Thirty Days Prayer to St Joseph

Ever blessed and glorious St. Joseph, kind and loving father, and helpful friend of all in sorrow! Thou art the good father and protector of orphans, the defender of the defenseless, the patron of those in need and sorrow. Look kindly on my request. My sins have drawn down on me the just displeasure of my God, and so I am surrounded with unhappiness. To thee, O loving guardian of the Family of Nazareth, do I go for help and protection. 

Listen, then, I beg of thee, with fatherly concern, to my earnest prayers, and obtain for me the favor I ask. (Here make your request.)

I ask it by the infinite mercy of the Eternal Son of God, which moved Him to take our nature and to be born into this world of sorrow. 

I ask it by the weariness and suffering thou didst endure when thou didst find no shelter at the inn of Bethlehem for the Holy Virgin, nor a place where the Son of God could be born. Then, being everywhere refused, thou hadst to allow the Queen of Heaven to give birth to the world’s Redeemer in a cave. 

I ask it by the loveliness and power of that sacred Name, Jesus, which thou didst confer on the adorable Infant. I ask it by that painful torture thou didst feel at the prophecy of holy Simeon, which declared the Child Jesus and His holy Mother future victims of our sins and of their great love for us. 

I ask it through thy sorrow and pain of soul when the Angel declared to thee that the life of the Child Jesus was sought by His enemies. From their evil plan thou hadst to flee with Him and His Blessed Mother into Egypt. I ask it by all the suffering, weariness and labors of that long and dangerous journey. 

I ask it by all thy care to protect the Sacred Child and His Immaculate Mother during thy second journey, when thou wert ordered to return to thine own country. 

I ask it by thy peaceful life in Nazareth, where thou didst meet with so many joys and sorrows. I ask it by thy great distress when the adorable Child was lost to thee and His Mother for three days. 

I ask it by thy joy at finding Him in the Temple, and by the comfort thou didst find at Nazareth, while living in the company of the Child Jesus. I ask it by the wonderful submission He showed in His obedience to thee. 

I ask it by the perfect love and conformity thou didst show in accepting the Divine order to depart from this life and from the company of Jesus and Mary. 

I ask it by the joy which filled thy soul when the Redeemer of the world, triumphant over death and Hell, entered into the possession of His kingdom and led thee into it with special honors. 

I ask it through Mary’s glorious Assumption and through that endless happiness thou hast with her in the presence of God. 

O good Father! I beg of thee, by all thy sufferings, sorrows and joys, to hear me and obtain for me what I ask. (Here mention your petitions or think of them.) 

Obtain for all those who have asked my prayers everything that is useful to them in the plan of God. Finally, my dear Patron and Father, be with me and all who are dear to me in our last moments, that we may eternally sing the praises of Jesus, Mary and Joseph! 

A blameless life, O St. Joseph, may we lead, by thy kind patronage from danger freed. Amen.

Thirty Days Prayer to St. Joseph

Source: Favorite Prayers to St Joseph

Hymn for the Pope: Long Live the Pope!

Can be sung to the tune of I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say

Long live the Pope! His praises sound
Again and yet again:
His rule is over space and time;
His throne the hearts of men:
All hail! the Shepherd King of Rome,
The theme of loving song:
Let all the earth his glory sing,
And heav'n the strain prolong,

Beleaguered by the foes of earth,
Beset by hosts of hell,
He guards the loyal flock of Christ,
A watchful sentinel:
And yet, amid the din and strife,
The clash of mace and sword,
He bears alone the shepherd staff,
This champion of the Lord.

His signet is the Fisherman's;
No sceptre does he bear;
In meek and lowly majesty
He rules from Peter's Chair:
And yet from every tribe and tongue,
From every clime and zone,
Three hundred million voices sing,
The glory of his throne.

Then raise the chant, with heart and voice,
In church and school and home:
"Long live the Shepherd of the Flock!
Long live the Pope of Rome!"
Almighty Father, bless his work,
Protect him in his ways,
Receive his prayers,
fulfill his hopes,
And grant him "length of days."

Hymn from the St Gregory Hymnal, Complete Edition, 1947

Words by Hugh T. Henry, (C) 1908 J. Fischer & Bro., slightly alt.

7 Quick Takes: I will probably never post one of these on a Friday again Edition

I know, I know! It's not Friday. Fridays are increasingly inconvenient. However, Liz and Sana both posted this week, and I have been feeling generally uncommunicative of late, so...

1. I live in Queens now! It's amazing how very different it is to live 30m from Midtown Manhattan by subway, as opposed to 45m by bus...

2. By "the city," everyone in this area means not just NYC, but Manhattan. Lifelong Queens residents I've met here refer to "going into the city" for a night out or some such thing, even though they already live in NYC.

3. I work north of the city and live east, so I have to pass through the city to get home. This makes it wildly convenient for me to attend a lecture / special Mass / meetup at a bar / dinner with friends on my way home from work. I've been here two weeks and already done all those things. I've missed life moving at this pace. :)

4. I spend 2-2.5h (round trip) commuting every day, depending on the train schedules. That sounds crazy, I know, but between doing my makeup on the train, iBreviary, my rosary, audible.com, and my smartphone, I'm pretty much fine. (I've considered mobile blogging, actually, but my phone's software just upgraded itself, and the new autocorrect feature is really dumb.) I get in the occasional phone call, but there half an hour smack in the middle of my commute when I'm underground, which is slightly inconvenient to say the least.

5. I popped a fuse today in my apartment! My problem was that I was trying to boil water in the hot pot AND toast an English muffin in my toaster oven AT THE SAME TIME! Shocking, I know. The joys living in an old building, eh?

6. But habemus internet! After only two weeks of calling Verizon at least every other day... Turns out, all I had to do was disregard what all the people on the phone said and let the technician come here and connect things outside my place for nearly an hour.

7. And, because I haven't used an image yet for this post, I give you a tie for the week's best memes from facebook. The first would actually have been better as an old-fashioned chain email or something, where you see all the text first and the image last, but ah well!

Seriously, what did we do before the internet? I love people. :D

Fun Fact

I've been a New Yorker for less than a week, and already I've joined two choirs.

Ridiculous much? :)