Dear Don Mario,

one day I entered the parish and found a beautiful calendar printed by you where they talked about Saint Joseph. When I returned home, my only son called me, working in a tourist center and having freed himself from drug addiction for some time. I immediately understood that it was another relapse into the addiction cycle.

Desperate, I invoked Saint Joseph: «If at least my son had chosen to be a carpenter rather than a photographer, you could be his patron saint. Alas, I could have made him a carpenter without making him study so much; I could not object, when in one   community had put him in the carpentry shop and I was afraid that he would get hurt on purpose, perhaps to be sent home...".

I displayed the calendar in the kitchen and started praying to Saint Joseph every day...

After a few days my son called me telling me that he had met a French girl. He soon fell in love with it and, once the season was over, with his earnings he made the decision to go and spend some time in Paris. He came back after a month completely changed, he took me aside and said: «How I would like to go back to studying and learning the art of cabinet making! I would like to learn how to make furniture, if I knew what beautiful furniture there is in Paris! I was amazed by his request, but I immediately started looking for a school for cabinetmakers and found it in Florence, at the European Institute for the Restoration of Wood and Antique Furniture.

Immediately afterwards he married his girlfriend and two beautiful little girls arrived: Maya and Serena. Naturally I never stopped praying to Saint Joseph.

Frances Romana

Kind and always dear Francesca Romana,

countless times the Bible exalts the serenity of those who abandon themselves with trust in the hands of God and Jesus himself said that the prayer addressed to the Father in his name is always answered. Sometimes, however, it seems to us that this does not happen and that God is deaf to our requests. Saint Augustine invites us to examine our conscience: either we ask God in the wrong way, perhaps with little faith or presumption, or we ask for things that are not good for us, forgetting that, precisely because he is Father, God only wants our happiness .

This is what perhaps you and your husband also felt in the ups and downs in which you accompanied your son's journey towards self-realization and the encounter with God. 

The testimony that you offered us is truly very beautiful: it is unfortunate that, due to the space available, we had to summarize it, depriving it in part of its freshness.

We join you and your husband, in spiritual communion with all our Associates, in praying to the glorious earthly Father of Jesus, especially in this month of March dedicated to him and about to celebrate his feast.

But it is above all in the daily mass, which I celebrate at its altar in our Basilica, that your intentions will be united with the Sacrifice of Jesus, through the intercession of Saint Joseph.

With my priestly blessing to your families, I extend my warmest greetings.