Devotion to Saint Joseph

In 1889, Father Joseph Brouillet, the pastor of Worcester (Massachusetts, United States, in the Diocese of Springfield), wanted to establish a community to care for the orphans in the city. He convinced eleven young girls from the area to join his project. Unfortunately, in 1891, a major misunderstanding led the pastor to dismiss all the girls he had recruited. Accompanied by three orphans, they found themselves on the street in the dead of winter, without coats or luggage, and took refuge with relatives and friends.

The first statue of Saint Joseph of the Sisters of Notre-Dame-du-Rosaire (Rimouski)

On Sunday, October 12, 1879, Monsignor Edmond Langevin, the vicar general, blessed the statues of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph in the community chapel. These two statues were a gift from a citizen of Rimouski, Aquilas Bégin, brother of Cardinal Louis-Nazaire Bégin, Archbishop of Quebec, and Désiré Bégin of Rimouski, a farmer, notary, and school inspector.

Saint Joseph, Nurturing Father

Recognizing already that Saint Joseph had the mission on Earth to watch over Jesus as a father, Pope Pie IX proclaimed him the patron of the universal Church in 1870. If Mary is the Mother of the Church, Saint Joseph would henceforth be its Protector or “Nurturing Father,” as was said at the time.

A DEVOTION TO FRENCH ROOTS

It was in 1636 in La Flèche, France, that two laypersons, Jérôme Le Royer de La Dauversière and Marie de la Ferre, founded the community of the Religious Hospitallers of Saint Joseph to care for the sick at the Hôtel-Dieu. The new community was dedicated to the Holy Family under the name and special protection of Saint Joseph, a devotion particularly significant to Jérôme Le Royer. In 1671, they adopted cloistered life and solemn vows, becoming “nuns.”

JOSEPHOLOGY: THE SCIENCE OF SAINT JOSEPH

As you read these blog posts, perhaps you asked yourself just who exactly was Father Roland Gauthier. During his tenure as the sanctuary’s rector from 1956 to 1962, Father Gauthier founded the Saint Joseph Research Centre in 1949. At the time, there was no other place like it in the world. Its mission consisted in promoting the worship of Saint Joseph and “locating and archiving all doctrinal and historical documents about Saint Joseph.”

Devotion to Saint Joseph in Brother André’s life before the founding of the Oratory of Mount Royal.
Documents in french only

Devotion to Saint Joseph in the spiritual life of Brother André.
Documents in french only