[00:00] Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever. "Whoever hears My word and believes in the One who sent Me has eternal life and has passed from death to life." Today's Gospel makes me think of the importance of a happy death, the grace of a happy death, and that makes me think of St. Joseph, whom we're going to celebrate tomorrow, His solemnity

[00:34] is tomorrow, but it strongly comes to mind today because He's the patron of a happy death. And why is He the patron of a happy death? Because it is piously believed that he died before Our Lord yet began His public ministry. He died in the company of Jesus and Mary. They assisted him at his death. What a happy death that is. And why did St. Joseph die in the company of Jesus and Mary? Because he lived in the company of Jesus and Mary.

[01:06] He lived in Their presence, he died in Their presence. So the best way to prepare for a happy death, a holy death, is to live a holy life. If we wish to have a holy death like St. Joseph, to die in the presence of Jesus and Mary, well, let's do that now. Let's start. If we wish to have a happy death, a holy death, invoking the names of Jesus and Mary, well,

[01:36] start now. If we wish to whatever, fill in the blank, wish to die forgiving our enemies, well, start now. Start doing that now. It's the best way to prepare. And we see that in St. Joseph, that's why He's the patron of a happy death, and whether we see that in ourselves or not depends on whether we start preparing for a holy death. Preparing now. So the way we want to be at the moment of death, let's start doing that now, and okay. It's the best preparation.

[02:12] Our Lord, whose mercy is infinite and whose grace is above and beyond our wildest expectations, gave St. Joseph this amazing grace of being the spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, His own adoptive foster father, being the head of the Holy Family, and St. Joseph put these graces to good use. And because he put these graces to good use, he had those graces, he had the fruit of those

[02:44] graces in the last moment of his life. Let us do the same. Let us make use of the graces that God gives us in every moment of life. In every present moment, and in the last moment of our life, we'll likewise be holy and happy, and we'll be a passage from death to life as well. Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.