One of the most significant devotions of the Christian people to St. Joseph is the “Treintena,” which honors the thirty years he lived on earth alongside Jesus and the Virgin Mary. This practice reflects the deep veneration and trust in the power and goodness of St. Joseph.
The miracles attributed to the intercession of St. Joseph are innumerable. Many saints have witnessed the great favors and miracles performed by the Holy Patriarch. A notable example is the story of St. John Bosco about a man who, when buying a soap, found in the paper that wrapped it information about the help that St. Joseph provides to those who ask him for a good and holy death. From that moment on, the man began to pray fervently to the Holy Patriarch. When he became seriously ill, he called St. John Bosco to confess with great devotion, receiving Communion and the anointing of the sick with profound faith. On his deathbed, he expressed with gratitude: “How good is Saint Joseph, he came to console me and help me in this final hour. Blessed be he. Amen.” He died in peace.
Saint Teresa of Avila, another notable devotee, stated: “It seems that the Lord gave other saints grace to help in one [single] need, I have experience of this glorious Saint helping in all and that the Lord wants us to understand that just as he was subject to him on earth, so in heaven he does whatever is asked of him…” Her testimony highlights the universality of Saint Joseph’s intercession, showing that his help is effective in all circumstances.
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Prayer to Saint Joseph
Dear Saint Joseph! From my smallness and pain and anxiety, I contemplate you with emotion and joy in heaven, where you reside with the Blessed, but also as father of orphans on earth, joy of the sad, refuge of the helpless, joy and love of your devotees before the throne of God.
Therefore, I, poor, helpless, fragile and needy, address to you today and always my sorrows and joys, my prayers and supplications, my regrets and my hopes; and today especially I bring before your image a suffering to console, an evil to remedy, a misfortune to prevent, a need to resolve, a grace to obtain for myself and for those I love.
And to encourage you even more to hear me and obtain it for me, I will ask you during these thirty days, urgently and confidently, remembering the milestones in your life that marked your fidelity to all tests, and which are the reasons I have to hope that you will not delay in responding to our need.
1. I ask you this for the divine goodness that moved the Eternal Word to incarnate and be born in poor human nature, God, Man, the Lord Jesus.
2. I ask you this for the promptness with which you responded to the call to be the adoptive Father of the Lord Jesus and the Chaste husband and guardian of our Holy Mother.
3. I ask you this for your discreet and silent strength with which you sought a stable for the cradle of God, born among men, who forced him to be born among animals.
4. I implore you this for the prompt obedience with which you imposed on the Reconciler the Holy Name of Jesus, by the disposition of the Eternal, for our consolation, love and hope.
5. I beg you for the pain you heroically accepted when you heard from the Angel the death decreed against your Son God, and for your courageous flight to Egypt, for the sufferings of the journey, for the poverty of exile, and for the uncertainty of returning to Nazareth.
6. I ask you for your painful affliction of three days when you lost your Son, and for your intense and discreet joy when you found him in the temple; for the ineffable joy of the thirty years you lived in Nazareth with Jesus and Mary subject to your authority and providence.
7. I beg you for the heroic sacrifice with which you accepted the mission of the Lord Jesus: the cross and death for our reconciliation.
8. I implore you for the heroic detachment with which every day you contemplated those childish hands that would one day be pierced on the Cross; that head that rested on your chest that would be crowned with thorns; that divine body which you held close to your heart, which would be stretched out on the Cross.
9. I ask this of you for your passage from this life and your entrance into Heaven, where you have your throne of power.
10. I beg this of you for your joy when you contemplated the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, his ascension to Heaven and his throne as immortal King forever.
11. I ask this of you for the joy with which you contemplated being raised to Heaven by the angels, your most holy Spouse, and crowned by the Eternal as Queen and Lady of all creation.
12. I beg this of you and I confidently hope for your work, pain and sacrifices on earth, and for your triumphs and your blessedness in Heaven, with your Son Jesus and with Saint Mary.
Oh, my good Saint Joseph! I, inspired by the faith of the Holy Church and in communion with the universal feeling of the Christian people, feel within me the confident strength that encourages me to ask you, to beg you and to hope that you obtain for me from God the grace that I am going to place before this image on earth and before your throne in Heaven: I await it, Holy Patriarch.
Here, with the heart raised to the heights, one asks the Saint for the grace that one desires.
