Prayer to Live and Die in the Love of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

0 Great and good St. Joseph, chaste spouse of the Immaculate Mary, and guardian of the Word Incarnate, we place ourselves with confidence under your protection, and beg of you to teach us to practise the virtues of the Child Jesus.

We thank God for the singular favours He was pleased to bestow upon thee, and we earnestly desire to become pure, and humble, and patient, like unto thee.

Pray, then, for us, St. Joseph, and through that love which thou hast for Jesus and Mary, and which they have for thee, obtain for us the invaluable blessing of living and dying in the love of Jesus, Mary, and thee. Amen.

Holy Joseph, patron of a happy death, pray for us.

St. Joseph's Role in the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

13. This rite, to which Luke refers (2:22ff.), includes the ransom of the first-born and sheds light on the subsequent stay of Jesus in the Temple at the age of twelve.

The ransoming of the first-born is another obligation of the father, and it is fulfilled by Joseph. Represented in the first-born is the people of the covenant, ransomed from slavery in order to belong to God. Here too, Jesus - who is the true "price" of ransom (cf. 1 Cor 6:20; 7:23; 1 Pt l:19) - not only "fulfills" the Old Testament rite, but at the same time transcends it, since he is not a subject to be redeemed, but the very author of redemption.

The gospel writer notes that "his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him" (Lk 2:23), in particular at what Simeon said in his canticle to God, when he referred to Jesus as the "salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel" and as a "sign that is spoken against" (cf. Lk 2:30-34).

~ Pope John Paul II: excerpt from Redemptoris Custos ~