Sleeping St. Joseph

When on our European Marian pilgrimage in 2019, I remember seeing a number of statues in the piety stores attached to the various Churches we visited around Spain and Italy, of a sleeping Saint whose name was ‘San Giuseppe’. I scratched my head trying to figure out who this particular Saint was and why he was sleeping! I couldn’t understand why he was presented as sleeping…it wasn’t until we returned from our trip that I learnt it was St. Joseph! (Italian translation of St. Joseph is San Giuseppe). Ah the lightbulb moment !

God communicates with us, His children in various ways. He does this indirectly through the unfolding of events or the words or actions of another person. Or He does directly via us hearing Him audibly or within the silence of our hearts.

Another beautiful way He can communicate with us is via dreams. One obvious example from the Holy Bible is St. Joseph, our Lord’s foster father on earth, and the holy and chaste spouse of Mama Mary.

St. Joseph may have been a silent character in the Gospels, but his silence speaks loudly in terms of his faithfulness and obedience in his response to God, Who spoke to him in his dreams. Thus, the sleeping St. Joseph serves as a powerful reminder of his complete surrender to God’s will for his life.

Now there’s a devotion to the sleeping St. Joseph which I only learnt of thanks to doing the St. Joseph Consecration by Fr. Donald Calloway MIC in Feb/March 2022. It’s a thoughtful devotion that even our Holy Father practises. Pope Francis owns a sleeping St. Joseph statue and explained that whenever he has a problem or prayer petition, he writes it on a piece of paper and places it underneath sleeping St. Joseph, entrusting it to St. Joseph to take care of it and intercede while the pope rests. This practice has been adopted by many of the faithful too.

So, I encourage you, whenever you have a particular issue weighing you down or a prayer request, write it down and place it under sleeping St. Joseph (if you have one). If you don’t, you can still entrust your petition to him by writing it down and placing it under your pillow perhaps.

He will take your petition for you in a special way and present it to his Lord and Son, our Blessed Jesus. He being in Heaven now means he is completely pure and is so much closer to his Lord and Son. Thus, he will adorn those prayers with his merits and virtues and make them presentable to our Lord along with His Spouse, our Blessed Virgin Mary. It’s like giving the prince consort a request to give to the King. He knows how best to convey the message, in accordance with the King.

After you’ve given it to him, be at rest and sleep, trusting fully your prayer is taken care of and surrender it and yourself to God’s perfect will as St. Joseph did.

May God bless you.

St. Joseph, please pray for us!

 

– Written by Yvonne Rego