Page 65 - Reflections on St. Joseph

to the gaze of the spirit, the Church was already there with St. Joseph when he was the guardian
of the Holy Family, its fatherly care caregiver. (cf. Pius XI, Allocution April 21, 1926; Stramare,
“La Via di San Giuseppe” Ed. OCD Roma, 2001, pp. 92-93).

“The Church wants him as its Protector” affirmed Paul VI, “with the unshakeable confidence
that he, to whom Christ desired to entrust the protection of His frail human infancy, will desire
to continue from Heaven his caregiving mission to guide and defend the Mystical Body of the
same Christ, always weak, always threatened, always dramatically in danger.” (cf. Paul VI,
Homily of March 19, 1969)

As Protector of the Church, St. John Paul II says you are referring to an invocation deeply rooted
in the revelation of the New Covenant. The Church is the Body of Christ. Would it not then be
logical and necessary that he to whom the Eternal Father entrusted His Son, might extend his
protection also to that Body of Christ, which is the Church? Today the community of believers,
spread throughout the world, entrusts itself to St. Joseph and places under his powerful
patronage, its needs in this current difficult stage of history. “I invoke your help, O marvelous
Guardian of the Redeemer: You who defended Jesus Christ, you who are Protector of the Holy
Church.” (cf. St. John Paul II, Monterotundo, Homily of March 19, 1993).

A Protector for Today

The Church always needs the intercession of St. Joseph. “His protection is an efficacious defense
against the dangers which arise, and even more, he is a great support in taking up the work of
the New Evangelization. Today this work of evangelization has a particular relevance. I exhort
everyone to entrust, with perseverance, this work to the intercession of St. Joseph.” (cf. St. John
Paul II, Rome, Discourse to the Faithful of the Diocese of Kalisz, November 6, 1997). Paul VI
invited us to invoke his patronage “as the Church, in these later times, is used to doing for itself,
first with a spontaneous theological reflection on the joining of divine activity with human
activity in the great economy of the Redemption, in which the first, the divine, is all sufficient
to itself, but the second, the human, ours, while capable of nothing (cf. Jn15,5) is yet not
dispensed from a humble, but conditional and ennobling collaboration. Further, the Church
invokes him as Protector for a profound and very real desire to re-vivify its earthly existence
with true evangelical virtues, which shine in St. Joseph. (“Insegnamenti di Paolo VI” Vol VII,
1969, 1268; Cf. Redemptoris Custos, 30)

Thus “still today we have enduring reasons to recommend every human being to St. Joseph” (cf.
Redemptoris Custos, 31), says St. John Paul II. “This Patronage must be invoked and it is necessary
right now for the Church, not only as a defense against rising perils, but also, and above all, as
support for a renewed dedication to the evangelization of the world, and the re-evangelization
of those ‘countries and nations where - as I wrote in the Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles
Laici - the Christian religion and life were once upon a time flourishing’ and ‘now are hard put
to the test.” To bring the first announcing of Christ or to re-bring it where it has been neglected
or forgotten, the Church needs a special ‘strength from on high’ (Lk24,49; Acts1,8) the sure gift
of the Spirit of the Lord which is not separated from the intercession and example of His Saints.
(cf. Redemptoris Custos, 29).

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