ArticleSt. Joseph's Oratory

"What a Wonderful World", full of wonders of all kinds, shapes and forms - yet, many people can't travel far and wide to see even a small percentage of them. So, they have to concentrate on nearby wonders and try to make the most of it. Some succeed to make up for a lack of quantity by adding quality and turning a wonder into a full-blown miracle... 

...a magnificent artistic creation floating high above the street level and sprawling over a perfectly laid out English garden, full of blooming flowers scattered along broad paths that led to a unique set of stairs. One can choose either the right or the left flight, but the middle one is reserved for pilgrims who “ascend to the main entrance on their knees in order to honour St. Joseph”, the patron of this church, the largest of its kind in North America. I could hardly believe that in reality anybody would resort to such an eccentric behaviour, and I was inwardly admiring the inventor of such a conspicuous decorative device as this “propaganda flight”, when I saw no less than three people doing exactly what the flight was intended for. That made me look at the statue of St. Joseph at the entrance to the garden with fresh appreciation. On the one hand, even though the earthly father of Jesus Christ is recognized as a saint in a number of faiths, he seems to be a relatively minor figure in the European religious tradition. 

On the other hand, St. Joseph is extremely important and quite famous all across the American continent – so much so that a city in California (San Jose) is named after him. He might owe this recognition to the fact that the Catholic Church had entrusted him with no less than eight offices, including such sensitive ones as “The Solace of the Suffering”, “The Hope of the Sick” and “The Patron of the Dying”. Yet, impressive as those titles are, one picture is still worth a thousand words, and “Niches of Crutches” are among the very first displays to greet the Oratory visitors. There might be hundreds of them: crutches, canes, walkers and other similar devices donated to the church after they have been made unnecessary for those recently healed through the powers of the Saint...