A story for every day...
The Protector of Canada.
In the life of the venerable Mother Marie de l’Incarnation, we read the following:
Madame de la Peltrie, as distinguished by the qualities of her mind as by the eminent virtues of her heart, one day reading the report of a mission which the Fathers of the Society of Jesus were carrying out among the savages of Canada, felt strongly urged to cooperate in the salvation of these poor souls. While she was meditating on the means to carry out her pious projects, she was attacked by a very serious and extraordinary illness, that the doctors, not understanding anything, were only waiting for her death. Reduced to this extremity, this pious lady did not lose sight of her holy desires; God Himself, in the midst of her pain, inspired her to make a vow to Saint Joseph. She knew that it was under the special protection of this great Saint that the missionaries had undertaken the conversion of the idolatrous peoples of the New World. She therefore promised, if it pleased the Saint to restore her health, to found and endow at her own expense a house of Christian education for the young girls of that region. At the very moment that the sick woman pronounced her vow, the Saint granted it: all her pains, which were of the most violent kind, disappeared in the twinkling of an eye, and from this illness, which had been so cruel until then, there remained only a little weariness. The doctor, who found her in this state so different from that of the day before, was as joyful as he was surprised. “Madam,” he said to her, “what has become of these acute pains? – Sir,” she answered graciously, “my pains have just left for Canada.”
She did not delay in fulfilling her vow. She had the monastery built where the young Canadian women were to be received, and it was Mother Marie de l’Incarnation, destined by God for this work, who became its first superior. Since then, she was shown in a vision that Saint Joseph was the protector of the New World, and that it was to his intercession that she herself was called to work for the salvation of souls there. That is why she gave the new house the name of Saint Joseph and took as its seal the image of this glorious patriarch holding the Child Jesus in his arms.
Saint Joseph suffered much during the journeys he had to undertake to flee to Egypt and return; to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem, to Jerusalem, etc. Let us invoke him with confidence; he will help us in all our undertakings.
