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

The Rev. Father Bouveret, Parish Priest of Byans, relates the following incident in a letter dated September 20th, 1871.

During the last seventeen years a very bigoted Protestant lived in my parish. Whenever a favorable opportunity occurred it was made use of to induce him to renounce his errors and join the Church, but he rejected every advance that was made to him.

Last August he fell dangerously ill, and friends having begged me to go to him, I again urged him to abjure Protestantism. He refused me so decidedly that, seeing the utter uselessness of saying anything more on the subject, I rose to leave, saying, I am now going to celebrate Mass, I shall pray earnestly for you, and do you pray also that God may direct you what to do. I spoke also to the different members of his family, asking them, as they were converts, to join me in praying for him.

Before beginning Mass, I recommended the dying man in a special manner to St. Joseph, placing him under his protection; I lit a candle before his altar, and I made a promise, that if he converted my Protestant, I would publish the fact. St. Joseph granted my prayer. At the end of Mass I went again to the dying man and found him quite changed; be listened to my instruction, made his abjuration and received eagerly the last Sacraments. There was indeed no time to lose, for two hours later he expired, but he died a good and fervent Catholic.

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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.