July 6

"How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?"

-Romans 10:14

July 5

"Anyone who approaches this august sacrament with special devotion...experiences how great is the value of communing with Christ...for there is nothing more effective for advancing on the road to holiness."

-Pope Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei

July 4

"O God, Who in a wonderful Sacrament

hast bequeathed to us the memorial of Thy Passion,

Grant we pray that we may so venerate

the sacred mysteries of Thy Body and Blood,

as to continually experience within us the fruit of Thy Redemption. Amen.”

-Prayer of St. Peter Julian Eymard

July 3

"They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again.”

-St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to Smyrnaeans (110 AD)

July 2

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

-John 6:51

July 1

"Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died."

-1 Corinthians 11:23 - 30

June 30th

“Jesus and Mary themselves obey and offer their homage to Joseph, for the reverence what the hand of God has established in him, namely, the authority of spouse and the authority of father.”

-Pope Pius XI

June 29th

At a difficult time in the Church's history, Pope Pius IX, wishing to place her under the powerful patronage of the holy patriarch Joseph, declared him "Patron of the Catholic Church."(42) For Pius IX this was no idle gesture, since by virtue of the sublime dignity which God has granted to his most faithful servant Joseph, "the Church, after the Blessed Virgin, his spouse, has always held him in great honor and showered him with praise, having recourse to him amid tribulations."(43)

What are the reasons for such great confidence? Leo XIII explained it in this way: "The reasons why St. Joseph must be considered the special patron of the Church, and the Church in turn draws exceeding hope from his care and patronage, chiefly arise from his having been the husband of Mary and the presumed father of Jesus..., Joseph was in his day the lawful and natural guardian, head and defender of the Holy Family.... It is thus fitting and most worthy of Joseph's dignity that, in the same way that he once kept unceasing holy watch over the family of Nazareth, so now does he protect and defend with his heavenly patronage the Church of Christ."(44)

“This patronage [of St. Joseph] must be invoked as ever necessary for the Church, not only as a defense against all dangers, but also, and indeed primarily, as an impetus for her renewed commitment to evangelization in the world and to re-evangelization in those lands and nations where-as I wrote in the Apostolic Exhortation Christideles Laici - "religion and the Christian life were formerly flourishing and...are now put to a hard test."(45)

In order to bring the first proclamation of Christ, or to bring it anew wherever it has been neglected or forgotten, the Church has need of special "power from on high" (cf. Lk 24:49; Acts 1:8): a gift of the Spirit of the Lord, a gift which is not unrelated to the intercession and example of his saints.”

 -APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION “REDEMPTORIS CUSTOS” OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF JOHN PAUL II ON THE PERSON AND MISSION OF SAINT JOSEPH IN THE LIFE OF CHRIST AND OF THE CHURCH