First Wednesdays in honor of St. Joseph

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Tis_Bearself

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So I decided to start doing the Five First Wednesdays in honor of St. Joseph, by (starting in March, which was yesterday)
  • reciting the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary in memory of his life with Jesus and Mary and the love he bore them and sorrow he suffered with them, and meditating on his thoughts and feelings during each Mystery; and
  • receiving Holy Communion “with the love which he received the Savior and each time he held Jesus in his arms.”
This form of the First Wednesday devotion was allegedly revealed to Sister Mary Ephrem, the “Our Lady of America” visionary, the apparition having been approved for faith expression by the former Archbishop of Cincinnati in the 1950s and endorsed by Cardinal Burke in 2007.

I noticed that the Pious Union of St. Joseph also has a “First Wednesday” devotion to St. Joseph, and that Wednesdays were traditionally St. Joseph’s day according to some Traditionalist websites, but the PIous Union devotion calls for different prayers.

Does anyone else do a First Wednesday devotion to St. Joseph? I’m of the opinion that we really need to “go to Joseph” more as he seems to be forgotten a lot of the time. I became very interested in him a few years ago after reading about St. Andre Bessette and Erzebet Kindlemann and their devotions to St. Joseph.
 
St. Joseph is one of my favorite saints, second only to the Blessed Mother. I do not practice the first Wednesday devotion to him (to be honest, I had not realized there was such a thing), but he has always been a loving friend in my life and has brought many a tear stained prayer to God for me. I credit St. Joseph with bringing me my husband and am currently in the midst of a 54 day novena set to end on St. Joseph’s feast day.

I may decide to start a first Wednesday devotion to him come April!
 
Good for you. I am not doing first Wednesdays I wish I could. Holy Joseph, worthy foster-father and guardian of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Church, pray for us!
 
I do, and have done so for a while now. However, I do this every Wednesday throughout the year. I say the Joyful Mysteries and attend Mass in honor of the most pure heart of St. Joseph. I am a big St. Joseph fan. I also say the prayer to St. Joseph every day. I am a firm believer in his help, especially for single women with 100 year old houses 🙂

Although this is a traditional exercise, I was influenced by the Sr. Ephrem and San Nicolas Argentina apparitions, in which Joseph plays a major role. (I am not sure what the status of the latter is in terms of Church approval).
 
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It looks like the San Nicolas apparitions were approved by the Bishop and still remain approved, but the Vatican has told him and the visionary to stop publishing new revelations she claims to be receiving, so the Bishop is just putting those on file until after she passes away. I must admit I am a little suspicious of cases where the revelations are going on for years and years in a Medjugorje-like manner.

I was initially influenced by the Elisabeth Kindelmann “Flame of Love” diary as that devotion is approved by Archbishop Chaput and is very big in Philadelphia area where I work. (Also Elisabeth died a very long time ago, so no ongoing revelations happening there.) Then I read about St. Andre Bessette and only later found out that Sister Mary Ephrem (who also died a long time ago) promoted this devotion. I believe in the pre-Vatican II era, Wednesday was considered by some to be St. Joseph’s special day so they would be praying to him on that day anyway, and Holy Communion and a Rosary are not an unusual request.

I understand there was another purported apparition in Brazil where a person claimed to have received private revelation of much the same message as Sister Mary Ephrem about St. Joseph, but that apparition eventually got a negative judgment from the bishop there. Unfortunately there are still some articles on the web talking about it like it was approved.

(And I am in the same boat re house…only much worse in ways I won’t go into here 🙂 St. Joseph and also St. Vincent Ferrer, the patron saint of plumbing, get called on a lot by me lately. )
 
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I had never heard of first Wednesdays to be honest…interesting, thank you. But St Joseph is definitely a go to saint for me, very helpful.
 
There is a really beautiful prayer to St. Joseph on the USCCB website. Prayer to St Joseph After the Rosary

I have been including in my rosaries and wanted to share it in case you might like to include it after your rosary on first Wednesdays.
 
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Thanks, that’s a very nice prayer I hadn’t seen before.
I was saying a Hail Joseph at the end of the Rosary, but maybe I’ll see about including this prayer.
 
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