March 2026

With the feeling of Spring freshly in the air and Lent seriously underway, March greets us with a welcoming devotion for this month dedicated to St. Joseph.  The first formal celebration of the feast of this blessed Saint in the West, seems to stem from the Servite Fathers during the 14th Century, who began observing March 19 (said to be the day St. Joseph died) as St. Joseph’s feast. 

Several Popes established greater devotion by formalizing and celebrating the feast in Rome as early as the 15th Century.  Pope Pius IX, in particular, declared St. Joseph to be the Patron of the Universal Church in 1870.  Soon, the entire month of March was dedicated to St. Joseph.

We Catholics are drawn to St. Joseph as the silent, dedicated and hardworking foster-father of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.  Because of his place within the inner circle of Christ’s most intimate relationships and because he supported, led and protected the Holy Family, St. Joseph is the special patron of fathers, families, farmers, wood workers and contractors.  He is claimed by religious sisters and nuns as the protector of their vocations and convents.  

St. Teresa of Avila was the first to name a Convent after St. Joseph in the 16th Century.  Of St. Joseph she says:

“I took for my advocate and lord the glorious Saint Joseph and commended myself earnestly to him; and I found that this my father and lord delivered me both from this trouble and also from other and greater troubles concerning my honor and the loss of my soul, and that he gave me greater blessings than I could ask of him. I do not remember even now that I have ever asked anything of him which he has failed to grant. I am astonished at the great favors which God has bestowed on me through this blessed saint, and at the perils from which He has freed me, both in body and in soul. To other saints the Lord seems to have given grace to succor us in some of our necessities but of this glorious saint my experience is that he succors us in them all and that the Lord wishes to teach us that as He was Himself subject to him on earth (for, being His guardian and being called His father, he could command Him) just so in Heaven He still does all that he asks. This has also been the experience of other persons whom I have advised to commend themselves to him; and even to-day there are many who have great devotion to him through having newly experienced this truth.”

From “The Autobiography of St. Teresa”, Chapter 6…

Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco shares the celebration of St. Joseph in his home as a child.  Included in this feature are festivities, recipes, prayers and more that can help you celebrate the Month of the St. Joseph

https://sfarch.org/st-josephs-day/