DID YOU KNOW? (March 19)
In the middle of the 19th century in New Mexico, the Chapel of Loreto was built with a high choir loft. Somehow the men who constructed it failed to build stairs to the loft. The chapel was under care of nuns, and all the money had been spent on building it. They were told they should just not use the choir loft. Instead, they started praying a Novena to St Joseph for a better solution. After they had prayed the novena, maybe on the day they finished it, a mysterious man showed up at their door. He had a saw, a square, and a few pocket tools. He said he’d heard of their need, and if he could have the chapel to himself for several weeks, he’d help them on condition of anonymity. The sisters agreed, and the mysterious man went into the new chapel, and was never seen to leave — until his work was done, and then he departed undetected, without being paid for his work. The sisters were astonished at what he had built, and immediately spread the word that a reward would be paid to anyone who could find the man. They checked all the local lumber suppliers, and none of them even carried the rare spruce used, let alone had any record of sale. Upon closer inspection, the stairs were constructed without glue or nails — it was constructed to stand independently by wooden pegs. The sisters came to believe that these utterly transcendent stairs were built by Saint Joseph the Carpenter.
It sounds like him. A manly humility that seeks nothing for himself, and glory for God.
Happy Feast of Saint Joseph!
On a footnote, When I was still in high school my parents brought us on vacation to see this staircase, in fact we took a picture of all of us on the bottom three steps. That picture somehow was not been found when my mother passed away in her collection of photos.
there is no center pole and there is not a nail in the whole structure.. I climbed all the way to the top as did all of my family..
I hear now that is not allowed
