Stories

St. Faustina Kowalska, the apostle of Divine Mercy, recorded in her diary that St. Joseph appeared to her and asked her to pray three prayers and the Memorare to him every day. He looked at her with great kindness and promised his special help and protection.

St. Teresa of Ávila, Doctor of the Church and one of the greatest mystics in history, reported that St. Joseph appeared to her multiple times throughout her life, providing guidance, financial provision for her convents, and spiritual direction. She wrote, "I do not remember to have asked anything of St. Joseph which he has failed to grant," and dedicated multiple convents to him.

During the sixth and final apparition at Fatima, after the Miracle of the Sun witnessed by seventy thousand people, St. Joseph appeared in the sky beside Our Lady, holding the Child Jesus. While the crowd below watched the sun spin and dive, the three children saw Joseph and the Child Jesus bless the world. He spoke no words. He blessed through action, the way he has always done.

On a rainy evening in western Ireland, fifteen witnesses saw St. Joseph standing silently beside the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John the Evangelist at the gable wall of a parish church. Behind them was an altar with a lamb and a cross. Joseph's head was inclined in prayer, turned toward Mary, the posture of a husband who honors his wife and worships his God in the same gesture. He said nothing. The rain did not fall where the apparition stood. The ground beneath them was dry

St. Joseph appeared to a twenty-two-year-old shepherd on a hillside in Provence and spoke seven words: "I am Joseph. Lift the rock and you will drink." The shepherd moved a boulder that should have taken eight men to lift and found fresh water flowing beneath it. The spring has never stopped flowing and has produced documented healings for over three hundred and sixty years. King Louis XIV consecrated himself and France to St. Joseph after making a pilgrimage to the site.