Day 2: Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary

On the second day of the Saint Joseph Novena, we contemplate Saint Joseph as the chaste husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The marriage of Joseph and Mary is the marriage at the heart of the Incarnation: the Holy Family is the household into which the Eternal Word entered. Saint Joseph's vocation is to be the spouse of Mary, and through that vocation, to be the protector and provider of the Word made flesh.

Today's meditation

The Catholic tradition has consistently held the marriage of Joseph and Mary to be a true marriage in the proper sense, lived in the unique grace of perpetual virginity. The mystery is treated by Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and the modern magisterium with reverent precision. The marriage was true: it had the consent, the indissolubility, and the spousal love proper to Christian matrimony. The marriage was virginal: by the grace of God and the consent of both spouses, it was preserved from carnal union, that the Mother of God might remain the perpetual virgin.

Saint Joseph's love for Mary is one of the most chaste and most ardent loves recorded in salvation history. He saw her every day. He worked beside her. He provided for her. He honored her. He listened, in obedience to the angelic instructions in dreams, to the indications of God's will that came to him in the silence of their household. Through it all, he loved her without taking anything from her that was not his to take.

Today's intention

Today, place under Saint Joseph's protection the marriages and engagements in your family and circle of friends. Pray for those preparing for marriage, for couples in their first difficult years, for those whose marriages have weakened, for those who have suffered separation or divorce, for the unmarried who long for a spouse, for those who have lost a spouse to death.

The traditional St Joseph novena prayer

O Saint Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God, I place in you all my interests and desires. O Saint Joseph, do assist me by your powerful intercession, and obtain for me from your Divine Son all spiritual blessings, through Jesus Christ, our Lord; so that, having engaged here below your Heavenly power, I may offer my Thanksgiving and Homage to the most Loving of Fathers. O Saint Joseph, I never weary contemplating you, and Jesus asleep in your arms; I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press Him in my name and kiss His fine Head for me, and ask Him to return the Kiss when I draw my dying breath. Saint Joseph, Patron of departing souls, pray for me. Amen.

Reflection

The Catholic Church has always understood Saint Joseph's relation to Mary as the model of chaste and self-giving love. Spouse of the Blessed Virgin is one of the principal titles invoked in the Litany of Saint Joseph. The marriage of Joseph and Mary is not the model only for those called to virginal consecration; it is also a model for ordinary Christian marriages, in which spousal love is meant to be reverent, faithful, and ordered to the welfare of the children and the glory of God.

Pope Saint John Paul II in Redemptoris Custos (1989) draws out the theological significance of Saint Joseph's spousal vocation: "Together with Mary, Joseph is the first guardian of this divine mystery. Together with Mary, and in relation to Mary, he shares in this final phase of God's self-revelation in Christ." The intercession of Saint Joseph for Christian families today flows from this original vocation. He prays for our marriages because he was given the marriage that bore the Lord into the world.

Closing prayers

Pray seven times each: the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.

Saint Joseph, chaste husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.