THE CHURCH'S GREAT PROTECTOR

A SERMON FOR THE 3rd SUNDAY AFTER EASTER

Last week we celebrated Good Shepherd Sunday, and it is fitting that on the Wednesday following Good Shepherd Sunday we should observe the solemnity of the saint who surely must be, after Christ himself, the greatest of all “good shepherds” who tend the flock of God.  This is, of course, none other than St. Joseph, foster father of the Saviour, spouse of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, and Patron of the Universal Church.  There is of course another feast of St. Joseph, perhaps more well known.  It is celebrated on March 19^th, which is always during Lent, and therefore observed with less solemnity than the present feast with its great octave.  

On March 19^th, we celebrate St. Joseph chiefly as the Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  We are reminded at that time of all that he did to look after and protect his Spouse and the young child entrusted to them by God.  We look back on his task, so well performed of taking care of the physical needs of the Son of God.  Today we are not looking back on the life of St. Joseph and his loving protection of the physical body of Christ.  Today it is Christ’s mystical body, the Church, that occupies our attention and his.  When, from the Cross, Christ gave his blessed Mother to St. John, he was giving her to the Church, to us, so that we might flee to her protection, implore her help, and not be left forsaken.  And he did no less for good Saint Joseph.  Through the decrees and liturgy of his Holy Church, he made St. Joseph the supreme Patron and Protector of that Church.  And it is in this aspect that we revere St. Joseph on this second of his feastdays, this great Solemnity and its Octave which we are currently celebrating.

And is it not truly right and fitting, that St. Joseph should be not only the head of the Holy Family, the head of the household, the head of the home, but that he should also be the head of that other great Family, the family to which we all belong, the family of the Church!    This Church which is, or should be, our second home.  Not just the entire family of the Roman Catholic Church, but even our own intimate little family here at St. Margaret Mary Chapel.  I hope your memories of this home will one day fill you with the same happy memories, the remembrance that here you were cared for, here you were loved, here you were fed with the graces of the Sacraments, here you experienced that peace and joy of being in the presence of God in your souls at Holy Communion.  Prepare now for a future that will bring you such happy memories.  Don’t waste your opportunities to make this second home your paradise on earth.  Pray to St. Joseph, especially during this great Octave, that he will grant that prayer we say in the 26^th Psalm:  “One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require; even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.”

To dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.  To dwell in the state of sanctifying grace, a member of God’s holy Church, God’s holy Family.  All the days of my life.  And then what?  Those “days of my life” and your lives, are slowly ticking away.  In the midst of life we are in death.  Slowly (or perhaps more quickly than we know) we are approaching that portal we call death.  It is a portal, a gate, by which we leave our home here in this world, and go to our eternal home in the next.  It is a portal that we fear, perhaps, because it is outside our experience, unknown.  And God understands this fear, and has given us a helper for that day on which we take the step from this world to the next.  And we should not be surprised that this helper, this Patron Saint of the Dying, is again, St. Joseph.  He who according to tradition, died blissfully in the arms of Jesus and Mary.  Who could ask for a more blessed death than that?

And let’s remind ourselves once again that St. Joseph is the Patron of the Universal Church.  Universal—the entire Church.  Not only the Church Militant here on earth, but also the Church Suffering in Purgatory, and the Church Triumphant, the saints in heaven.  St. Joseph is there with us wherever we go, precisely because he is the Patron of the entire universal Church, Militant, Suffering and Triumphant.  And so he provides for us and protects us in this life, he prays for us during our sojourn in Purgatory, and he rejoices with us when we reach our final destination.  And he remains with us every step of the journey, just as he accompanied the Blessed Mother and her unborn Child every step of the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem, as he accompanied them during the Flight into Egypt, and later back to their home in Nazareth.  And as the Patron of the Dying, St. Joseph remains with us too as we pass from this life to the next, from Church Militant to Church Suffering, and from Church Suffering to Church Triumphant. 

When in the fullness of time, our good God saw fit to allow the present disaster in the Church, it is no coincidence that one of the very first acts of destruction that the freemasons were able to inflict on the Church’s liturgy was to abolish the Solemnity of St. Joseph, patron and protector of the Universal Church, along with its octave.  These enemies of the Church plotted against the Church, and so naturally their first task was to remove the protector of the Church, St. Joseph.  Instead of being the Patron of Holy Church, they demoted him to Patron Saint of Workers, and gave him May Day, the great feast of the communists, as his remembrance.  Even this was shortlived, and today in the Novus Ordo Church the feast of St. Joseph the Worker on May 1^st is simply an “optional memorial”, where you can say the Mass in honour of St. Joseph the Worker if you feel like it, or omit it if you don’t.  What a shameful end to the glorious celebration given us by Pope Pius IX in 1870, where we honor St. Joseph as the patron of the entire Mystical Body, with full solemnity and an octave.

However, these enemies of Christ’s Mystical Body did not stop their blasphemies against St. Joseph at that point.  In spite of the fact that no change had been made to the central part of the Mass for hundreds and hundreds of years, John XXIII saw fit to institute a change to the Canon in 1962.  He added the name of St. Joseph, thereby destroying the integrity of the Canon, which up to that point had contained only the names of martyrs—and creating a precedent, that from now on, even the sacrosanct Canon of the Mass may be altered at whim.  Let us not forget that John XXIII announced that he was instituting this change to serve for all time as a reminder that St. Joseph had been the Patron of the Second Vatican Council.  From Patron of Holy Church to Patron of Workers, and then to Patron of Vatican II.  How St. Joseph has been abused since 1955!  We Catholics claim him as our Patron, the Patron of the Church.  Our enemies claim him as the Patron of the Council that was purposefully designed to destroy that Church.

This same conciliar Church has now completed the picture by presenting a halo to the Pope who set in motion the destruction of the Mass, John XXIII.  Even many traditional Catholics, such as the Society of St. Pius X, go along with these reforms of the Canon, these insults to God and St. Joseph. 

We can see the great influence of St. Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church, simply by these acts of the enemies of that Church.   Before they could destroy Rome, they had to remove her great protector.  In the bulletin today, you will find the indulgenced prayer to St. Joseph, and I urge everyone to read it at least once.  Invoke the protection and patronage of St. Joseph, and place our beloved Church once more in his hands.  He is powerful, and so long as we strive to maintain intact the faith and sacraments of that Holy Church over whom he stands patron, he will indeed be our patron and protector!