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Sunday, May 1, 2011

A Little Boy and His Patron Saint

While today is abuzz with Divine Mercy and the beatification of JPII, it is also the feast of St. Joseph the Worker. What a great day to be Catholic!

Joseph is already quite enamored with his patron saint. He regularly has chats with St. Joseph in our backyard. It was St. Joseph, protector of families, whom we invoked to watch over our Joseph before he joined our family.
He tried to do this at our church too, but the end result was, well, disastrous. Thankfully, this statue has held up so far to Joseph's affections. Each morning, dh prays the following beautiful prayer. I thought it appropriate as we head into Monday after a day of such wonderful feasting. We will be praying it as we diligently push forward to complete our school year.

O Glorious St. Joseph, model of all those who are devoted to labor, obtain for me the grace to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my natural inclinations, to work with gratitude and joy, in a spirit of penance for the remission of my sins, considering it an honor to employ and develop by means of labor the gifts received from God, to work with order, peace, moderation and patience, without ever shrinking from weariness and difficulties, to work above all with purity of intention and detachment from self, having always death before my eyes and the account that I must render of time lost, of talents wasted, of good omitted, of vain complacency in success, so fatal to the work of God.
All for Jesus, all through Mary, all after thine example, O Patriarch, St. Joseph. Such shall be my watch-word in life and in death.
-- St. Pius X

1 comment:

JPF said...

Yeah, St. Joseph is the kind of saint this boy needs! Oh, and I love that last photo. Little Joseph looks like he's ready to chomp into the statue, the way he's gripping the head. (Maybe he's getting a bit too used to chocolate bunnies for Easter?)

Oh, and I like the new look of the blog. And Bear flying high on the swing.

Happy Easter to the D's!