Third Sunday after Easter

Today is the third Sunday after Easter. However, it is also a day in which we honor St. Joseph, true spouse of Mary and foster-father of Jesus, as 'Protector of the Church'. It couldn't take place on his day in March, since it can't take during lent, especially if it should fall on a Sunday. So, the 3rd Sunday after Easter is when it is celebrated. We probably won't hear about this today because it's been taken out of the 1962 missal. This solemnity of St. Joseph was promulgated in the 15th century for the western Church, and is still in force today.

St. Joseph was guardian of the Holy Family, His Mother and Himself, and Jesus has granted him to us also, as our guardian during our lives, and especially, at the hour of our death. Just as He gave His Mother to us as our mother on the Cross, He would like us to have him as our father too. The priests who do our Mass are Italian, and are the 'Servants of Charity', are devoted to St. Joseph. One prayer they follow is as follows:
St. Joseph, Foster-father of Jesus and true spouse of the Virgin Mary, pray for us, now and at the hour of our death. Amen'

He is the patron saint of dying people, for a happy and holy death. We need his intercession during this life, and especially during our last moments.

I would like to end with a hymn from a Monastic Rite:

May the heavenly host praise thee, O Joseph! May the choirs of Christendom resound with thy name, for great are thy merits, who wast united by a chaste alliance to the holy Virgin.
Seeing that thy Spouse was soon to be a Mother, a cruel doubt afflicts thy heart; but an Angel visits thee, telling thee that she had conceived of the Holy Ghost the Child she bore in her womb.
Where Jesus was born, thou hadst to take Him in thine arms, and go with the little fugitive to Egypt's distant land. When he was lost in Jerusalem, thou didst seek after him; and having found him, thy tears were mingled with joy.
Other saints receive their beatitude after death, when a holy death has crowned their life; they receive their glory when they have won the palm: but thou, by a strangely happy lot, hadst, even during life, what the blessed have in heaven--thou hadst the sweet society of thy God.
O Sovereign Trinity! have mercy on us thy suppliants, and may the intercession of Joseph aid us to reach heaven; that there we may sing to thee our eternal hymn of grateful love. Amen.

St. Joseph, Foster-father of Jesus and Protector of the Church, pray for us.