Go to Joseph!

In the Catholic liturgical calendar, today is the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, the Spouse of the BlessedVirgin Mary and Patron of the Universal Church,  an echo of Christmas in the monochrome purple of our modern Lent.

In the New Testament, Saint Joseph appears only briefly (and silently) in connection with the early life of Jesus. His burial place is unknown, and there seems to have been little noteworthy devotion to him in the 1st millennium. But, amid the many European calamities of 14th and 15th centuries – famine, wars, religious conflicts, and, above all, the Bubonic Plague – popular preachers, like Saint Bernardine of Siena, saw Saint Joseph as a model protector. By the 16th century, devotion to Saint Joseph was flourishing in Spain. Saint Teresa of Avila believed that his intercession had healed her of paralysis, and she placed her project of reforming the Carmelites — and the dangerous journeys it involved — under his protection. Twelve of the monasteries she founded were dedicated to St. Joseph. Her love of Saint Joseph influenced that great 16th-17th century champion of holiness in everyday life, Saint Francis de Sales. As part of the Counter-Reformation’s strategy for re-evangelizing Christendom, families were encouraged to imitate the Holy Family headed by Saint Joseph. He was named patron of Mexico in 1555, Canada in 1624, Bohemia in 1655, Austria in 1675, the Chinese missions in 1678, and the Spanish Empire in 1689, and his name was inserted in the Litany of Saints in 1729. More recently, the Little Sisters of the Poor, founded by Blessed Jeanne Jugan (18792-1879), made him patron of all their homes for the aged. Montreal’s Oratory of St. Joseph, begun in 1904 by Saint André Bessette (1845-1937), draws scores of pilgrims and promotes devotion to Saint Joseph worldwide.

After the Kingdom of Italy conquered Rome from the Pope in 1870, Blessed Pope Pius IX proclaimed Saint Joseph Patron of the Universal Church. In 1955, Pope Pius XII established the new feast of Saint Joseph the Worker (May 1), to counteract the Communist May Day holiday. In 1961, Blessed Pope John XXIII made Saint Joseph patron of Vatican Council II, and the following year he inserted Joseph's name in the Roman canon. In 2013, Pope Francis inserted his name in the other Eucharistic Prayers.

A popular custom practiced in many places is the Blessing of Saint Joseph’s Table. In honor of Saint Joseph, who provided for the Holy Family, bread, pastries, and other food are blessed and a large portion of it given to the poor

In a sermon preached at St. Paul the Apostle Church in 1863 (during the American Civil War), Paulist Fathers' Founder Isaac Hecker said of Saint Joseph: “He was in the world and found God where he was. He sanctified his work by carrying God with him into the workshop. … while occupied with the common, daily duties of life, his mind was fixed on the contemplation of divine truths, thus breathing into all his actions a heavenly influence. He attained in society and human relationships a degree of perfection not surpassed, if equaled, by the martyr’s death, the contemplative of the solitude, the cloistered monk, or the missionary hero.”

Hecker called Joseph "the Saint of Our Day." Almost a century and a half later, "our day" is again a threatening and dangerous moment in the history of our nation world, and Church. While the tragic and traumatizing circumstances under which we are living prevent us from celebrating Saint Jospeh's feast day with the full solemnity it deserves, those same circumstances ought to move us to an even greater readiness to invoke his help and protection in our dire need. 

I plan to pray the Litany of Saint Joseph privately in our House Chapel at noon today, and I invite all who are not otherwise occupied at that time, to join me in doing the same in the privacy of their own homes or wherever they may be.

Saint Joseph, Hope of the sick, Patron of the dying, Terror of demons, and Protector of Holy Church, pray for us!

The Lent We Have Lost: The Seven Penitential Psalms

In this terrifying time of viral pestilence, I have particularly recommended to people Pope Francis' beautiful prayer to Our Lady, Health of the Sick and Salvation of the Roman People. In addition, however, there are also older practices that had long been a part of the Church's tradition, especially in this Lenten season, that may have more recently been forgotten  but which we might profitably retrieve at this time. One such tradition is the praying of the Seven Penitential Psalms and the Litany of the Saints.

The preeminent penitential psalm is, of course, the Miserere (Psalm 51), which for many centuries used to be a regular component of the Church's Morning Prayer (Lauds) on weekdays - and still is at least on Fridays in the contemporary Roman rite. Early in the Church's history, Cassiodorus (c.485-585) composed a famous work on the Psalms, which listed seven "penitential" psalms:  6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143 (in our common contemporary numbering):. So the category was familiar and already traditional by at least then. Like the Litany of the Saints, the "Seven Penitential Psalms" eventually became a common component of many liturgical rites, among them the Dedication of a Church, and were commonly added after Matins and Lauds on penitential days (e.g., in Lent). The burden of these many additions is usually thought to be one of the reasons why festive offices proliferated, even in Lent, since the extra psalms and litany would not have to be prayed on feast days. Presumably it was for this reason - to make the weekday Office more attractive and to ease the burden on those with pastoral responsibilities - that Pope Saint Pius X's reform in 1911 abolished most such extra obligations. 

Contemporary "social distancing" obviously precludes old-fashioned penitential processions, like the famous 1622 procession with the "Plague Crucifix" that I referred to yesterday. But with modern media the texts are easy for anyone to access on one's own, and they remain an especially appropriate vehicle for personal prayer especially in this cataclysmic Lenten season.

One particularly useful resource is the USCCB's website where one can listen to each of the "Seven Penitential Psalms" as well as read a Reflection for each.  (For this, go to:

http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/seven-penitential-psalms-songs-of-suffering-servant.cfm

(Photo: The "Plague Crucifix" at Rome's Church of San Marcello al Corso)

In Time of Pestilence

In the old days, there was a Votive Mass Pro Vitanda Mortalitate. So far as I can tell, it no longer appears in our contemporary Missal, but we could surely use it today!

I have been encouraging everyone to pray Pope Francis' Prayer to Our Lady Health of the Sick and Salvation of the Roman People. The famous image of Mary, Salvation of the Roman People in the papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major was particularly dear to Isaac Hecker and is particularly dear to Pope Francis, who visits it often and visited it again on Sunday afternoon (Photo at bottom).

From there, his pilgrimage continued to the church of San Marcello al Corso. The above photo shows him walking the last segment of that pilgrimage on foot on what is normally one of Rome's busiest streets. It is quite a sight! And it is a poignant reminder that one of the consequences of this crisis is social separation. That is why I think it is especially important that we all try to keep in touch with as many people as we can - especially those who may be lonely or particularly frightened. Loneliness and fear are also deadly. 

The original church of San Marcello al Corso burned down in 1519, but its large wooden crucifix somehow survived undamaged. During a plague in Rome in August 1522, a two-week procession took place during which the great crucifix was carried from San Marcello to Saint Peter's through all the districts of the city. (This is a photo of the San Marcello Plague Crucifix, which I took in 2012.)

And here is Pope Francis' Prayer to Mary, Health of the Sick and Salvation of the Roman People:

O Mary, you shine continuously on our journey as a sign of salvation and hope.
We entrust ourselves to you, Health of the Sick.
At the foot of the Cross you participated in Jesus’ pain,
with steadfast faith.
You, Salvation of the Roman People, know what we need.
We are certain that you will provide, so that,
as you did at Cana of Galilee,
joy and feasting might return after this moment of trial.
Help us, Mother of Divine Love,
to conform ourselves to the Father’s will
and to do what Jesus tells us:
He who took our sufferings upon Himself, and bore our sorrows to bring us,
through the Cross, to the joy of the Resurrection. Amen.

We seek refuge under your protection, O Holy Mother of God.
Do not despise our pleas – we who are put to the test – and deliver us from every danger,
O glorious and blessed Virgin.

A Life Lived Well

In recent years, since my move to Tennessee, I have tried most summers to reconnect with some of my cousins in NY and always especially enjoyed those opportunities to reminisce and catch up with some of the people who were such an important part of my earlier years. It is one of the blessings of having had parents who came from large families to have had many aunts, uncles, and cousins, who played such a prominent part in my life. So today I join my extended family in mourning my dear cousin Isabel, my oldest cousin on the Franco side of the family, who at 80 was still an active, vibrant, and positive presence in her community, where she was the President of the Yorktown, NY, Rotary Club.

Born in 1939 to my Aunt Filomena, the de facto matriarch of the Franco clan for the rest of the 20th century, she was nine years older than I was and so always seemed wiser and more experienced, an aura she never quite lost. She was the first of my cousins to marry - marring Eugene, an Irish boy from Inwood - in 1959, and was the first cousin to make the move out of the city to suburban Westchester.  

She and Eugene were loving godparents to my sister Christine, who sadly died in her 40s. Isabel had three children herself before being suddenly widowed in 1980. She then served as Registrar at Iona College in New Rochelle until her retirement in 2006. But it was her loving and encouraging presence to her wider family - her sisters, nieces and nephews, and cousins - that I will always cherish and remember most. And I will miss her comments on Facebook (including her occasional comments on these posts of mine).

Ironically, her wake will take place on the day when my mother's funeral Mass in California (postponed because of the coronavirus crisis) had originally been scheduled. She will be buried by her husband in the same cemetery where my mother will also eventually be interred.

May the angels lead her into paradise; may the martyrs come to welcome her and take her to the holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem.

(Photo: One of the last pictures of me with my cousins Libby, Isabel, Albina, and Carol.)

No Ordinary Time

You must know that this is the time when all good men and women give every bit of service and strength to their country that they have to give. This is the time when it is the United States that we fight for, the domestic policies that we have established as a party that we must believe in, that we must carry forward, and in the world we have a position of great responsibility.

We cannot tell from day to day what may come. This is no ordinary time. No time for weighing anything except what we can do best for the country as a whole, and that responsibility rests on each and every one of us as individuals.”

So spoke Eleanor Roosevelt in her famous July 1940 speech to the Democratic National Convention. With much of the world already at war and the United States only a year-and-a-half away from war, Eleanor Roosevelt rallied the party to collective action in service of the common good. Faced with a dangerous external threat, she could and did call upon the strong moral resources of the nation to meet it.

This too, now, is no ordinary time. The external threat is here - in the form of contagious disease and all the terror that inspires. But who is left to rally the nation? Who is left to call upon our reservoir of strong moral resources? And are those resources still available to us? Or have they all given way to what Ross Douthat would call our decadence? 

Decadence indeed! We are, on paper, the world's richest and most powerful country. But we are governed by a political party which for four full decades (since the morally disastrous election of 1980) has disparaged and undermined the functions of government, has successfully increased inequality thus separating citizens from one another rather than uniting them, and has gone to war against science and expertise. So now we cannot even test citizens to find out who and how many are infected - something other countries with a reservoir of social solidarity have been able to do.  A well-governed society would have public health officials to seek out the elderly and others most at risk. A well-governed society could close schools if necessary, without fearing that students would lose needed meals or be left unsupervised all day because their families, already living on the margin, dare not take off from work - even if they are sick themselves.

The dysfunction of the American medical industry is a familiar story. It is what happens when an important public good is allowed to be instead part of a private, for-profit economy.  When this is over, surely the moral bankruptcy of our dependence on for-profit private medical insurance will be even more obvious than it was already.

But for now it is far from over. This is no ordinary time.