Prayers of the Saints

Prayer to St. Joseph (To Thee, O Blessed Joseph)

Pope Leo XIII published this prayer with his 1889 encyclical Quamquam Pluries and asked that it be added to the Rosary during October.

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To you, O blessed Joseph, do we come in our tribulation, and having implored the help of your most holy Spouse, we confidently invoke your patronage also. Through that charity which bound you to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God and through the paternal love with which you embraced the Child Jesus, we humbly beg you graciously to regard the inheritance which Jesus Christ has purchased by his Blood, and with your power and strength to aid us in our necessities. O most watchful Guardian of the Holy Family, defend the chosen children of Jesus Christ; O most loving father, ward off from us every contagion of error and corrupting influence; O our most mighty protector, be propitious to us and from heaven assist us in our struggle with the power of darkness. As once you rescued the Child Jesus from deadly peril, so now protect God's Holy Church from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity; shield, too, each one of us by your constant protection, so that, supported by your example and your aid, we may be able to live piously, to die holily, and to obtain eternal happiness in heaven. Amen.

Pope Leo XIII, Quamquam Pluries (1889)

About the prayer

Its opening echoes an old Roman prayer of supplication, and its central image is Joseph as the guardian who once carried the Child out of Herod's reach and now guards the Church. It remains the most widely used prayer to St. Joseph in the Latin Church.

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