by Fr. David Vincent Meconi, SJ | HPR Editorial | August 2013
Scripture and sacred tradition do not tell us too much about Joseph. Yet, all we need to know is that the heart of his life beats between Mary and Jesus, how he found his truest self between our Lady and her God.
August is a month of transitions. It is when we honor our Lady’s Glorious Assumption and her Coronation as Queen of heaven and earth. It is also the month most families begin to worry about school supplies, new schedules, and the stresses of having summer come to a close. August also witnesses the vows of many men and women religious as well as the entrance of new novices into their communities. It is when our diocesan seminarians report for duty. And this just in: August has recently outpaced June as the top month for weddings. It is truly a time of change and hopeful expectation.
To contemplate our Lady’s role in heaven this month is to recall how she intercedes for all of us in all of these various circumstances here on earth. As we all pray for our new classes of religious and seminarians, for schoolchildren’s safety all around the world, and for all this month brings, I am grateful that St. Joseph now has a more a visible—at least, a more audible—part of our daily worship. For behind Mary’s tender care of Christ stood Joseph, that “just man” extolled in the scriptures. Joseph was no doubt the first one to whom Mary revealed her Immaculate Heart, trusting his strong silence as a place where her most intimate secrets and hopes for this new mystery inside of her would be safe.
On June 20 of this year, the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments declared that the name of St. Joseph “blessed spouse” of Mary, was to be added to the canon of the Mass, added to Eucharistic Prayers II, III, and IV of the Roman Missal. (One wonders why Rome could not have made this decision last year when the new {and expensive} Missals were being printed, as this was a change already being talked about at the beginning of Emeritus Benedict’s pontificate.) As a universal and mandatory change, we should now hear at every Mass:
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