2. Visits to St. Joseph for Every Day of the Month.
St. Alphonsus was not only the apostle of devotion to Our Lord Jesus Christ and to the Blessed Virgin Mary; he also inculcated an equally lively devotion to the great St. Joseph, whom, in his pious invocations, he never separated from Jesus and Mary. The writings which he has left us concerning" this glorious patriarch bear striking testimony to the respect, confidence, and love which filled his heart for the nursing-father of Jesus. It is more than probable that if St. Alphonsus had lived in our time, which is evidently the epoch of St. Joseph's glorification and the extension of his worship, he would have added daily visits in honor of the Patriarch to those daily visits which he left us in honor of the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary. This reflection inspired a son of St. Alphonsus with the idea of extracting thirty-one visits to St. Joseph textually from the holy Doctor's works, imitating, as nearly as possible, the manner in which the saint proceeded with regard to the Visits to the Blessed Virgin.
Read the visit of the day, and terminate with the following prayer:
MY holy Patriarch, I rejoice at thy happiness and greatness in being made worthy to have power to command, with the authority of a father, Him Whom heaven and earth obey, and to make Him obey thee. My holy Patron, since a God has served thee, I too wish to enroll myself in thy service; I choose thee, after Mary, for my principal advocate and protector. I promise to honor thee every day by some special devotion, and each day I will place myself under thy protection. Through the sweet company of Jesus and Mary, which thou didst enjoy during life, protect me during my whole life, that I may never be separated from God by losing His grace. And through the assistance which Jesus and Mary gave thee at death, protect me at the hour of my death, that, dying in the company of thee, of Jesus and Mary, I may one day go to thank thee in
