Devotion to St. Joseph

To you, O blessed Joseph, do we come in our tribulation, and having implored the help of your most holy spouse, we confidently invoke your patronage also. Through that charity which bound you to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God and through the paternal love with which you embraced the Child Jesus, we humbly beg you graciously to regard the inheritance which Jesus Christ has purchased by his Blood, and with your power and strength to aid us in our necessities. O most watchful Guardian of the Holy Family, defend the chosen children of Jesus Christ; O most loving father, ward off from us every contagion of error and corrupting influence; O our most mighty protector, be propitious to us and from heaven assist us in our struggle with the power of darkness; and, as once you rescued the Child Jesus from deadly peril, so now protect God¹s Holy Church from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity; shield, too, each one of us by your constant protection, so that, supported by your example and your aid, we may be able to live piously, to die holily, and to obtain eternal happiness in heaven. Amen. ---------------------------------------------------------------- The purpose of Pope Leo XIII's encyclical [Quamquam Pluries] was to implore divine help by means of prayer, joining to the intercession of Mary that of St. Joseph, that God might be more willing to grant our petitions and that he might aid his Church more promptly and generously. Leo XIII therefore attached to his encyclical a special Prayer to St. Joseph ordering that it be added to the recitation of the rosary every year in perpetuity, during the month of October. To this prayer he attached an indulgence, which is fittingly preserved in the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum. He also recommends dedicating to the holy Patriarch the month of March, with daily exercises of piety in his honor, and to observe at lest a triduum of prayers preceding the Feast of St. Joseph.