♔ POPE PAUL VI & ST. JOSEPH ♔

Venerable Pope Paul VI, Homily, 27 March 1969:  St. Joseph was a "committed" man, as we might say nowadays. And what commitment! He had total commitment to Mary, the elect of all the women of the earth and of history, always his virgin spouse… and total commitment to Jesus, who was his offspring only by legal descendance, not by the flesh. His were the burdens, the responsibilities, the risks and the labors surrounding the Holy Family. His was the service, the work and the sacrifices, in the shadows of that Gospel picture in which we love to meditate on him; and we are certainly not mistaken, for we all know him now and call him blessed.

Venerable Pope Paul VI, Homily, 19 March 1969:  The Church invokes St. Joseph as her Patron and Protector through her unshakable trust that he to whom Christ willed to confide the care and protection of His own frail human childhood, will continue from heaven to perform his protective task in order to guide and defend the Mystical Body of Christ Himself, which is always weak, always under attack, always in a state of peril. We call upon St. Joseph for the world, trusting that the heart of the humble working man of Nazareth, now overflowing with immeasurable wisdom and power, still harbors and will always harbor a singular and precious fellow-feeling for the whole of mankind. So may it be.