Page 155 - Reflections on St. Joseph

also learn from this beautiful model to be totally abandoned to the divine will, certain that God permits
all these things for the greater good of our soul.” (Insegnamenti, Consigli spirituali e Omelie, op.cit.,p.
62)

3. Guide in apostolic activity.

St. Joseph Marello sees the Guardian of the Redeemer as profoundly and realistically inserted into
the mystery and story of Salvation: “He was the first upon the earth to care for the interests of Jesus,
who cared for Him as an infant and protected Him as a child, and was as a father to Him in the first
thirty years of His life here on the earth.” (Letters, op.cit., p.275). The Church, in opposition to its
enemies (anti-clericals, liberals, masons....) initiates a re-awakening around the figure of St.
Joseph, who Pius IX solemnly declared to be Patron of the Universal Church. Every Particular
Church has its own patron Saint, according to its traditions. However, the Church as a universal
whole has one single Patron, St. Joseph. St. Joseph Marello, while still young, only four years after
his First Mass, in 1872, proposes to found a Company of St Joseph for Laity, “promoting the interests
of Jesus” (cf. the draft of Letter 83 to Canon Giovanni Cerruti), with the purpose of launching in
the Diocese, an apostolate of Christian life and witness. The Lord will call him to found a
Congregation in the name of St. Joseph, which bases itself entirely on that figure and the
imitation of the Great Patriarch. This will happen with two clear dynamics: interior life and
apostolic life. It is the moment of “Certosini in casa e apostoli fuori casa”. It is the imitation of the
soul and the life of St. Joseph, the Saint who contemplates the mysteries of God and of the
Incarnation, of the Redemption (“You will give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people
from their sins”) and who works to save, defend and prepare Jesus his son for his mission.

Now, let us ask ourselves: are we accomplishing all this in the life of the Congregation? In our
Province and in our personal lives? It is a pressing question, to which we must give a response.

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Reflections on st. joseph