Lough Derg is adding to its online Prayer Resources with a new series of reflections on ‘The Seven Joys if St Joseph’. The video reflections will be published on our companion website www.loughderg.live 

Fr La Flynn, Prior, offers an introduction to this new series of reflections. The series will begin on Thursday 15 April and continue for the next six weeks. Each new reflection will be released here https://loughderg.live/year-of-st-joseph/

Since July 1882 St Joseph’s statue has been a quiet presence on Station Island.  I like to think of St Joseph silently surveying all the pilgrims who come and go – and our staff as well – with a kindly and caring eye.  This man who was such a faithful presence in the home at Nazareth has lost none of his concern for all who belong to Jesus.

Pope Francis asks us to make 2021 a special year for St Joseph.  Among the traditional devotions to St Joseph is one called ‘The Seven Joys of St Joseph’.  The mystical number 7 suggests fullness: in these we rejoice with Joseph for all God’s blessings to him.  Week by week over Eastertime this year, Lough Derg will share seven short reflections on St Joseph’s joys. 

Each reflection will feature an image of St Joseph by the Canadian Catholic artist and writer Michael D. O’Brien (b 1948). 

I hope you might find a few minutes to join with us week by week.

Let us pray with Pope Francis:

Hail, Guardian of the Redeemer,

Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

To you God entrusted his only Son;

in you Mary placed her trust;

with you Christ became man.

Blessed Joseph, to us too,

show yourself a father

and guide us in the path of life.

Obtain for us grace, mercy and courage,

and defend us from every evil. Amen.

• From his letter “With a Father’s Heart”

St Joseph, pray for us.