All day long Relevant Radio® has been bringing you Great Stories About Great Saints in honor of All Saints Day. And can you guess which saint Father Matthew Spencer, OSJ will be sharing about during St. Joseph’s Workshop? That’s right – St. Joseph!
You can listen to Fr. Matthew’s great story about St. Joseph live or you can catch the podcast. But we’ve got a couple of bonus stories about St. Joseph for you as well. Relevant Radio contributor Marge Fenelon is a regular guest on Morning Air®, and she shared her story of why St. Joseph is such a powerful intercessor.
“It’s easy to forget, or maybe not even realize, his powerful intercession,” Fenelon said. “I know there are some who have a powerful devotion to St. Joseph, but I think overall we tend to relegate him to the nativity scene at Christmas. We put him away after Christmas and we don’t think about him anymore.”
But Fenelon encouraged listeners to take another look at St. Joseph, and the role he played in salvation history. “How can we not honor, and be so in love with, the man who cared for the Blessed Mother and Our Savior?” she said.
Perhaps it is St. Joseph’s silence in Scripture that makes people overlook him as an intercessor. But even though Scripture does not contain the words of St. Joseph, his actions spoke volumes.
“It’s interesting to me, how during his lifetime, St. Joseph was quite active and quite a strong person in caring for the Blessed Mother and the Holy Family,” Fenelon said. “He not only cared for the Holy Family, but the way he tended to the Virgin Mary, he venerated her while she was yet alive. This idea of his holiness and the way he cherished the Blessed Mother, it would just make sense to me that he would be given that gift of being this intercessor. He has a special power of intercession.”
Fenelon shared how she has seen the power of St. Joseph’s intercession in her own life. “One of the things that I’ve done, and I think I’m seeing the fruits of it, is I’ve prayed to St. Joseph for my sons since they were little,” she explained.
“I prayed to St. Joseph for them, so that when they grew up they could be just and holy men, husbands, and fathers,” she continued. “And if they weren’t called to the married life, to be that fatherly figure in the world as a priest. And at least what I see in my sons, the two who are married cherish their wives and would do anything for them. And I think that’s not me, that’s St. Joseph.”
Morning Air host John Harper also shared his experience of praying to St. Joseph, and seeing the fruits of his intercession in a different way.
“Before I was blessed to be working here at Relevant Radio, things were not going swimmingly,” he began. “The Relevant Radio App was new at the time, and there were these different prayers to St. Joseph, one of which was the St. Joseph the Worker Prayer.”
“And I call it my ‘Bad Day Prayer’ because there are times when things aren’t going your way and you just get really down in the dumps,” Harper explained. “But that 44-second prayer to St. Joseph, for me focused on using the gifts that God had given me. I was there for that point in time, God had given me the gifts, and God had put me there for that moment in time.”
“So I would pray the St. Joseph the Worker prayer and would do a complete 180 in my mindset,” he continued. “I would say, ‘I’m doing what I’m doing. And while I don’t like doing it, I’m doing it for the greater glory of God.’ To me, that’s the power of the St. Joseph the Worker Prayer.”
Prayers to St. Joseph can be found on the Relevant Radio App, in the Pray tab, under Audio Prayers. And you can find out what other saints were featured today at our Great Stories About Great Saints page.
