Wishing everyone a grace-filled Christmastide and Feast of the Holy Family!
It has been on my heart to share this little prayer of healing I wrote in honor
of St. Joseph during 2022, when Pope Francis declared a year dedicated to the Universal Patron Saint of the Holy Catholic Church. I hope that you may find this to be helpful as we begin the new year and seek further grace, healing, and joy in our lives and vocations especially in family life.
It should be noted that this prayer was composed with the influence of several works on St. Joseph that I have read and studied, including Just Man: Husband of Mary, Guardian of Christ, by Jerónimo Gracián, as well as Through the Heart of St. Joseph by Fr. Bonface Hicks, osb; St. Joseph’s Cloak 30 day prayer; Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father by Fr. Donald Calloway, MIC; and Healing the Whole Person by Dr. Bob Schutts.
In Gracian's extensive review of St. Joseph, he outlines the virtues, roles, privileges and excellencies of St. Joseph who perfectly lived out the Beatitudes, especially poverty of
spirit, meekness, and a thirst for justice in serving God [p. 181]. St. Joseph was presented as specially chosen to care for Our Lord Jesus as an attentive father who fulfilled several roles including as his guardian angel, guide, protector [notably called 'savior to the Savior'], tutor, provider as carpenter, and a man of contemplation to name a few.
In Through the Heart of St. Joseph, Fr. Hicks, osb develops the idea that St. Joseph can reparent us, especially in our paternal wounds. He explains that St. Joseph is there to care for us, and by, “developing a relationship of childlike trust in our loving father. St. Joseph can strengthen us and prepare us for deeper healing.” Ultimately, St. Joseph will assist us in recognizing our core wounds and the lies, distortions, false vows and agreements that we often adopt to protect ourselves and numb the pain of past wounds. Such protectice mechanisms often leads to a false self-image, sinful behaviors, and distorted thinking about ourselves, others, and how we view God. As such a pure and virtuous father-figure, St. Joseph can gently be brought into any past memory, or present situation to accompany us with his fatherly love and guidance. My hope is that this prayer may be a source of healing for those who read it, all for the Glory of our Triune God, through the intercession of our Carmelite saints, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and St. Joseph, Head of the Holy Family, pray for us. Amen.
Prayer for Healing our Wounds through St. Joseph’s Intercession
Dear St. Joseph,
You were chosen by Jesus our Savior, to become the husband of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary and His father upon this earth. By your purity of heart, deep love and devotion to God, your virtues, and your perpetual adoration of the Christ Child in your home and whom you carried in your arms, you became “a mirror of God the Father…the Heavenly Father’s shadow”, and “Guardian of the Redeemer.” [Gracian, p. 148-149]
How often have I thirsted for the fullness of such fatherly love, to rest in the embrace of my earthly father, and to be seen known, heard and understood in the full authenticity of who I am as a son/daughter. How I have longed to hear the words, “I love you.’, ‘I affirm you.’, “I place my fatherly blessing upon you.” by my own father on this life journey.
I turn to you St. Joseph, and present myself and my father to you in whatever circumstances I have experienced. I give thanks and profound gratitude for any ways that I experienced paternal love, kindness, guidance, presence, blessings and provision from my earthly father. I ask for an abudance of graces and gifts to be granted to my father for giving me the gift of life itself. I gently approach those memories and times when I did not receive the attention, guidance, love, presence, blessings or acceptance that I so desired from my father. I especially present any memories of abandonment or his profound absence and how that impacted my life, as well as any times of tension or rejection. I ask you to step into that space of absence, disagreement, disappointment, or abuse with me St. Joseph, take me by the hand and stay present with me in that memory. Parent me in that moment where I felt trapped, unknown or misunderstood, rejected or lost. Guide me peacefully through that process of allowing me to change the pattern of this interaction. I ask you to speak words of paternal kindness, truth, generosity, wisdom, and love between myself and my father. Help me to see with new eyes that this was not about me or my worthiness as a son/daughter, but about past wounds of my own father, generational patterns of communication and sin within the family, or a lack of tools to communicate and know how to express himself in love, gentleness, kindness, and firmness that is required of a father. Help me to forgive my father in these moments and to recognize that you reveal to me the Christ Child who is and was always there with me and loving me in these moments.
Gently lead me with Jesus in truth to Our Heavenly Father, who has my name written upon the palm of His Divine Hand, and knows every hair upon my head. Let me approach the throne of grace and mercy, believing that He has known me before I was born, and that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, unrepeatable, and fashioned in His Image and Likeness. May any lies or distortions that I have erroneously placed upon our Abba Father due to my own brokenness and woundedness from my family of origin, be replaced with a certain knowing that I belong to Him as His son/daughter. I am His and He has chosen me and He knows me since I was knit in my mother’s womb.
In Jesus’ Name and through the intercession of St. Joseph, terror of demons, heal me from any lies of the enemy that tell me that I am not worthy of the Father’s Love; that I am alone, orphaned and forgotten; or that Our Father is an angry and unreasonable Divine Scorekeeper who makes impossible demands and throws divine temper tantrums.
Instill in me, St. Joseph the following virtues that you practiced so perfectly:
The Virtue of patience to overcome anger;
The virtue of humility to overcome pride;
The virtue of chastity to overcome lust;
The virtue of diligence to overcome sloth;
The virtue of abstinence/moderation/temperance to overcome gluttony;
The virtue of kindness to overcome envy;
The virtue of liberality to overcome greed.
Place your fatherly cloak over me and my loved ones, St. Joseph, that I may know that I am protected from the arrows that fly by day, that I am chosen as a child of God, and that through your fatherly intercession and the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ and His Glorified Wounds, that I am made whole and new. May I open myself up in pure receptivity to the graces which you wish to bring to me from the Holy Trinity and your spouse, Most Holy Mother of God. May I see the fruits of such healing by living out more fully the effects of love which include happiness, spiritual joy, zeal, devotion, ardor, tenderness, fire of love, a spirit of forgiveness for others as God has so generously forgive me, generosity and kindness by practicing spiritual and corporal works of mercy, and contemplation that leads to spiritual union and communion with the Holy Three.
I pray all of this for the Glory of the Most August Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, through your intercession, St. Joseph, the Just Man, with your holy spouse, the Theotokos at your side. Amen.
