St. Joseph the Worker (1)

[MockSock]

St Joseph the Worker

This week, on 1st May, we will keep the feast of St Joseph the Worker, a feast instituted by Pope Pius XII as recently as 1956. The Holy Father considered that in the face of the growing dominance of Communism it would be well if the Church were to hold up to the world the true value of work and human endeavour, rather than leaving the field open simply to party politics and propaganda. For the most part, political philosophy was contending that work, especially menial labour, was demeaning and that the burden of daily toil detracted from the real value of the human person, a value which could only be restored through collective industry where each should give according to his ability so that each may benefit according to his need. As with all errors, the devil had wrapped his deceit around a kernel of truth.

In the beginning, Adam and Eve had little need to work. In the Garden of Eden was ‘made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food’ (Gen 2:9). Certainly Adam had to till the earth and keep it, but his labours were light and the earth yielded its fruit freely (vv. 15-16). After the Fall, when Adam turned his back on God and, through pride and disobedience, tried to take for himself the authority to decide what was good and what was evil, the world of work changed dramatically. Having, in effect, rejected so many of God’s gifts, including sanctifying grace by which he was held in friendship with his Creator, a friendship by which he was blessed with so many of God’s good gifts, Adam found that he was now without his God and without the help that he had experienced up until that point. Suddenly, work became hard, a grind. The ground was cursed, and Adam found that he could only get the earth to yield its fruits from among the thorns and thistles by the sweat of his brow. Such strenuous labour was the consequence of having rejected God’s favour along with all of the ease and pleasantness which God had intended His creatures should enjoy. Truly, such hard work was a punishment for sin, and we do well to remember that we are commanded by God to abstain from all servile labour on the Sabbath (Ex 20:8-11) for two reasons, first, because it was on the Sabbath that God rested from His work of creation, and second, because servile labour is a consequence of sin whereas the Christian Sabbath, the day of resurrection, is a day on which we celebrate our redemption from the consequences of sin and it is, therefore, a day that has been sanctified.

 

[MockSock]

But to some extent, the devil and the Communist work ethic are right, work really is beneath the dignity of the human person. Yet this dignity was forfeited by Adam who had been entrusted with it on behalf of the whole human race, and is repeatedly forfeited by us each time we sin. Whereas we still have God as our Creator, and whereas all that God creates through love is good and therefore each human person bears a value in God’s eyes, nonetheless we no longer have the dignity, the worth, of God’s friendship and grace. We have rejected it as a race and as individuals. Only through baptism is that dignity restored once more.

Yet ours is an incarnational religion in which God makes use of His own creatures to bring about the restoration of those creatures. In other words, God works through people, things, and circumstances to restore to us what we have forfeited. When God’s Son came down to earth and took human form, He sanctified and gave meaning to the human condition. The very fact that the Son of God Incarnate applied Himself to manual labour as a carpenter means that human work became vested with meaning and value. Our Lord’s supreme work was, of course, the work of our redemption, incorporating all that was involved in His sufferings and death. The Cross, then, becomes the means by which human work is made holy and given a value.

But human work is still not meaningful, still does not have value, in and of itself. It is only sanctified when it is united to the work of the Son of God made Man. When we offer to God our work of each day, when we unite our work to the work of Our Lord on the Cross, when we are willing to work for His sake, and for the sake of our neighbour, then human endeavour and servile work is given meaning and becomes hallowed. This is why the Morning Offerings in our prayer books offer to God all that we will do each day.

Like all that is difficult or painful, like sickness, and disease, and death, work is not a good in itself, but Our Lord has given it meaning and value by making use of it for a greater good, by raising it up, and by sanctifying it through His own work which He, in turn, offers to His Father.

Although St Joseph lived and died before his Foster Son accomplished the work of our redemption, nevertheless he, St Joseph, embodied the value and meaning of human work as it was to become sanctified by Jesus, and, indeed, taught Jesus, in His humanity , how to work. In this, St Joseph has become the patron saint of all who work, especially those who work at servile labour or menial tasks, but indeed of all those who choose to offer their efforts and their tasks to God.

 

[StudentMI]

One of my favorite saints and one I often ask for intercession. I’d love to read a book about him.