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

A young man, the pride of his family, who lived in the city of Lyons, felt himself called to quit the world and enter religion. His parents grieved at the choice he had made, upbraided him, expostulated, and finally shed so many tears, that they succeeded in making him waver, and obtained the promise that he would at least defer for a time the execution of his design. Unhappy parents, to oppose what seemed so manifestly the will of God; and unhappy son not to have the courage to respond to God’s call!

Urged by his parents to lead a worldly life, in the hope that by so doing he would lose his vocation, the youth little by little neglected his religious practices, ceased frequenting the Sacraments, and gave himself up to a life of vice. After some time, ashamed of his excesses, and desirous to escape from the remonstrances of his parents, he left his home and enlisted in the army. Heart-broken and overwhelmed with remorse, his father and mother were afraid to pray, for they had taken their son from God and given him to the devil.

At last, the thought occurred to have recourse to St. Joseph, to obtain forgiveness for themselves and the conversion of their son. With these intentions they began a Novena, and asked many of their friends to join in it. Their prayer was heard; St. Joseph obtained the desired conversion, and the youth returned to his father’s house, a true penitent, edifying all by his exemplary life. Let us learn from this example how all-important it is to hearken to God’s voice, and correspond to the grace of our vocation.

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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.