Prayer service to ask for St. Joseph's intercession

Intermountain Catholic

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DRAPER — A prayer service honoring Saint Joseph is scheduled for Feb. 9 at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. The parish’s Knights of Columbus council is sponsoring the event.

Pope Francis has called all Catholics to “increase our love for this great saint, to encourage us to implore his intercession and to imitate his virtues and his zeal,” said Kenneth Allen, who, as the faith director of the Mother Teresa of Calcutta Council, is in charge of the prayer service.

The prayer service also is intended to ask for St. Joseph’s intercession in “preserving, cultivating and passing the Catholic faith to future generations,” according to the invitation to the event.

The St. Joseph icon is the latest to be a part of the Knights of Columbus Pilgrim Icon Program, which began in 1979 with an icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The icons travel from council to council for prayer services; the program has been held in more than 174,800 councils, with about 22 million participants, according to the Knights of Columbus.

“It is the intent of the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council to have all councils worldwide to actively present and engage all parishioners with the St. Joseph’s Icon Program,” Allen said, adding that Knights and their communities are encouraged to “turn in prayer to St. Joseph, give thanks to God for the gift of fatherly example, and ask St. Joseph to be a father to us as we seek to grow in our own imitation of St. Joseph’s quiet strength, integrity and fidelity.”

As the faith director of his council, Allen said that is his duty and “honor to initiate the St. Joseph Icon Program. As a man of faith and a Catholic I strive to be like St. Joseph – a good father and husband, and obedient to the Lord. If all men were to follow in his footsteps this world would be a much better place.”

Now more than ever, prayer has become an important part of Catholics’ daily lives, he said.

“As we witness the decay of moral values and the falling away of families from religion, it is imperative that we ask for God’s intervention to heal our nation so that we can be a beacon to the rest of the world,” Allen said. “‘The land of the free’ means freedom of religion and the equity of human rights for all. It doesn’t mean free for all, anything goes. I believe the power of prayer can set things right. When we pray, we set our hearts in right order and love of all our brothers and sisters.”

The prayer service in honor of St. Joseph will begin at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 9 at Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church, 300 East 11800 South, Draper. There is no cost.