NOVENA TO SAINT JOSEPH, SPOUSE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

 

Saint Joseph and the Child Jesus

 

NINETH DAY

SAINT JOSEPH'S CONSTANCY

By Saint Francis de Sales

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“Now, our glorious Saint Joseph was endowed with all the virtues of constancy, perseverance, strength and valor, and practiced them marvelously well. As regards his constancy, did he not display it wonderfully when seeing Our Lady with child and not knowing how that could be, his mind was tossed with distress, perplexity, and trouble? Yet, in spite of all, he never complained, he was never harsh or ungracious towards his holy Spouse, but remained just as gentle and respectful in his demeanor as he had ever been.

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But what valor and strength did he not display in the victory which he gained over the two greatest enemies of man, the devil and the world, and by the practice of a most perfect humility, as we have said, throughout the whole course of his life? The devil, who for want of humility, and because he would not accept if for his inseparable companion, was driven out of heaven and cast down into hell, is so great an enemy to the lowly virtue, that there is no sacrifice or invention he will not use to make men fall away from it – so much the more because it is a virtue which renders them infinitely pleasing to God. We may therefore well say, “Valiant and strong in humility; he will be conqueror at once of the devil and of the world, which is full of ambition, vanity and pride.”

Cf XIX, On the Virtues of St. Joseph, p. 379.