Consecration
How to Entrust Yourself to Saint Joseph
Marian consecration · 6 steps
Entrustment to Saint Joseph in the spirit of Redemptoris Custos and Patris Corde: who he is for the Church, preparing over several days, confession, the Litany, the act of entrustment, and keeping Wednesdays and his feasts.
6 steps · About 15 minutes
Saint Joseph, husband of Mary and guardian of the Redeemer, was declared Patron of the Universal Church by Blessed Pius IX in 1870. Saint John Paul II's Redemptoris Custos (1989) presents him as the man who lived the mystery of the Incarnation from the inside, and Pope Francis, proclaiming a Year of Saint Joseph in Patris Corde (2020), invited the whole Church to entrust itself to him 'with a father's heart.' To entrust yourself to Saint Joseph is to place your life, your work and your family under his fatherly protection, as Jesus and Mary did at Nazareth, and to learn from him obedience, silence and creative courage. The word 'consecration' is often used for this; strictly, the Church consecrates to God alone, and entrustment is the exact term.
What you need
- An image of Saint Joseph, or a church with his altar or statue
- The Litany of Saint Joseph and the prayer 'To you, O blessed Joseph'
- The text of an act of entrustment to Saint Joseph
- Several days set aside for preparation, and confession arranged
When to pray it
Most fitting on the Solemnity of Saint Joseph (19 March) or the memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker (1 May); Wednesday is his traditional day, and March is his month.
Steps
Step 1: Come to know who Saint Joseph is for the Church
Read Redemptoris Custos and Patris Corde, or at least the Gospel passages about Joseph (Matthew 1:18-25 and 2:13-23; Luke 2:1-52). Pope Francis names him a beloved, tender and loving, obedient, accepting, creatively courageous, working father, and a father in the shadow. Entrustment begins with knowing the man you are entrusting yourself to: a just man who said nothing in Scripture and did everything he was asked.
Step 2: Prepare over several days
Set aside several days, or a novena of nine, before the day of entrustment. Each day pray the , read one passage on him, and bring one area of your life — your work, your family, your fears, your purity — to him in a few words of your own. Pray the too, asking Mary to bring you to her husband.
Step 3: Go to confession
Go to confession before the day of entrustment, and on the day attend Mass and receive Holy Communion. Saint Joseph guarded the Body of Christ at Nazareth; the entrustment is made most naturally in thanksgiving after receiving that same Body in the Eucharist.
Step 4: Pray the Litany of Saint Joseph
Before his image or altar, pray the , approved for public use by Saint Pius X in 1909 and enlarged with new invocations by the Holy See in 2021: 'Guardian of the Redeemer', 'Servant of Christ', 'Minister of salvation', 'Support in difficulties', 'Patron of exiles, of the afflicted, of the poor.'
Step 5: Make the act of entrustment
Pray the act of entrustment slowly and in full: give Saint Joseph your person, your work, your family and your death, and ask him to be for you what he was for Jesus and Mary. Then pray the prayer 'To you, O blessed Joseph, we have recourse in our affliction', which Leo XIII gave the whole Church in 1889 to be added to the Rosary in October; Pope Francis closes Patris Corde with his own prayer to Saint Joseph, 'Hail, Guardian of the Redeemer', which may be prayed as well.
Step 6: Keep Wednesdays and his feasts
Wednesday is Saint Joseph's traditional day: pray his Litany or his prayer then, and go to Mass on Wednesday when you can. Keep the Solemnity of Saint Joseph on 19 March and the memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker on 1 May as family feasts, renew the entrustment on one of them each year, and turn to him in the ordinary way — before work, in worry, at bedtime — as a child turns to a father.
Tips
- Several published 33-day preparations for entrustment to Saint Joseph exist; they are a good help, but the Church prescribes no particular program, and a novena and a good confession are enough.
- Entrustment to Saint Joseph does not compete with Marian consecration; he and Mary were one household, and devotion to him leads to her and to Jesus.
- Give Saint Joseph your work in particular: he is the patron of workers, and most of life is work.
- Ask him for a happy death, of which he is the patron, and pray to him for the dying.