St. Teresa of Avila Asks Us to Pray to St. Joseph - Novena Mar 11 - 18

Greetings in Jesus and Mary..

Today is Ember Friday, a day of fast and prayer during Lent and especially for the tradition of Ember days! Two for the price of one! Thanks be to God! Today also starts the Novena to St. Joseph. St. Teresa of Jesus had a tremendous devotion to the Spouse of Mary...St. Joseph. She always recommended that everyone turn to him in need as he has never refused her! A great intercessor before the throne of God and to the Heart of Mary! May we add this Novena to our prayers this Lent. May we ask him to help our families to come back to God and may he ask the Eternal Father through the Heart of Mary for peace in our troubled world! May we ask him to pray that the reign of the Immaculate Heart of Mary may triumph very soon!

Below is an article from TFP. They always have many novenas posted throughout the year for our use. God bless them!

Below is taken from an article posted March 8th, 2022 by TFP  - "Why You Need Devotion to St. Joseph Now".....

"You live in a world surrounded by every type of sin and confusion. Your family is being ripped apart by every kind of immoral and cultural force. You need to fight back with the power of Saint Joseph. Find out how powerful Saint Joseph is in tackling every problem by listening to the words of a saint.

No one could put it better than St. Teresa of Avila:
“Saint Joseph gave me everything I asked for.”

I took for my advocate and lord the glorious Saint Joseph and commended myself earnestly to him, and I found that this my father and lord delivered me both from this trouble and also from other and greater troubles concerning my honor and the loss of my soul and that he gave me greater blessings than I could ask of him.

I do not remember even now that I have ever asked anything of him which he has failed to grant. I am astonished at the great favors which God has bestowed on me through this blessed saint and at the perils from which He has freed me, both in body and soul. To other saints, the Lord seems to have given the grace to succor us in some of our necessities, but of this glorious saint, my experience is that he succors us in them all and that the Lord wishes to teach us that as He was Himself subject to him on earth (for, being His guardian and being called His father, he could command Him) just so in Heaven, He still does all that he asks.

This has also been the experience of other persons whom I have advised to commend themselves to him, and even today, there are many who have great devotion to him through having newly experienced this truth.

I used to try to keep his feast with the greatest possible solemnity, but, though my intentions were good, I would observe it with more vanity than spirituality, for I always wanted things to be done very meticulously and well. I had this unfortunate characteristic that, if the Lord gave me the grace to do anything well, the way I did it was full of imperfections and extremely faulty. I was very assiduous and skillful in wrongdoing and in my meticulousness and vanity.

May the Lord forgive me. I wish I could persuade everyone to be devoted to this glorious saint, for I have great experience of the blessings which he can obtain from God. I have never known anyone to be truly devoted to him and render him particular services that did not notably advance in virtue, for he gives very real help to souls who commend themselves to him. For some years now, I think, I have made some request of him every year on his festival, and I have always had it granted. If my petition is in any way ill directed, he directs it aright for my greater good.

If I were a person writing with authority, I would gladly describe the favors this glorious saint has granted to me and others at greater length and in the minutest detail.
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But in order not to do more than I have been commanded, I shall have to write about many things briefly, much more so than I should wish, and at unnecessarily great length about others: in short, I must act like one who has little discretion in all that is good. I only beg, for the love of God, that anyone who does not believe me will put what I say to the test, and he will see by experience what great advantages come from his commending himself to this glorious patriarch and having devotion to him.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
Good St. Joseph, pray for us!

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NOVENA TO ST. JOSEPH