Today is the Feast of St. Joseph, the feast day of my maternal family. The vow:

“O God, whose attribute it is to be always merciful and to spare, protect us through the intercession of St. Joseph from crop failures. In order to make ourselves, at least to a certain extent, worthy of this grace, we solemnly vow to keep the feast of St. Joseph as a holyday of obligation for all time and to spend some hours of that day in public prayer.

. . . to preserve the growing crop, destroy grasshoppers, worms and bugs and finally to mature the grain, allow a bountiful harvest and furnish a high-priced market.”