,
as humble as your heart,
as prompt as your love.
It neglected nothing;
it took in every command.
You had the virtue of perfect devotedness,
which marks a good servant.
Every moment of your life
was consecrated to the service of our Lord:
sleep, rest, work, pain.
Faithful to your duties,
you sacrificed everything unselfishly,
even cheerfully.
You would have sacrificed
even the happiness of being with Mary.
The rest and quiet of Nazareth
was sacrificed at the call of duty.
Your entire life was one generous giving,
even to the point of being ready to die
in proof of your love for Jesus and Mary.
With true unselfish devotedness
you worked without praise or reward.
But God wanted you to be
in a certain sense a cooperator
in the Redemption of the world.
He confided to you the care
of nourishing and defending the Divine Child.
He wanted you to be poor
and to suffer because He destined you
to be the foster-father of His Son,
who came into the world
to save men by His sufferings and death,
and you were to share in His suffering.
In all of these important tasks,
the Heavenly Father always
found you a faithful servant!
Saint Joseph,
I thank God for your privilege
of being God's faithful servant.
As a token of your own gratitude to God,
obtain for me the grace
to be a faithful servant of God as you were.
Help me to share, as you did,
the perfect obedience of Jesus,
who came not to do His Will,
but the Will of His Father;
to trust in the Providence of God,
knowing that if I do His Will,
He will provide for all my needs of soul and body;
to be calm in my trials and
to leave it to our Lord
to free me from them when it pleases Him to do so.
And help me to imitate your generosity,
for there can be no greater reward
here on earth than the joy
and honor of being a faithful servant of God.
Novena Prayer
*(prayer to be said at the end of each day's devotion)
Saint Joseph, I, your unworthy child, greet you.
You are the faithful protector and intercessor
of all who love and venerate you.
You know that I have special confidence
in you and that, after Jesus and Mary,
I place all my hope of salvation in you,
for you are especially powerful with God
and will never abandon your faithful servants.
Therefore I humbly invoke you
and commend myself,
with all who are dear to me
and all that belong to me,
to your intercession.
I beg of you,
by your love for Jesus and Mary,
not to abandon me during life
and to assist me at the hour of my death.
Glorious Saint Joseph,
spouse of the Immaculate Virgin,
obtain for me a pure, humble,
charitable mind, and perfect resignation
to the divine Will.
Be my guide, my father,
and my model through life
that I may merit to die
as you did in the arms of Jesus and Mary.
Loving Saint Joseph,
faithful follower of Jesus Christ,
I raise my heart to you
to implore your powerful intercession
in obtaining from the Divine Heart of Jesus
all the graces necessary
for my spiritual and temporal welfare,
particularly the grace of a happy death,
and the special grace I now implore:
(Mention your request)
Guardian of the Word Incarnate,
I feel confident that your prayers in my behalf
will be graciously heard before the throne of God.
Amen.
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