1. The Founder
  2. The Rule
  3. The General Chapters
  4. Superiors General
  5. Observances and customs
  6. Preaching and publications
  7. After Vatican II

Devotion to Saint Joseph in the Congregation has gone hand in hand with the development of this devotion in the Church and even sometimes contributed to its development. “If devotion to Saint Joseph, according to his Holiness Benedict XV, has developed progressively in this last half century, there is no call for our Family, which led the way for this movement, to lag behind now.” [1] The impulse came from high because this devotion held a prominent place in the personal piety of the Founder and in his rules of conduct for the Congregation.

The Founder

Despite Father Eugene Baffie’s [2] claims, one can hardly find traces of this devotion on the part of Eugene de Mazenod “from his tenderest years”. These manifestations of piety and confidence were to come later on. It would seem that one has to see this devotion as being associated to his vision of the Church, bought by the blood of Jesus Christ, a vision which extended beyond the limits of the Church here on earth and led him to enter into constant communion with the Church of heaven. This was the source of his deep devotion to the saints, especially to Mary Immaculate and as Father Toussaint Rambert [3] wrote: “immediately after the Blessed Virgin, Saint Joseph held first place in his heart”.

The depth of the Founder’s thinking with regard to devotion to Saint Joseph is revealed to us in a letter to Father Eugène Guigues: “I believe his soul more excellent than all the celestial intelligences, above which it is indubitably placed in heaven. In that blessed abode Jesus Christ, Mary and Joseph are just as inseparable as they were on earth. I believe in these things with the most certain faith, that is to say, just as certainly as I believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary and for the same reasons, due proportion being observed. I am going to tell you too another thought that is dear to me: I am quite persuaded as well that the body of St. Joseph is already in glory and that is where it is meant to be for all time. Speaking of his soul close to Jesus and Mary I said it was: super choros Angelorum. And so you would search in vain for his relics over the face of the earth. You will no more find his relics than any of his holy spouse. Of neither the one nor the other do we possess anything except articles, while the world is filled with the relics of the Apostles, and of saints who were the Savior’s contemporaries: St. John the Baptist, etc. No one has ever presumed to produce even false ones of these two eminent personages, and I consider this as due to a special divine disposition. I simply record the fact, you will give it what value you please. For myself, it is by a confirmation of my strongly held view and I make bold to profess it. If it attracts your piety, meditate on it and I have no doubt that you will accept it, I mean the whole body of my teaching on the arch-saint whom we venerate with all our hearts.” [4]

This profound devotion is rooted in a broad faith vision of Saint Joseph’s predestined role as spouse of Mary and foster father of Jesus. His motives for venerating Saint Joseph and his confidence in him arise from his entirely exceptional relationship with the Savior and Mary Immaculate, the Servant of God’s two greatest devotions.

This explains why he obtained the Holy See’s permission to commemorate Saint Joseph in all the Offices of the Blessed Virgin (Mass and Divine Office) [5]. In addition, we see him having constant recourse to his intercession, confiding to him the material interests of his Congregation, the recruiting of vocations, the health of missionaries, the success of their apostolate, the success of General Chapters which he officially placed “under the patronage of Saint Joseph, our beloved Patron”; he often placed our houses under his protection, “after that of the Holy Virgin who is always to be the first patron of our houses”. [6]

The Rule

The Founder makes no explicit mention of Saint Joseph in his Rule. However, as the Superior General, Father Leo Deschâtelets, observed in a letter to the Provincials, Saint Joseph is the inspiration for a series of articles which describe life at the novitiate and which were supposed to be a guide for life in all our houses: “It seems to me that it is in the spirit of Saint Joseph that we should carry out the articles of our holy Rules which describe with consummate tact all the fine points of community charity consisting of kindness, humility, courtesy, modesty, piety, a mixture of the most pleasant natural virtues and the most refined supernatural virtues. I have in mind articles 707 and following where the novices are treated explicitly, but also by the very fact of the spirit which should permeate our entire communitarian or congregational spirituality. These articles, I believe, associates us with the Holy Family and in particular to its revered head: Saint Joseph. It is unfortunate that we do not refer to him more frequently. And yet, the novices are not the only ones who have need of these communitarian virtues […] What a model Saint Joseph is for us! What an inspiration for our preaching! In the company of this great patriarch, we are bathed in an atmosphere of pure faith so much in contrast with the spirit of our age.” [7]

The General Chapters

Time and again General Chapters bore witness to the confidence the Congregation bore its holy patron. So it was that in the 1837 Chapter presided by the Founder, the following resolution was unanimously adopted: “On the day of oblation, we will receive the cross, the authentic sign of our mission and the scapular of the Immaculate Conception which we should wear beneath our clothes. Finally, in order to show Saint Joseph a new mark of affection and confidence, the Chapter decided the following: at night [during evening prayers] immediately following the prayer Defende, will be added the prayer Sanctissimae Genetricis tuae Sponsi… of Saint Joseph, the special protector of our Congregation.”

On the occasion of the proclamation of the fiftieth anniversary of Saint Joseph’s being named patron of the Universal Church as celebrated by Pope Benedict XV, the General Chapter of 1920 decided to add the litany of Saint Joseph after the daily recitation of the rosary. [8]

It was also during the course of this 1920 Chapter that Bishop Emile Grouard at the urging of Father Giuseppe Ioppolo sought and obtained the insertion of the invocation: “Blessed be Saint Joseph, the Spouse of the Blessed Virgin” in the Divine Praises recited after the benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. [9]

The Superiors General

All Superiors General, in turn, entrusted themselves to Saint Joseph’s care and recommended devotion to him. Noteworthy is the fact that about fifteen of their administrative circulars bore the date either of the feast of Saint Joseph or of that of his patronal feast.

On the occasion of the serious financial crisis the Congregation experienced at the beginning of this century, it was to Saint Joseph that the authorities had recourse. [10] It was as Superior General as well as bishop that Bishop Augustine Dontenwill signed the petition requesting that the name of Saint Joseph be inserted in the Canon of the Mass. [11]

When the Founder’s cause for beatification was introduced in 1936, Father Euloge Blanc who was Vicar General at the time, after having expressed the Congregation’s gratitude toward the Blessed Virgin for such a favor, added: “How can we forget her holy Spouse, Saint Joseph, the one our revered Founder called ‘his great patron’? To him as well we extend our joyful, loving gratitude.” [12]

In this way, the members of the Congregation were invited to have recourse to Saint Joseph in times of joy, but in times of sorrow as well: sickness, problems in the apostolate, poverty in the missions, etc. The reasons for this trust are the excellence of our holy patron, his holiness, his power, his role as foster father of Jesus, his union with Mary, in a word the admirable role he was assigned.

Saint Joseph was seen as a special patron and the choice model for the Oblate brothers. Father Louis Soullier, the Assistant General, explained: “We can call them what the Church called Saint Joseph: faithful and prudent men, truly worthy of our confidence and of being set over the temporal affairs of the house of God.” [13]

Observances and customs

Under the impetus of such a devotion, the patronage of Saint Joseph took on a variety of concrete forms with various customs and many prayers. Consequently, we presently have some hundred houses, institutions or missions that bear Saint Joseph’s name. But it is especially people who are placed under his protection: “Very early on, candidates to the Oblate way of life are called to cultivate a special devotion to Saint Joseph. The Oblate prayer book used in minor seminaries published in 1891 contains no less than twenty-eight pages on devotion to Saint Joseph, prayers of all kinds and for all circumstances […] The same is true for novices and scholastics. The different directories for novitiates and scholasticates devoted one or two paragraphs to devotion to Saint Joseph.” [14]

For Oblates in general, exercises of piety in honor of Saint Joseph were set down in the various editions of the Oblate Prayerbook. This consisted of prayers before and after Mass, litanies after recitation of the rosary, the visit to Saint Joseph after that of the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin as well as prayers addressed to them at evening prayer, commemoration at Mass and in the Divine Office for feasts of the Blessed Virgin, as well as in the consecration to the Blessed Virgin and in the course of pious exercises of the month of the rosary, then the celebration of the month of Saint Joseph, and finally, various prayers provided for special circumstances.

Preaching and Publications

Such a devotion must necessarily have been evident in preaching and in the written word. However, it is rather difficult to research the amount of preaching done because we have very little preserved for us except for manus kept in archives. [15] It is appropriate here to point out various homiletic helps published by Oblates as resources for preachers in the course of the liturgical year, helps which grant Saint Joseph his rightful place. Among others, one can mention: Service de l’homilétique, published in French from Saint Paul University, Gottes Wort im Kirchenjahr, in German founded by Father Bernard Willenbrink, as well as The ABC Catechism: a Method of Adult Religious Instruction by Father John W. Mole, in English.

Strictly theological or historical works on Saint Joseph published by Oblates are few in number. One can point to various months of devotion to Saint Joseph in the language of the people being evangelized, articles on the veneration of Saint Joseph as well as some chapters on this theme in works of spirituality and books of meditations. But it is especially by means of publications on the popular level, parish bulletins, and annals of pilgrim sites that the desire to spread devotion to Saint Joseph manifest themselves.

After Vatican II

One cannot but notice a certain shift of emphasis in recent years, especially after Vatican II. It was the desire of liturgical reform in particular to center everything on Christ. Veneration for the saints fittingly took a secondary place. A danger does exist, however, to have the liturgy rule everything in such a way that there is no place left for flexible forms of piety. It will take some time to achieve a balance. As Marialis Cultus has reminded us [16], that is true of Marian devotion as well. All the more is this true for devotion to the other saints, even for the great and humble Saint Joseph. Here, once again, the Congregation wants to be an integral part of the Church. Its Christocentric spirituality, inherited from its Father and Founder, is open to all contexts of the life of the Church and of the world.

MAURICE GILBERT