of Msgr. Silvano Macchi

Joseph's name will be our protection all days 
of our life, but above all at the moment of death 
Blessed William G. Chaminade

UA (short) journey is what I intend to do with these episodes - between history, theology, spirituality, devotion - around one of the many invocations with which Saint Joseph, the patron saint of the dying, is venerated and prayed for (in the litanies, Patron moriéntium), patron saint of the dying, patron saint of a good death. It is an invocation with which Joseph has been greeted since the 17th century.

The title of these short articles In the terrible hour (In that terrible hour, an expression that appears in a prayer addressed to Saint Philip Neri) immediately refers to the Novissimi. The theme is typical of the religiosity of the 17th and 18th centuries, characterized by the reference to an imminent end of time and therefore to the decisive value of death as a "showdown" before the Supreme Judge. It thus translates the profound essence of popular piety, of a psychology and religious mentality dominated by man's fear of death, to face which Saint Joseph had to offer an exemplary model. Even on a figurative level. 

About Great Century, the century of Louis XVI, everything can be said about it, except for the fact that death was not considered an extremely serious event (see among others the studies by Alberto Tenenti, Jacques Le Brun, Jean Delumeau, as well as the text classic by Ph. Ariès, History of death in the West, one of the most representative on the topic of death in European collective sensitivity), poised between fears and hopes, between threats and reassurances. 

It is precisely in this period that the resonance of the Transit of Saint Joseph takes place. A historian who has studied the Josephan cult extensively, Annarosa Dordoni, writes in two splendid studies entitled In the terrible hour. Devotion to Saint Joseph, patron saint of a good death in the 16th-20th centuries, (in Annals of Religious Studies, 1998 and 1999) all worth reading: «The cult of Joseph, patron of the dying and of the "good death", was born from a tradition that wants Joseph to live a sweet death, assisted by Jesus and Mary. This cult began in Italy and became established in France by 1640. It is undoubtedly due to the artes moriendi of Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris, nicknamed doctor christianissimus, and to his promotion of the cult of Saint Joseph, through his monumental work, the Josephina, a poem that tells the story of the Holy Family from the Annunciation to the death of Joseph."

In this sense, we can say with Dordoni: «Among the many titles attributed to Saint Joseph, that of patron saint of a good death has enjoyed, especially starting from the seventeenth century and up to the first decades of the twentieth century, a robust fortune and can be counted among the attributes that most contributed to bringing Mary's husband closer to popular piety. […] In this context we can place the fortune of the theme of the Transit of Saint Joseph, proposed as an object of meditation, as a model of holy death, as a reason for reassurance for the faithful, invited to implore the grace of a good death from the saint who had the fortune of dying in the arms of Christ and Mary."

But where does this very characteristic cult of Saint Joseph come from historically and religiously? 

The starting point is undoubtedly the apocryphal title Story of Joseph the Carpenter, a text found in many editions of the New Testament apocrypha.  It is a writing dating back to the 4th-5th century according to some, according to others to the 7th century or instead even anticipated to the 2nd century, where it is told in great detail of Saint Joseph in agony, assisted by Jesus and the Virgin and flanked by the archangels Michael and Gabriel who defend him from the attacks of enemy spirits (demons, hence the invocation of the litanies Terror dæmonum). In the apocrypha it is Jesus himself who orally tells the apostles what concerns Joseph before his birth, and finally his illness, death and burial, to the point of recommending "saying these words of life in the testament of his passing from this world" . Furthermore, Jesus continues: «Read the words of this testament on holidays and solemn days as well as on weekdays» and in this way the apocrypha implicitly recommends, putting the words in  mouth of Jesus himself, the cult and honor to be paid to Saint Joseph, especially with regard to his being refugium agonizantium. 

In the apocryphal text the story of Joseph's death unfolds between the confident and patient attitude of abandonment, the joy and surrender of oneself to God through the comfort received from Jesus, and the drama, the labor, the agony, the groans , the terror and fear linked to the transition from this life to the next. Precisely in the terrible hour. 

We will also find the two dialectical knots (trust and fear) in relation to the evangelical testimony about the death of Jesus: dramatic, anguished and suffered on the one hand, and offered, delivered, given as a gift, as an act of faith and freedom. The same dialectic is also found in the New Testament on the occasion of Stephen's death, according to the testimony of the apostle Paul.