St. Joseph’s Day as ‘Feast of the Widowhood of Mary’

Majel Braden and her husband Colonel P. David Braden had been married for 30 years when he passed on October 6, 2016, at just 63 years old. A special-ops pilot in the U.S. Air Force, Col. Braden died only four months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the results of toxins he was exposed to flying over the burning oil fields in Iraq during the early 1990s Gulf War. 

The Braden family had spent years living overseas, with many of those years including time with Our Lady of Lourdes Hospitality North American Volunteers. David, who served the organization for years at their Chairman of the Board, even died at the very same time of day as St. Bernadette -- 3:15 p.m., just hours before the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. He was surrounded by family and requested that any need for healing among them be taken care of before his last breath. His children expressed their incredible gratitude for his gift of fatherhood and said, “We just give you back to Jesus.”

While Majel called his a “very profound and holy death,” this story focuses on the moment just after. “A holy moment of the Holy Spirit,” Majel calls it. 

“Immediately after my husband died, I looked at the Blessed Mother and said, ‘I get to be more like you.’ That was when the Lord put it on my heart that the Feast of the Holy Widowhood is the 19th of March,” she told Aleteia, “because that’s when the Church honors St. Joseph’s coming home to the Lord.”

Majel took this inspiration immediately to her spiritual director, Marianist Fr. George Montague. He directed her to Scripture (St Paul’s Letter, 1 Timothy 5), assuring her that consecrated widows were the first form of consecrated life in the early Church. His advice was not to start something independent but to associate it with an existing organization within the Church. 

To find that, Majel didn’t have to look far. After the Lourdes Volunteers approved moving the project forward, they received strong support from their Cardinal-protector, Raymond Burke. 

As a private association of the faithful under the “protection” of the public association of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospitality North American Volunteers, the formal structure — which allows for both consecrated widows and single consecrated women, was founded by Bishop Douglas Lucia on February 2, 2023, World Day of Consecrated Life. 

After being dormant in many places for centuries, this oldest form of dedication to God has seen new life in recent years. Only a few countries have this form of consecration in Europe; the Lourdes Volunteers were the first in the U.S..

Since that founding, as reported by Aleteia in November 2024, an Order of Widows was established by the Diocese of Columbus, Ohio, under Bishop Earl Fernandes in October 2025. (That Order is only open to women over 60 and their primary duty is prayer on behalf of the community.)

On March 19 that year, Majel made her consecration with Fr. Montague and her own Bishop Steven Lopes of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.

“We vow to live a life of prayer and service for the sick and suffering at home and/or at Lourdes,” the welcome letter reads for women interested in the vocation. The process includes membership with Lourdes Volunteers, study of the Rule of Life and the life of St. Bernadette, along with three letters of recommendation -- from their local bishop, their spiritual director, and another stating their good standing as Catholics.

After acceptance, a three- to 12-month process of formation and preparation takes place before the act of consecration, with vows being renewed annually (allowing for the possibility that a young widow might be called to a subsequent marriage, especially if she has young children). 

With nine consecrated widows and five consecrated women, the association is already well established with both paths. Majel celebrates the unique story and journey of each woman. She adamantly insists that none of this has been her doing, but the work of the Holy Spirit through her humble cooperation and the guidance of many priests and bishops. 

Given that most widows have also been mothers, Majel believes the connection to the spirituality of Lourdes is particularly apt. “We have been caring for the sick and suffering throughout our lives. Lourdes is where Our Lady directed people to pray, come in procession, and wash in the waters and to be healed … 

“Actually, all Marian sites are about healing,” she added. 

“This is a new way for women whose spouses have gone home to the Lord, and for single women, to be in procession serving the sick and suffering along the way.”

Serving the suffering, especially those carrying the heavy weight of grief, was part of Majel’s life long before her widowhood. She holds a PhD in Education and Counseling, with her dissertation on the effects of grief in children. 

When asked how she became interested in that field, Majel spoke about her twin brother, who died during the 7th month of their mother’s pregnancy. It was only when her mother, after delivering a stillborn son, went back for a checkup that they even realized there was a twin. With thoughtful emotion, she said she’d often reflected on this in connection to why she has such a deep love for those suffering from bereavement.

Majel was raised on the St. Labre Mission on the Northern Cheyene Indian Reservation, where her father was a teacher and coach. She recalls carrying the coffin of a young Cheyenne woman with her siblings to the church her fourth grade year of school.

She also remembers how the Tribe honored her father when he died, incorporating drumming with the Mass, as well as some of the Native traditional burial rites, such as a pouch included in his coffin and an Indian blanket draped over it.

“I think my childhood was in formation” of processing grief, she shared. Calling the preparation for meeting the Lord a “very holy process of life, ... I think maybe you never how the Lord allows every detail in your life to become a gift at some point.” 

Not only does she relate to Mary’s bereavement as a widow, Majel also knows the loss of a child, having gone through two miscarriages. Relating her devotion to the grieving Virgin Mother with her work in bereavement and trauma therapy, she spoke of Mary’s suffering as “the most intense of anyone who ever walked the earth, because she never sinned in her life.” 

The 72-year-old acknowledged that many widows “already live a life for our Blessed Mother and her Divine Son… When this becomes consecrated -- or set apart -- under the virtues of humility and simplicity, chastity, and obedience,” it becomes a special dedication of that complete gift. 

“It gives women a very holy purpose in their widow-years,” Majel said, clarifying that many widows are young, and also welcomed as candidates for consecration. 

“Bereavement never ends. No, it never does on this side of the veil. But our response to it is what does change ... We have it with us until our first breath into Heaven; and then God puts all in order as he intended it to be.”