“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when you find that nothing else you seek satisfies you.” (Pope Saint John Paul II).
The saints have great power to help us, and some saints are more powerful than others…
There are great Saints who are canonised meaning that they are publicly acknowledged by the Church as being in Heaven. And there are lesser saints – innocent souls of babies and children, or of people who died in a state of Grace – who are perhaps the unknown saints that many do not realise are praying for us from Heaven.
Venerable Fulton Sheen said, “The person who thinks only of himself says only prayers of petition; the one who thinks of his neighbour says prayers of intercession; whoever thinks only of loving and serving God says prayers of abandonment to God’s will, and this is the prayer of the saints.”
I wish to pray such a prayer, because the saints know how to live lives of prayer that are pleasing to God. Saint John Vianney explains such a life by calling us to live as Our Blessed Mother lived, “Loving God only, desiring God only, and trying to please God only in everything that we do”. Because it is “the great concern of God and Our Lady is that people should be saved and go to Heaven; and since Heaven is the dwelling place prepared by God for eternal life, unless we follow the road that leads to it, we shall never get there.” (Lucia of Fatima).
Saint Joseph is strongly considered to be the most powerful of all the saints – after Our Blessed Mother – who is a saint of such power that she is afforded her own unique titles to depict her sanctity!
God the Son – who does not obey the angels – obeyed a couple of Saints – Saint Mary (who we call Our Blessed Mother) and Saint Joseph!
In his book, “Consecration to Saint Joseph” Father Donald Calloway writes, “Jesus never called any angel ‘father.’ No angel, no matter how exulted, ever educated the God-Man. God does not obey angels. Saint Joseph, on the other hand, not only educated Jesus, but was privileged to command the God-Man in his role as the father of the Messiah.”
Pope Pius XI explained the power of Saint Joseph when he said… “For what could Jesus and Mary refuse to Saint Joseph, he who was entirely consecrated to them all his life, and to whom they truly owed the means of their earthly existence.”…
I have been reflecting on this sanctity of Saint Joseph who I have come to see is – in a way – the father of all the saints, because he devoted his life to the Will of God.
For when I reflect on my life to date, it occurs to me that so much of it was empty and wasted and useless. I have spent years and years seeking happiness and failing to find it.
And then – the other day as I was asking for the intercession of Saint Joseph for an intention that is dear to my heart – I stumbled upon some beautiful words of Pope Saint John Paul II…
“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when you find that nothing else you seek satisfies you.”
For there is such satisfaction to be had under the protection of the saints. For they understood happiness and they understood joy. The saints knew that though their earthly lives were often-times filled with suffering and sacrifice, their spirits were never overwhelmed – instead they were overcome with joy. For there is something joyful in pleasing my Beloved.
There is something terribly satisfying about being able to bear a tiny little splinter of that most Holy Cross through Grace and no merit of our own. For though I know that I am too weak to carry any more than a splinter of it, I know that I am surrounded by splinters – thousands and thousands of them – stretching out along the road to Calvary, carried by all the Saints, the greater and the lesser ones...
For each saint carries a splinter of that Cross – to please their Beloved. And though none of us could shoulder the weight of that Cross other than God Himself – we can each carry our splinter for love of him!
And through that splinter, there is such satisfaction to be had – more than any words could ever say!
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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