Rosary of St. Joseph

The Rosary of St. Joseph is a powerful weapon to ward off the devil and his temptations. It was revealed by Jesus Himself in an apparition. Let’s find out where its power comes from.

St. Joseph, the putative father of Jesus, is one of the most beloved saints among those venerated by the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Yet not everyone knows that there is a Rosary of St. Joseph, only the last of the devotional practices dedicated to this special saint.

Already in 1536, there is a practice called the Practice of the Seven Sorrows and Joys of St. Joseph, in which the saint himself would have taught two fishermen that he had miraculously saved from a shipwreck.

Subsequently, many other prayers dedicated to the saint were published and disseminated, such as the Litanies of St. Joseph, the Track of St. Joseph, and in more recent times, in the nineteenth century, the Chaplet of St. Joseph and the Scapular of St. Joseph.

Pius IX and Pius XI consecrated the month of March to St. Joseph, whose feast is celebrated on 19 March. But in reality, every first Wednesday of every month would be dedicated to him and should be honoured with special prayers, which guarantee graces and protection.

The Sacred Mantle of St. Joseph is also a special devotional form composed of prayers that must be recited for thirty consecutive days, as were the thirty years that Jesus spent with St. Joseph, to honour the latter and put us under the mantle of his protection.

What do we know about St. Joseph?
Not that much, actually. The Holy Scriptures speak little of him, of his life before the encounter with Mary, and even in the Gospels, he appears only as a marginal figure. His role in the coming of Jesus was of fundamental importance.

Without his support or protection, the Virgin Mary would have been alone in facing the burden that God had entrusted to her. It is precisely in humility and modesty, in the full confidence with which he accepted the divine will that the great strength of St. Joseph resides.

He entrusted himself to God’s will without arguing, without demanding anything in return. He accepted the not-easy role that had been established for him and carried it forward with submission, but also with a moving dignity, especially if we imagine him as a carpenter forward over the years, devoid of culture, accustomed more to hard work than to religious dissertations.

For this humble legacy, St. Joseph is remembered with the title of Worker, and of the Workers he is patron, as he is of many categories of craftsmen and workers, as well as of the fathers of the family.

But how did the tradition of reciting the Rosary of St. Joseph come about?

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Rosary of St. Joseph

From 1994 to 1998, a series of apparitions took place in the small towns of Itapiranga and Manaus in central Brazil. Glauber de Souza Coutinho, a young student of Telecommunications Sciences, and his mother Maria do Carmo received several visits from the Holy Family of Nazareth, namely Mary, the Child Jesus and Saint Joseph, as well as from the Archangels Michael and Raphael.

Without dwelling too much on these surprising apparitions, the aspect that we want to highlight in them is precisely the presence of St. Joseph, exceptional for this type of event. The seer recounted that he had seen the Saint himself, who held the Child Jesus in his arms, and that a great and intense light radiated from Saint Joseph in particular. The interpretation that was given to this apparition was the invitation to devotion to the Sacred Hearts of the Holy Family, and in particular to the Most Chaste Heart of Joseph, to whom the subsequent apparitions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary would also seem to be addressed.

In other apparitions the members of the Holy Family will alternatively speak of devotion to St. Joseph, and also of the prayer that must be recited, a special Rosary capable of bringing great graces and precious intercessions to those who recite it with a contrite heart.

St. Joseph himself will say to Edson Glauber: “Tell your brothers to pray the rosary of my seven sorrows and joys, for I desire to be their intercessor in their greatest difficulties. If you knew how many graces God allows Me to give you, you would not close your hearts and you would never stop praying this powerful rosary.”

And again Jesus Christ will add: “The rosary of the seven sorrows and joys of St. Joseph must be recited with the Hail Joseph prayer, so that you can be benefited by his intercession, invoking his most holy and powerful name that makes all hell tremble and put demons to flight.”

In an apparition in 1997, Our Lady spoke specifically about devotion to the Most Chaste Heart of St. Joseph, claiming the importance of the worship dedicated to him to be honoured on the first Wednesday of the month. Even today, the young people of the Queen of the Rosary and Peace Association of Itapiranga gather every first Wednesday of the month to recite the Rosary of St. Joseph.

How to recite the prayer to St. Joseph in the month of the Rosary

October, as we know, is the month dedicated to the Rosary, and among the various online rosaries available to accompany private prayer you will also find the Rosary of St. Joseph, also known as the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows and Joys of St. Joseph.

It is composed of seven Mysteries that coincide with the seven sorrows and seven joys that St. Joseph lived during his life, including for example the birth of Jesus, the prophecy of Simeon, the flight to Egypt, and so on. The Rosary of St. Joseph can also be recited in March, the month dedicated to the Saint, and as we have seen in Itapiranga, it is recited every first Wednesday of the month.

In the opening, an invocation is addressed to God:

O God come to save me
Lord, come quickly to my aid
Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, now and forever, forever and ever.
Praised always be: the holy name of Jesus, of Joseph and Mary.

Then we pray Joseph with the formula Hail Joseph, and the prayer:

Hail Joseph, son of David, just and virginal
Man, Wisdom is with you,
you are blessed among all men and blessed is Jesus,
the fruit of Mary your faithful bride.
Saint Joseph, 
worthy Father and protector of Jesus Christ and the Holy Church,
pray for us sinners and obtain for us from God’s divine Wisdom,
now and at the hour of our death. Amen!

Follow the Glory to the Father, then move on to the Mysteries. To every mystery, we recite one Our Father, ten Hail Josephs and one Glory.

Saint Joseph, for the pain and joy you felt on the occasion of the motherhood of the Virgin Mary, paternally assist me in life and death.

Saint Joseph, for the pain and joy you felt on the occasion of the birth of Jesus, paternally assist me in life and death.

Saint Joseph, for the pain and joy you felt on the occasion of the circumcision of the Child Jesus, paternally assist me in life and death.

Saint Joseph, for the pain and joy you felt on the occasion of the prophecy of Simeon, paternally
assist me in life and death.

Saint Joseph, for the pain and joy you felt on the occasion of your flight to Egypt, paternally
assist me in life and death.

Saint Joseph, for the pain and joy you felt on the occasion of your return from Egypt, paternally
 assist me in life and death.

Saint Joseph, for the pain and joy you felt on the occasion of the loss and rediscovery of Jesus in the temple, paternally assist me in life and death