Happy Saint Joseph's Day

Fr Ray Blake writes:

I had a lovely young couple with me last night, like most couples I marry or prepare for marriage they were living with one another. I have started asking them nowadays how they are going to arrange things so that on their wedding day they are going to "burn" with desire for one another with the same passion as those who live chastely should. I leave them to discuss it between themselves.

I also remind them that marriage is a relationship that is exclusive, that chastity is as much part of marriage as sexual intercourse and at times they will have to, for love of one another, take up the Cross and remain chaste, maybe for years.

In the love of St Joseph for the Blessed Virgin, there is already the Cross present, there is self-denial, there is a manly self-abnegation.

Interesting, his feast occurs during Lent.