Eighteenth Day
Through our faith God leads us to the knowledge of His goodness and His promises, that so the desire and hope of enjoying God may be born in us. St. Joseph’s faith and knowledge of God effected in him a great confidence; he had been peculiarly confirmed in hope. It is a fact that our confidence in God grows with grace when our hope is strengthened by the infinite merits of Jesus Christ, and when we have great devotion and love for the Blessed Virgin; so we must certainly conclude that Joseph’s love of Jesus, Whom he daily carried in his arms, should lay a greater foundation of hope than that of any of the saints. The flight into Egypt is an example of it. His confidence in the providence of God is so implicit that he makes no preparation. There is Jesus, the Son of God, Who is to go with Him; there is Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, who is to be of the party. These are the two strongest pillars of our hope, and why not to the hope of St. Joseph? God the Father will provide. Is He not the God Who, with a strong arm, led the Israelites out of Egypt, and, after forty years of wandering, introduced them according to promise into the land flowing with milk and honey?
Prayer.
Holy St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, etc., etc.