IF IT IS NOT GOD'S WILL FOR YOU TO KNOW YOUR DESTINY, PLACE YOUR TRUST IN ST JOSEPH

In this year of St Joseph, I revisited a most favorite book of mine, Fr F X Schouppe's Purgatory, to see if there was ever an instance in the lives of the mystics when a soul in eternal life appeared and spoke of the powerful intercession of St Joseph. 

I wasn't disappointed. There is one account from the life of Blessed Mary of the Angels. 

In 1661, Mary of the Angels was the 11th and last child born to the Fantanella family in Italy. Mary of the Angels had ashen pale skin, a long arrow of a nose and somber black eyes but she had a very winning smile. 

She was moved to become a Carmelite, after she met a Carmelite priest at an exhibition of the Holy Shroud of Turin.  And t'was in the Carmelite convent of Turin that Mary of the Angels had extraordinary mystical experiences. Teresa of Avila had died a century before Mary of the Angels was born, but Mary of the Angels inherited Teresa's dynamic devotion to St Joseph, and in her own right Mary of the Angels became renowned for her remarkable dedication to St Joseph. 

It was an apparition of a soul from Heaven who aided Mary of the Angel's child-like deference to Holy Joseph. One Wednesday (the day devoted to St Joseph) a deceased nun appeared to Mary of the Angels.  The dead nun appeared to be glorified. Mary of the angels described her experience thus, "Whilst saying the evening prayers, one of our good sisters appeared to me. She was clad in white, surrounded with glory and splendor and so beautiful that I know nothing here below to which I could compare her." Mary of the Angels was fearful that this apparition was an illusion created by satan, and she made the sign of the cross which caused the deceased nun to smile before she vanished. The next night, however, the deceased nun appeared again in her glory and assured Mary of the Angels, "I come on the part of God to let you know that I am in the enjoyment of eternal bliss."

At this stage in her life, Mary of the Angels was a young nun - she would go on to become a powerful prioress and she would have many, many holy souls from Purgatory flock to her - but at this time she was unripe in her religious life and inexperienced in discerning visitors from Heaven. She lacked clout in the convent, but she was given an authoritative message from the glorified nun who instructed her, "Tell our Mother Prioress that it is not the design of God to reveal to her the destiny that awaits her; tell her to place her confidence in St Joseph and in the souls in Purgatory." Mary of the Angels dilligently relayed the message to her Mother Prioress, who had yearned to know the exact details of God's will for her, but was instead led to place herself in St Joseph's hands.

You who are reading this may feel in the dark as to the designs God has for your life, your destiny may be totally unknown to you, and you may be in the same position that the Mother Prioress found herself in. IF so, you may do as she did and place your confidence in St Joseph, that just as he was responsible for the Lord Jesus being raised in such a way that He would fulfill His destiny, so too, might you fulfill your destiny as you are called to do, by way St Joseph tending to you as he tended to your Messiah.