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| THE CHILD JESUS HELPING ST JOSEPH. Image from catholic culture via google.com |
Today is the Feast day of St Joseph the Worker. This feast was established in order to provide workers with a model to look up to and whom they could ask for intercessions in praying to God and to counter the claims of Communism about the need for a worldwide revolution to free workers from the oppression of capitalists denying the role of the Savior our Lord Jesus Christ in our society. Deacon Keith Fournier states it this way,
"[The Church] also affirmed that there is a dignity to all human work precisely because of the dignity of every human worker engaged in it. That workers is created in the Image and Likeness of God. That dignity is elevated to an even greater height through the Incarnation of Jesus the Worker of Nazareth."
St Joseph was a carpenter. Through his honest work, he was able to provide for the needs of the Holy Family. Though God could possibly provide them with all the pleasures of life, He did not but allowed St Joseph to perform his duty as foster father, or custos, to His only-begotten Son and the as husband to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
"[The Church] also affirmed that there is a dignity to all human work precisely because of the dignity of every human worker engaged in it. That workers is created in the Image and Likeness of God. That dignity is elevated to an even greater height through the Incarnation of Jesus the Worker of Nazareth."
St Joseph was a carpenter. Through his honest work, he was able to provide for the needs of the Holy Family. Though God could possibly provide them with all the pleasures of life, He did not but allowed St Joseph to perform his duty as foster father, or custos, to His only-begotten Son and the as husband to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Since God the Father was the Creator, we could say that His choice of St Joseph as His only-begotten Son's foster father was truly part of His grand design; He being the greatest Carpenter of all. It did not only make the Lord Jesus Christ as a son of the carpenter [see Matthew 13:55; Luke 4:22] but also as the carpenter himself [see Mark 6:3]. Here we can see how God made all things possible and how He accomplished every event with great synchronization.
Deacon Fournier writes,
"As a child, Jesus learned from Joseph the Worker how to work with wood. He would later climb upon a wooden cross in order to re-create all humanity in the culmination of His great work of redemption. All of the work undertaken by Jesus was joined to His Heavenly Father's work."
Deacon Fournier writes,
"As a child, Jesus learned from Joseph the Worker how to work with wood. He would later climb upon a wooden cross in order to re-create all humanity in the culmination of His great work of redemption. All of the work undertaken by Jesus was joined to His Heavenly Father's work."
Moreover, choosing a worker as the foster father of the child Jesus, He sanctified labor which in its initial stage seemed to be a punishment for the sins of our first parents, Adam and Eve [see Genesis 3]. By sanctifying work, He made it a way to salvation, not a burden due to sin anymore.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, as we quote from Deacon Fournier's article,
"Work can be a means of sanctification and a way of animating earthly realities with the Spirit of Christ. In work, the person exercises and fulfills in part the potential inscribed in his nature. The primordial value of labor stems from man himself, its author and its beneficiaries."
As Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote in Laborem Exercens, which he wrote in 1981, as we quoted from Catholic Lane, which is a good site in itself,
"From the beginning therefore he [man] is called to work. Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons. And this mark decides its interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature."
The Pope further wrote,
"Even by their secular activity, they must assist one another to live holier lives. In this way, the world will be permeated by the Spirit of Christ and more effectively achieve its purpsoe in justice, charity and peace ... Therefore, by their competence in secular fields and by their personal activity, elevated from within by the grace of Christ, let them work vigorously so that by human labor, technical skill, and civil culture created goods may be perfected according to the design of the creator and the light of his Word."
May we see the dignity in work and its important role in our salvation.
A blessed Feast of St Joseph the Worker Day to all the workers of all the lands!
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, as we quote from Deacon Fournier's article,
"Work can be a means of sanctification and a way of animating earthly realities with the Spirit of Christ. In work, the person exercises and fulfills in part the potential inscribed in his nature. The primordial value of labor stems from man himself, its author and its beneficiaries."
As Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote in Laborem Exercens, which he wrote in 1981, as we quoted from Catholic Lane, which is a good site in itself,
"From the beginning therefore he [man] is called to work. Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons. And this mark decides its interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature."
The Pope further wrote,
"Even by their secular activity, they must assist one another to live holier lives. In this way, the world will be permeated by the Spirit of Christ and more effectively achieve its purpsoe in justice, charity and peace ... Therefore, by their competence in secular fields and by their personal activity, elevated from within by the grace of Christ, let them work vigorously so that by human labor, technical skill, and civil culture created goods may be perfected according to the design of the creator and the light of his Word."
May we see the dignity in work and its important role in our salvation.
A blessed Feast of St Joseph the Worker Day to all the workers of all the lands!
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