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Illustration:Death of Saint Joseph, following the apocryphal account. Jacques Stella, 1650s
Pope Francis Catechesis on Saint Joseph: 11. Saint Joseph, patron of the good death.
Wednesday, 9 February 2022
Dear brothers and sisters,
In last week’s catechesis, again inspired by Saint Joseph, we reflected on the meaning of the communion of saints. And leading on from this, today I would like to explore the special devotion the Christian people have always had for Saint Joseph as the patron saint of the good death. A devotion born of the thought that Joseph died cared for by the Virgin Mary and Jesus, before leaving the house of Nazareth. There are no historical data, but since we no longer see Joseph in public life, it is thought that he died there in Nazareth, with his family. And Jesus and Mary accompanied him up to his death.
A century ago, Pope Benedict XV wrote “through Joseph we go directly to Mary, and through Mary to the origin of all holiness, who is Jesus”. Both Joseph and Mary help us to go to Jesus. And encouraging pious practices in honour of Saint Joseph, he recommended one in particular, saying: “Since he is deservedly considered to be the most effective protector of the dying, having expired in the presence of Jesus and Mary, it will be the concern of the sacred Pastors to inculcate and encourage […] those pious associations that have been established to implore Joseph on behalf of the dying, such as those ‘of the Good Death’, of the ‘Transit of Saint Joseph’ and ‘for the Dying”. They were the associations of the time.
Dear brothers and sisters, perhaps some people think that this language and this theme are only a legacy of the past, but in reality, our relationship with death is never about the past – it always present. Pope Benedict said, a few days ago, speaking of himself, that he “is before the dark door of death”. It is good to thank the Pope who has this clarity, at 95, to tell us this. “I am before the obscurity of death, at the dark door of death”. It is good advice that he has given us, isn’t it? The so-called “feel-good” culture tries to remove the reality of death, but the coronavirus pandemic has brought it back into focus in a dramatic way. It was terrible: death was everywhere, and so many brothers and sisters lost loved ones without being able to be near them, and this made death even harder to accept and process. A nurse told me that she was in front of a grandmother who was dying, and who said to her, “I would like to say goodbye to my family, before I leave”. And the nurse bravely took out her mobile phone and put her in touch with them. The tenderness of that farewell…
Nevertheless, we try in every way to banish the thought of our finite existence, deluding ourselves into believing we can remove the power of death and dispel fear. But the Christian faith is not a way of exorcising the fear of death; rather, it helps us to face it. Sooner or later, we will all pass through that door.
The true light that illuminates the mystery of death comes from the resurrection of Christ. This is the light. And, Saint Paul writes: “Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor 12: 12-14). There is one certainty: Christ is resurrected, Christ is risen, Christ is living among us. And this is the light that awaits us behind that dark door of death.
Dear brothers and sisters, it is only through faith in the resurrection that we can face the abyss of death without being overwhelmed by fear. Not only that: we can restore a positive role to death. Indeed, thinking about death, enlightened by the mystery of Christ, helps us to look at all of life through fresh eyes. I have never seen a removals van following a hearse! Behind a hearse: I have never seen one. We will go alone, with nothing in the pockets of our shroud: nothing. Because the shroud has no pockets. This solitude of death: it is true, I have never seen a hearse followed by a removals van. It makes no sense to accumulate if one day we will die. What we must accumulate is love, and the ability to share, the ability not to remain indifferent when faced with the needs of others. Or, what is the point of arguing with a brother, with a sister, with a friend, with a relative, or with a brother or sister in faith, if then one day we will die? What point is there in being angry, in getting angry with others? Before death, many issues are brought down to size. I t is good to die reconciled, without grudges and without regrets! I would like to say one truth: we are all on our way towards that door, all of us.
The Gospel tells us that death comes like a thief. That is what Jesus tells us: it arrives like a thief, and however much we try to keep its arrival under control, perhaps even planning our own death, it remains an event that we must reckon with, and before which we must also make choices.
Two considerations stand for us Christians. The first: we cannot avoid death, and precisely for this reason, after having done everything that is humanly possible to cure the sick, it is immoral to engage in futile treatment (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2278). That phrase of the faithful people of God, of the simple people: “Let him die in peace”, “help him to die in peace”: such wisdom! The second consideration concerns the quality of death itself, the quality of pain, of suffering. Indeed, we must be grateful for all the help that medicine endeavours to give, so that through so-called “palliative care”, every person who is preparing to live the last stretch of their life can do so in the most human way possible. However, we must be careful not to confuse this help with unacceptable drifts towards killing. We must accompany people towards death, but not provoke death or facilitate any form of suicide. I would point out that the right to care and treatment for all must always be prioritised, so that the weakest, particularly the elderly and the sick, are never discarded. Life is a right, not death, which must be welcomed, not administered. And this ethical principle applies to concerns everyone, not just Christians or believers.
I would like to underline a real social problem. That “planning” – I don’t know if it is the right word – but accelerating the death of the elderly. Very often we see in a certain social class that the elderly, since they do not have means, are given fewer medicines than they need, and this is inhuman; this is not helping them, it is driving them towards death earlier. This is neither human nor Christian. The elderly should be cared for as a treasure of humanity: they are our wisdom. And if they do not speak, or if they do not make sense, they are still the symbol of human wisdom. They are those who went before us and have left us so many good things, so many memories, so much wisdom. P, do not accelerate the death of the elderly. To caress an elderly person has the same hope as caressing a child, because the beginning of life and the end are always a mystery, a mystery that should be respected, accompanied, cared for. Loved.
May Saint Joseph help us to live the mystery of death in the best possible way. For a Christian, the good death is an experience of the mercy of God, who comes close to us even in that last moment of our life. Even in the Hail Mary, we pray asking Our Lady to be close to us “at the hour of our death”. Precisely for this reason, I would like to conclude this catechesis by praying together to Our Lady for the dying, for those who are experiencing this moment of passage through the dark door, and for the relatives who are experiencing bereavement. Let us pray together: Hail Mary…
Summary of the Holy Father’s words:
Dear brothers and sisters: In our continuing catechesis on Saint Joseph, we now consider him as the patron of a happy death. This traditional devotion was born of the Church’s meditation on Joseph’s own death, comforted by the presence of the Blessed Mother and the Lord Jesus. Today we tend to avoid the thought of our own death, yet our faith in the Risen Jesus invites us not only to be unafraid of death, but to accept it with trust in Christ’s promises. In faith, we see death as a part of life and in turn see life itself in a different perspective. Since we will carry nothing with us to the grave, our concern should be to live lives of faith, hope and charity towards all. The Church has always shown particular concern for the dying, offering them accompaniment and care, respecting the sacredness of life, even in its final stages, and rejecting the ethically unacceptable practices of euthanasia or assisted suicide. Through the prayers of Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary, may the hour of our own death be a blessed encounter with God’s infinite mercy. For that intention, and for all the dying and those who grieve the loss of their loved ones, we joined earlier in praying the “Hail Mary”.
Footnote: BENEDICTUS PP. XV – MOTU PROPRIO – BONUM SANE*
Devotion to saint joseph for half a century patron of the catholic church
It was a good and salutary thing for the Christian people that Our predecessor of immortal memory, Pius IX, decreed the most chaste Spouse of the Virgin Mother of God and Custodian of the Incarnate Word, Joseph, Patron of the Catholic Church, and since next December will mark the fiftieth anniversary of this auspicious event, we consider it very useful that it should be solemnly celebrated by the whole world.
If we take a look at this period, a long series of pious institutions appears before our eyes, attesting that the cult of the most holy Patriarch has been gradually growing until now among Christ’s faithful. If then we consider the calamities by which the human race is afflicted today, it appears even more necessary that such cult is greatly increased among the people and more widespread everywhere.
Indeed, after the grave strains of war, we indicated in Our recent Encyclical “On the Reconciliation of the Christian Peace” what was lacking in order to re-establish tranquility of order everywhere, considering especially the relations which exist between people and people, and between individuals in the civil sphere. Now it is necessary to consider another cause of disturbance, a much deeper one, which lurks in the very bowels of human society. That is to say, at that time the scourge of war fell upon human peoples, when they were already deeply infected with naturalism, that great plague of the century which, where it takes root, dampens the desire for heavenly goods, extinguishes the flame of divine charity and removes man from the grace of Christ which heals and elevates and – having finally taken away the light of Faith and left him only with the corrupt forces of nature – abandons him at the mercy of the wildest passions. Thus it came to pass that a great many gave themselves up only to the conquest of earthly goods; and while the dispute between proletarians and masters had already become more acute, this class hatred increased still more with the duration and atrocity of the war; which, if on the one hand caused the masses an intolerable economic hardship, on the other hand made fabulous fortunes flow into the hands of the very few.
It should be added that the sanctity of the conjugal faith and respect for paternal authority were not a little vulnerable to many because of the war; either because the distance of one of the spouses slowed down the bond of duty in the other, or because the absence of a watchful eye provided an opportunity for recklessness, especially female, to live at their own talent and too freely. Hence we must find with true sorrow that public morals are now far more depraved and corrupt than before, and that therefore the so-called “social question” has been aggravated to such an extent as to engender the threat of irreparable ruin. For the vows and aspirations of the most seditious have matured into the advent of a certain universal republic, founded upon the absolute equality of men and the communion of goods, in which there is no longer any distinction of nationality, no recognition of the authority of the father over his children, nor of the public power over the citizens, nor of God over men assembled in civil union. All these things, if they were implemented, would give rise to tremendous social convulsions, such as that which is now desolating a not small part of Europe. And just to create a similar condition of things among other peoples, we see that the plebs are excited by the fury and impudence of a few, and here and there are repeatedly riots.
We therefore, concerned more than anything else with the course of these events, have not neglected, when the occasion has offered, to remind the sons of the Church of their duty, as we did recently with the letter addressed to the Bishop of Bergamo and the Bishops of the Veneto region. And now for the same reason, that is, to remind the duty of the men of our part, as many as there are and everywhere, who earn their bread by work, to keep them immune from the contagion of socialism, the bitter enemy of Christian principles, We with great solicitude propose to them in a special way St. Joseph, so that they may follow him as their special guide and honor him as their heavenly Patron.
For he lived a life similar to theirs, so much so that Jesus God, though the only-begotten of the eternal Father, wished to be called “the Son of the Smith. But that humble and poor condition of his was adorned with what and how many lofty virtues he was able to adorn! Above all, he adorned himself with those virtues which were to shine forth in the spouse of Mary Immaculate and in the putative father of the Lord Jesus. Therefore, in the school of Joseph, may all learn to consider the present things, which pass away, in the light of the future things that last eternally; and consoling the inevitable hardships of the human condition, may all learn to live in the light of the future things that last forever: and consoling the inevitable hardships of the human condition with the hope of heavenly goods, to which they should aspire in obedience to the divine will, living soberly, according to the dictates of justice and piety. With regard especially to workers, we are pleased here to quote the words which Our Predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, proclaimed on a similar occasion, for they are such that in Our opinion nothing could be better said on the subject: “Faced with these considerations, the poor and those who earn their living by manual labor must raise their minds and think rightly. To those to whom, while it is true that justice enables them to free themselves from poverty and to raise themselves to a better condition, neither reason nor justice allows them to upset the order established by God’s providence. On the contrary, to transcend to violence and to carry out aggressions in general and riots is a foolish system which often aggravates the same evils which one would like to alleviate. Therefore, the proletarians, if they have good sense, should not trust in the promises of seditious people, but in the examples and patronage of Blessed Joseph, and in the maternal charity of the Church, which takes great care of their state every day” (1).
Thus, as the devotion of the faithful to Saint Joseph flourishes, their devotion to the Holy Family of Nazareth, of which he was the august Head, will at the same time increase as a consequence, the two devotions springing spontaneously from one another. In fact, through Joseph we go directly to Mary, and, through Mary, to the origin of all holiness, Jesus, who consecrated the domestic virtues by his obedience to Joseph and Mary. We therefore desire that Christian families be totally inspired by these marvelous examples of virtue, and conform themselves to them. In this way, since the family is the fulcrum and the basis of human society, by strengthening domestic society with the presidium of holy purity, concord, and fidelity, a new vigor and, we would almost say, a new blood will circulate through the veins of human society, by the virtue of Christ; and there will follow not only an improvement in private customs, but also in the discipline of community and civil life.
We, therefore, full of confidence in the patronage of him to whose providential vigilance God was pleased to entrust the custody of his only-begotten Son and of the Virgin Mother of God, earnestly exhort all the Bishops of the Catholic world, that in these tempestuous times for Christendom, they may induce the faithful to implore with greater earnestness the efficacious aid of Saint Joseph. And since several are the ways approved by this Apostolic See with which the Holy Patriarch can be venerated, especially in all Wednesdays of the year and in the whole month consecrated to Him, We want that, at the request of each Bishop, all these devotions, as far as possible, are practiced in every diocese. But in a special way, since he is deservedly considered the most efficacious protector of the dying, having expired with the assistance of Jesus and Mary, it will be the concern of the sacred Pastors to inculcate and encourage with all the prestige of their authority those pious associations that have been instituted to implore Joseph on behalf of the dying, such as those “of the Good Death”, of the “Transit of Saint Joseph” and “for the Agonizing”.
To commemorate the above-mentioned Pontifical Decree, We order and enjoin that within a year, beginning on 8 December, a solemn service be celebrated throughout the Catholic world in honour of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Patron of the Catholic Church, as and when each Bishop sees fit: and to all who attend, We grant from now on, under the usual conditions, a Plenary Indulgence.
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on July 25, the Feast of Saint James the Apostle, 1920, in the sixth year of Our Pontificate.
BENEDICTUS PP. XV
