My favorite saint

Today is the feast day of my all-time favorite saint, St. Joseph. He is what we can call an all-around saint.

He is the patron saint of the workers, particularly carpenters (that was his profession when he became foster father to our Lord Jesus Christ). We pray to him for a happy home. More importantly, he should seek his intercession for a happy death — for our selves and for our loved ones who may be at the end of life’s voyage. I can never forget what respected and most kind entertainment journalist Ronald Constantino once said: “What could be a more peaceful death than dying between Jesus Christ and the Blessed Mother?”

My earliest image of how St. Joseph is depicted in art form was our plaster of paris Holy Family in our dome-shaped altar at home when I was still a small boy. Then I saw in a side altar at the San Miguel pro-cathedral his huge statue with the Child Jesus in tow holding a box of carpentry tools.

In fifth grade, however, I saw at the home of my baptismal godfather, hanging judge (he gave not a few criminals the chair) and later Justice Manuel Pamaran a different rendition of St. Joseph. He was in his deathbed, with a little more life than the Holy Sepulcher or the Dead Christ that parishes bring out annually during Good Friday processions. On one side knelt Jesus in the act of blessing His foster father and on the other was the Blessed Mother.

A few years ago, my parish, Santuario de San Jose, called on parishioners to lend statues of the Lord’s foster father for an all-St. Joseph exhibition. I promptly sent one of my two St. Joseph statues.

I had prayed to him for favors. Some were granted and some were not. I believe in my heart that he will give me those I haven’t received — in God’s perfect time.

Only last month, my psychic friend Maricel Gaskell gave me a piece of sawdust from Bethlehem. I keep it with me all the time and recite the prayer that comes with it when I wake up in the morning and before I retire at night.

Nothing spectacular in my life had happened since I got that piece of sawdust. But I feel protected and my faith strengthened. I wish I could get more of it to distribute to friends who are problematic. I will hound Ms. Gaskell to tell me where I could get more of it to give away because I find the prayer most effective. While I cannot share the sawdust with you, I can print the prayer below:

Prayer for our Work and our Home  

Bless Lord Jesus our work and our home like You blessed the work and the first home that St. Joseph had built for with this same wood from Bethlehem. Dwell with us and work with us as You also worked as a carpenter and produced the similar sawdust from Bethlehem, which we now keep in our workplaces and our homes. Amen.

This prayer doesn’t glide in the tongue as other prayers do, but you’ll get the hang of it in time. Again I don’t assure you miracles from this prayer, but it will put peace in your heart.

* * *

March 19 is actually both a day of joy and sorrow for me now. Joyful because it’s St. Joseph’s feast day. Sorrowful because today marks the first year since James Lim fell from their balcony in that fatal freak accident. James, of course, was Toni Rose Gayda’s younger boy (the older one is John) and grandson of Rosa Rosal. (By strange coincidence, today is also the 30th death anniversary of Tita Rose’s beloved mother, Gloria del Barrio.)

Maybe I shouldn’t even be reminding them of these painful losses, but I want to show you that they are living proof of how prayers can see us through the most difficult of journeys.