St Joseph the Worker 1.5.16 Working for God
This feast was instituted in 1955, partly at least to re-direct the Communist ‘feast’ of May Day.
The Communist notion of work did not respect individual workers as human subjects, deserving of respect.
So it is very hard to celebrate anything to do with Communism. Its greatest evil, however, is not the way it treats people, but the deliberate denial of Almighty God, which is at the basis of its operation.
The Communists and other secular groups claim that Man can do it on his own; that Man is the highest form of being around. Heaven help us, indeed, if that is true!
We are created by God in His image and depend on Him for our existence and for any hope of happiness.
We owe Him perpetual gratitude and obedience. Far from displacing Him we need to return to worshipping and serving Him.
If we want any guidance as to the right relationship with God we have, in St Joseph, all the best qualities.
He was humble: he did not assert his rights in opposition to God's claims. He understood his lowly place in the scale of reality.
Joseph’s humility extended to the fact that he was largely unnoticed by the people around him. They referred to Our Lord as ‘the carpenter’s son’, a title of dismissal – as if a carpenter’s son would know anything!
In this case both the carpenter and his ‘son’ knew a lot more than they were letting on!
He was obedient. The Gospel of Matthew records four occasions when Joseph immediately responded to a message he had received in a dream. (Take Mary to be your wife; fly to Egypt; come back from Egypt; live in Nazareth.)
He was faithful under pressure. He did not know at first that Mary’s pregnancy was from God.
He did not know at first that the baby to be born was God Himself.
He did not know where Jesus was when He stayed behind in Jerusalem.
Joseph was not told everything in advance. Sometimes he had to stew over things first, and only then discover how God had been working in the situation.
This kind of practical on-the-run faith is something we all need. It helps us not to panic when trouble emerges. We do not know how a particular problem is going to be solved but we know that God will do all that is necessary to help us.
Joseph was faithful; he was humble; he was obedient. These are all things we need to be.
And something else he did, which we also do – he worked; the specific focus of today’s feast.
His work was for the glory of God. It was not work for his own glory, or to set up a world of his own making. It was a sharing in the creative power of God.
He had, we could say, two jobs. One was a carpenter; the other was to help Our Lord and Our Lady to do what they had to do. There was no pay for the second job! But a great reward.
Our work for God goes beyond whatever paid work we might have. Every moment of our earthly life is an opportunity to be working for God - cf Today’s epistle: Whatsoever you do, do it from the heart, as to the Lord, and not to men (Col 3,23).
We have much to learn from St Joseph. We honour him so much because he did not seek honour. It was precisely his humility, faithfulness, and obedience that made him great. It was the self-effacing qualities that make him so exalted. He provides proof of Our Lord’s words that he who humbles himself will be exalted (Mt 23,12).
May St Joseph help us to grow in these qualities; and also help the human race as a whole to seek its salvation in the only place it can be found – in the Carpenter’s Son.
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