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Saint Joseph inspires devotion to Mary.
It has sometimes been said that one devotion is detrimental to the other. Here is a proof of the contrary: A child had the happy habit of reciting the entire rosary every day. The month of Saint Joseph arrives. The child, you think, will leave his rosary and his devotion to Mary there. Not so: the child always says his rosary in honor of the Blessed Virgin, and moreover he also says the whole rosary of Saint Joseph every day, adding: “I must not take from the good Mother to give to Saint Joseph; I must be a little more generous to attract the graces of both. I love Saint Joseph well, but I do not forget the Blessed Virgin.”
Devotion to the Holy Family rewarded.
A pious merchant in Valencia, Spain, made a special devotional practice every year on Christmas Day in honor of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. This practice consisted in receiving on that day, at his table, three poor people, an old man, a woman and a little child. Faith represented to him as infallibly true this word of the Savior, that whatever one does to a poor person, one does to Himself. That is why, in treating these three poor people, he believed he was treating Jesus, Mary and Joseph himself. This charitable merchant appeared, after his death, to some pious people who were praying for him, and told them that at the time of his last passage, Jesus, Mary and Joseph had come to visit him and had addressed this invitation to him: “Since during your life you received Us all three in your house, We come today all three to receive you in Ours.” He added that immediately They had taken his soul and led it to the eternal feast of Paradise. Happy merchant, who knew how to make such an advantageous trade, and thus place his funds in the hands of Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
The Saints of Heaven, our predecessors, are very sensitive to the slightest gesture of devotion on our part. They are never ungrateful and return it to us with profusion.
