MIRACULOUS MIRACLES™

Prayer — Prayers of the Saints

Ad te, beate Ioseph

To Thee, O Blessed Joseph

by Pope Leo XIII

Leo XIII's prayer, ordered in 1889 to be added to the Rosary through October: the Church in her struggle with the powers of darkness turning to the man who once carried the Child out of Herod's reach.

The Prayer · Multiple Versions
Latin · Original
Ad te, beate Ioseph, in tribulatione nostra confugimus, atque, implorato Sponsae tuae sanctissimae auxilio, patrocinium quoque tuum fidenter exposcimus. Per eam, quaesumus, quae te cum immaculata Virgine Dei Genetrice coniunxit, caritatem, perque paternum, quo Puerum Iesum amplexus es, amorem, supplices deprecamur, ut ad hereditatem, quam Iesus Christus acquisivit Sanguine suo, benignus respicias, ac necessitatibus nostris tua virtute et ope succurras.

Tuere, o Custos providentissime divinae Familiae, Iesu Christi subolem electam; prohibe a nobis, amantissime Pater, omnem errorum ac corruptelarum luem; propitius nobis, sospitator noster fortissime, in hoc cum potestate tenebrarum certamine e caelo adesto; et sicut olim Puerum Iesum e summo eripuisti vitae discrimine, ita nunc Ecclesiam sanctam Dei ab hostilibus insidiis atque ab omni adversitate defende: nosque singulos perpetuo tege patrocinio, ut ad tui exemplar et ope tua suffulti, sancte vivere, pie emori, sempiternamque in caelis beatitudinem assequi possimus. Amen.
English
To thee, O blessed Joseph, do we fly in our tribulation, and having implored the help of thy most holy spouse, we confidently crave thy patronage also. Through that charity which bound thee to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God, and through the paternal love with which thou didst embrace the Child Jesus, we humbly beseech thee graciously to regard the inheritance which Jesus Christ hath purchased by His Blood, and with thy power and strength to aid us in our necessities.

O most watchful Guardian of the Divine 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 this our struggle with the power of darkness; and, as once thou didst rescue 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 thy constant protection, so that, supported by thine example and thine aid, we may be able to live piously, to die holily, and to obtain eternal happiness in heaven. Amen.
When the Prayer is Said

After the Rosary throughout October; on 19 March and 1 May; for the Church in difficulty.

History & Background

Leo XIII wrote this at the end of <em>Quamquam Pluries</em>, the encyclical of 15 August 1889 on devotion to St. Joseph, and ordered it said after the Rosary during October. His argument was simple: the Church is the household of God, and the man who guarded the Holy Family is the natural guardian of the household that grew out of it.

Its central image is drawn straight from Matthew 2. Joseph got up in the night, took the Child and His mother, and went into Egypt while Herod's soldiers were coming; the prayer asks him to do for the Church now what he did for Christ then — 'as thou didst once rescue the Child Jesus from deadly peril, so now protect God's holy Church from the snares of the enemy'.

Leo granted seven years and seven quarantines for it when said after the October Rosary, and three hundred days at any other time. Both the Latin and the English are the Raccolta's.

Indulgences Attached

Seven years and seven quarantines when said after the Rosary in October; three hundred days at other times — Leo XIII, encyclical of 15 August 1889 and decree of 21 September 1889 (Raccolta, 1910, no. 308).

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