Jaki and Newman on the Feast of St. Joseph

It shows Newman's profound Catholic sense and of the very Catholic character of his ideas on doctrinal development, that he was never tempted to show any uneasiness about that phenomenon. On the contrary, he offered in that Letter of his to Pusey a profoundly supernatural perspective in which one was to see the late rise of devotion toward Saint Joseph. To explain this to Pusey, who set great store by the known practices of the Ancient Church though not so much on the deeper considerations underlying them, Newman began with the principle that the intercessory power of a given individual with the ruler of an empire was proportional to his closeness, through friendship or association, to that ruler. Yet, neither the apostles nor the martyrs were the closest persons to Christ, the Incarnate God, the true Ruler of all. These persons were Mary and Joseph, but at first, so Newman argued, those two were "immersed and lost in the effulgence of His [Christ's] glory, and because they did not manifest themselves, when in the body, in external works separate from him, it happened that for a long while they [Mary and Joseph] were less dwelt upon." ... Such was Newman's justification not only of the relative novelty of signal devotions to Mary, but also to Saint Joseph. "Those names, I say, which at first sight might have been expected to enter soon in the devotions of the faithful, with better reasons might have been looked for at a later date, and actually were late in their coming." For Newman the signal example of this was what he called the recent vigor of devotion to Saint Joseph: "Saint Joseph furnishes the most striking instance of this remark; here is the clearest of instances of the distinction between doctrine and devotion." The latter often runs ahead, often far ahead, if one is to amplify on Newman's train of thought, of doctrinal specifications.
[SLJ The Litany of St. Joseph, introduction]

St. Joseph, patron of scientists, pray for us.
St. Joseph, patron of engineers, pray for us.
St. Joseph, patron of workers, pray for us.

St. Joseph, who taught the Incarnate Son to walk, pray for us.
St. Joseph, who taught the Incarnate Son to talk, pray for us.
St. Joseph, who taught the Incarnate Son to work, pray for us.

St. Joseph, who taught Jesus to be honest, pray for us.
St. Joseph, who taught Jesus to be generous, pray for us.
St. Joseph, who taught Jesus to be patient, pray for us.

St. Joseph, who defended Mary his most chaste spouse, pray for us.
St. Joseph, who defended his foster son the Incarnate Word of God, pray for us.
St. Joseph, who defended the Holy Family, defend our families.


Imaculate Mary, pray for us; St. Joseph, pray for us; and do so together.


[Note: That last is not mine; Fr. Jaki mentions this in his book on Mary's litany, which I cannot get at just now to give the precise citation for.]