33 Days and Seven Sundays to Saint Joseph!

While on families on this Family Day, and, more to the point, in this year of Saint Joseph, someone mentioned that today is the beginning of 33 days to the solemnity of the great saint, for those who are inclined to start that devotion and consecration. There are numerous aids on-line, or you can make your own, with Saint Joseph’s Litany. Here is a prayer of consecration, if nothing else, than to get us started, and ended:

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION TO ST. JOSEPH

O Glorious Patriarch and Patron of the Church! O Virgin Spouse of the Virgin Mother of God! O Guardian and Virginal Father of the Word Incarnate! In the presence of Jesus and Mary, I choose you this day to be my father, my guardian, and my protector.

O great St. Joseph, whom God has made the Head of the Holy Family, accept me, I beseech you, though utterly unworthy, to be a member of your “Holy House.” Present me to your Immaculate Spouse; ask her also to adopt me as her child. With her, pray that I may constantly think of Jesus, and serve him faithfully to the end of my life. O Terror of Demons, increase in me virtue, protect me from the evil one, and help me not to offend God in any way.

O my Spiritual Father, I hereby consecrate myself to you. In faithful imitation of Jesus and Mary, I place myself and all my concerns under your care and protection. To you, after Jesus and Mary, I consecrate my body and soul, with all their faculties, my spiritual growth, my home, and all my affairs and undertakings.

Forsake me not, but adopt me as a servant and child of the Holy Family. Watch over me at all times, but especially at the hour of my death. Console and strengthen me with the presence of Jesus and Mary so that, with you, I may praise and adore the Holy Trinity for all eternity. Amen.

And, or, you may also follow the seven Sundays to the feast, with Father Raymond de Souza.

One way or the other, Ite Ad Joseph!

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