MARCH 8, 2024 – LENT DAY 24 – ST. JOHN OF GOD.

• St. John of God (1550). Founder or Foundress, Patron or Patroness, Religious. Male the sick, nurses, hospitals, and booksellers. (Current, Traditional) Founder of the Order of Brothers Hospitalers

NOTHING in John’s early life foreshadowed his future sanctity. He ran away as a boy from his home in Portugal, tended sheep and cattle in Spain, and served as a soldier against the French, and afterwards against the Turks. When about forty years of age, feeling remorse for his wild life, he resolved to devote himself to the ransom of the Christian slaves in Africa, and went thither with the family of an exiled noble, which he maintained by his labor. On his return to Spain he sought to do good by selling holy pictures and books at low prices. At length the hour of grace struck. At Granada, a sermon, by the celebrated John of Avila, shook his soul to its depths, and his expressions of self-abhorrence were so extraordinary that he was taken to the asylum as one mad. There he employed himself in ministering to the sick. On leaving he began to collect homeless poor, and to support them by his work and by begging. One night, St. John found in the streets a poor man who seemed near death, and, as was his wont, he carried him to the hospital, laid him on a bed, and went to fetch water to wash his feet. When he had washed them, he knelt to kiss them, and started with awe; the feet were pierced, and the print of the nails bright with an unearthly radiance. He raised his eyes to look, and heard the words, “John, to Me thou doest all that thou doest to the poor in My name; I reach forth My hand for the alms thou givest; Me dost thou clothe, Mine are the feet thou dost wash.” And then the gracious vision disappeared, leaving St. John filled at once with confusion and consolation. The bishop became the Saint’s patron, and gave him the name of John of God. When his hospital was on fire, John was seen rushing about uninjured amidst the flames until he had rescued all his poor. After ten years spent in the service of the suffering, the Saint’s life was fitly closed. He plunged into the river Xenil to save a drowning boy, and died A.D. 1550 of an illness brought on by the attempt, at the age of fifty-five.

REFLECTION: God often rewards men for works that are pleasing in His sight by giving them grace and opportunity to do other works higher still. St. John of God used to attribute his conversion, and the graces which enabled him to do such great works, to his self-denying charity in Africa.

WORD OF THE DAY

ST. JOSEPH, DEVOTION TO. Manifestation of reverence for the spouse of the Virgin Mary.

In the first centuries of the Church, there was no sign of a liturgical devotion to St. Joseph, which parallels the slow development of Marian piety and is understandable in view of the need first to stabilize the Church’s Christology. However, the Eastern Fathers since the fourth century, such as Ephrem, John Damascene, and John Chrysostom, often speak of Joseph and extol his purity of life as in the classic phrase of St. Ephrem (306-73): "No one can worthily praise St. Joseph." The Latin Fathers, notably Jerome and Augustine, stress the justice of Mary’s spouse, in the biblical sense of his fidelity to the laws of God. The earliest public cultus of St. Joseph appeared in the East, with June 20 the commemorative feast. Later Oriental sources variously assigned December 25, 26, and the Sunday before or after Christmas as feast days honoring St. Joseph at the head of other persons associated with the birth of Christ. By the ninth century the Western martyrologies celebrated his memory on March 19. The Crusades gave great impetus to the devotion, as seen in the basilica that the Crusaders built in honor of St. Joseph at Nazareth.

From the Middle Ages on, the veneration of the foster-father of Jesus entered the full stream of Christian piety, through the writings and preaching of Sts. Peter Damian, Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, and Bernardine of Siena. Before the Council of Trent, the Feast of St. Joseph (March 19) was placed in the Roman Breviary by Pope Sixtus IV in 1479. And after Trent, by a decree of 1621, Pope Gregory XV made it a day of obligatory attendance at Mass and abstention from servile work, which it still remains according to canon law, except in certain countries such as the United States.

A parallel feast to honor the patronage of St. Joseph was extended by Pope Pius IX in 1870 to the whole Christian world, and at the same time the saint was declared "Patron of the Universal Church." In 1955, Pope Pius XII instituted a new feast of St. Joseph the Worker for May 1, and March 19 now commemorates his patronage of the Church.

St. Joseph’s pre-eminent sanctity, which places him next to the Blessed Virgin among the saints, was confirmed by many papal documents, especially those of Popes Leo XIII and Pius XII. He is invoked as the patron of a happy death, and by a long-standing custom the month of March and each Wednesday of the week are dedicated to him. In paintings and statues he is usually shown with the Child Jesus and a lily or staff. More recent artists picture him with a carpenter’s square or other instrument of his trade in his hand.

Modern Catholic Dictionary, Fr. John Hardon SJ (Get the real one at Eternal Life — don’t accept an abridged or edited version of this masterpiece!)

LENT MEDITATION DAY 24

Enjoy daily meditations this lent from Fr. Richard Clarke, SJ. Short and powerful, written in 1880 for busy lay people to reap rewards through lent. (includes audio) Lent Day 24: Friday after the Third Sunday in Lent — Jesus is Dragged Before Pilate.

March is St. Joseph

Daily devotionals on Saint Joseph: March 8th — St. Joseph’s First Sorrow.

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