The book, The Month of St. Joseph, presents daily considerations for the month of March in the form of meditations and practical examples. The example for today is as follows.

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EXAMPLE

Spiritual favors are not the only ones that St. Joseph obtains for those who have recourse to him. In the town of Roanne, in France, the Little Sisters of the Poor were burdened with a debt of two thousand francs; the time allowed for payment had nearly expired, and their purse was empty. The broken food they collected each day sufficed to feed their poor, but no help came to liquidate the debt of two thousand francs, “We must have recourse to St. Joseph,” said one of the Sisters; “he alone can get us out of our difficulty, so let us begin a Novena to him,” and writing their request on a slip of paper, they placed it at the foot of the statue of St. Joseph.

One day, before the Novena was finished, a lady, unknown to the community, who had been taken ill whilst staying at a hotel, sent for the Superioress and asked if she could have a room in their house. “We can take no one,” said the sister, “but the aged poor, but I can tell you of an establishment where you will have better accommodation than any we could have given you.”

“And do you accept alms,” said the lady, “if any are offered you.”

“Certainly,” replied the Sister, “we have nothing else to support us.” On receiving this answer the lady handed her a purse, and great was her surprise and gratitude, when on opening it she found it contained two thousand francs, the exact sum for which they had all prayed to St. Joseph.

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This anecdote comes from the Month of St. Joseph by Abbé Berlioux, originally published in English in the year 1887. This book contains meditations and an example story for each day of the month. In an effort to preserve short inspiring stories from our Catholic past, every day for the month of March you can find the example story for the day published on the website under people/stories.

The same author also published similar books for the months of, May (Our Lady), June (Sacred Heart), and November (Holy Souls). We are planning to post the stories for these months in the future and are working with Mediatrix Press to re-publish these as a four book collection, so be sure to check back. The Month of St. Joseph is available now.