For the Solemnity of St. Joseph, I am happy to share a chapter from my new book Model of Faith: Reflecting on the Litany of Saint Joseph. It is a devotional book in which you will find a reflection like the one below for each of the 22 names, titles, and honors presented for our contemplation in the Litany of St. Joseph. This book is designed for personal prayer and group prayer & discussion alike. Thanks to my publisher, Our Sunday Visitor, for allowing me to share this chapter here on my blog.
Hope of the Sick
“If I touch even his garments, I shall be made well.”
— Mark 5:28
By night Jesus prayed, and by day he preached and healed. During one of those many days, a crowd gathered to follow Jesus. Somewhere lost in that crowd was a woman who had been suffering from blood hemorrhaging for twelve years. For those dozen years, she must have spent nearly every moment of every day praying for healing, and as the years dragged on hoping against hope that she would be made well. But on this day, she caught a glimpse of the man who had been healing others, and without any other hope she chased after him to seek the health she so desperately needed. Making her way through the ever-denser crowd, she only barely caught up to this preacher and healer, just close enough to reach for the last fold of his flowing garment. Without permission and absent any concern for prop- er decorum, she stretched out to brush her fingers against this piece of clothing. She touched something that was touching him, and by that exchange of touch, she was immediately healed (see Mk 5:24–34).
If it sufficed for this woman to fleetingly touch his garment once to receive the healing she so desperately needed, then “my God, my Creator, with what innumerable graces must not Joseph have been enriched from the heart of the Divine Child, Whom he carried so often in his arms, lavishing on him kisses and caresses! When he slept on the breast of the holy Patriarch, can you doubt that He communicated to him the sweetest and most ineffable graces?”
The fabric that mediated between the faith of the hemorrhaging woman and the source of our holy longing was blessed enough to effect healing that day in the crowd. How much more, then, must Saint Joseph, who clung to the child Jesus day after day, be blessed as an instrument of healing for the sick who reach out to him. Joseph clung to his child more tightly than any garment Jesus ever wore. By faith and with fatherly devotion, Joseph wrapped Jesus warmly against the cold, strengthened him against the dark, and cushioned him on the hardest days. By night, he held Jesus while he slept, and by day he carried him as he worked.
It was by faith that the woman reached out to touch Jesus’ garment. When Jesus found her, he said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease” (Mk 5:34).
If by faith any who are sick reach out to Saint Joseph, then it will be through him that comfort will come from the Divine Healer. Jesus learned what it was like for a father to dote on his child from Saint Joseph, who absorbed pain and gave love. In gratitude to Joseph for all the days that he wrapped Jesus in his arms, the Lord himself says unto all those who ask for healing through the intercession of Saint Joseph: “Your faith has made you well; go in peace.”
By night, the sick will rest in the peace of Christ, and by day walk in his glory.
Saint Joseph, when we do not have the words to ask for the healing we need, hear then our suffering as its own plea. Be attentive to what ails us and join it to the prayer with which you ceaselessly wrap the Divine Child whom you once held in your arms and now hold as your Savior, and ours.