Transform The "Daily Grind" Into Something Beautiful For God.

BY  Philip Kosloski  

On May 1, 1955, Pope Pius XII established a new feast day in the Church’s calendar, dedicating May 1 to “St. Joseph the Worker.” He sought to affirm the rights of workers and to put forth St. Joseph as the supreme model.    As the Vicar of Christ, we wish to reaffirm highly, on this day of May 1 … the dignity of work, and [to] inspire social life and laws, based on a fair share of rights and duties … [We have determined to] establish the liturgical feast of St. Joseph the Worker, assigning it precisely on the 1st of May … because the humble craftsman of Nazareth not only embodies the dignity of the arm of the worker … he is also always the guardian of you and your families.

      

Pope St. Pius X had similar desires when he composed a prayer to “St. Joseph the Worker.” It is a prayer that recognizes the great dignity of work and how it can be offered to God as a sacrifice, pleasing in his sight. St. Joseph has always been the supreme example of this type of holy work, teaching his son, Jesus, how to work with great care and precision, giving to God his best work possible.

Before beginning your next workday, consider praying this simple, yet powerful prayer to St. Joseph. He will help you utilize your talents, turning the “daily grind” into something beautiful for God.

O Glorious St. Joseph, model of all those who are devoted to labor, obtain for me the grace to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my natural inclinations, to work with gratitude and joy, in a spirit of penance for the remission of my sins, considering it an honor to employ and develop by means of labor the gifts received from God, to work with order, peace, moderation and patience, without ever shrinking from weariness and difficulties, to work above all with purity of intention and detachment from self, having always death before my eyes and the account that I must render of time lost, of talents wasted, of good omitted, of vain complacency in success, so fatal to the work of God. All for Jesus, all through Mary, all after thine example, O Patriarch, St. Joseph. Such shall be my motto in life and in death. Amen.

Stressing the dignity of work, Pius XII put a peaceful spin on a day remembered for violent labor riots.

On May 1, 1886, thousands of workers across the United States staged a major union strike and demonstration, calling for an eight-hour workday with the slogan, “Eight-hour day with no cut in pay.” A few days later, still in the midst of the strike, laborers continued a protest in Chicago and met outside an industrial plant. While the protest was peaceful in nature, at the end of the workday a group of workers charged the strikebreakers and the police opened fire, killing two workers.

This prompted local anarchists to stage another rally on May 4, printing fliers that said, “Workingmen Arm Yourselves and Appear in Full Force!” The rally started out peacefully, but near the end of the night a homemade bomb was launched at a police officer. The police fired at the crowd in response and by the end of the night seven policemen were killed, along with four workers. Dozens were injured and the event became known as the Haymarket massacre.

The event fueled tensions at the time and by 1889 the International Socialist Conference declared May 1, “International Workers’ Day,” commemorating the massacre. Each year after that, May 1 was given more significance, being called “May Day” and a day used for labor protests. On May 1, 1894, there occurred another set of violent riots in Cleveland, Ohio, which again spurred the International Socialist Conference to work forcefully for worker’s rights. From then on May 1 was continually used as a vehicle to promote worker’s rights and became associated with the rising socialist movement across Europe.

Sixty years later in the midst of the Cold War, Pope Pius XII recognized the increasing tensions in the world and sought to counteract the violence by reclaiming the Christian dignity of work. He addressed the Christian Associations of Italian Workers in Saint Peter’s Square on May 1, 1955, and urged them to not be deceived by the false voices of the world who claim that the Church is against laborers.

How many times we have said and explained the love of the Church for the workers! Yet it is widely propagated the heinous slander that ‘the Church is an ally of capitalism against the workers!’ The Church, mother and teacher of all, is always very caring towards the children who are in the most difficult conditions, and also has made a valuable contribution to the achievement of honest progress already made by the various categories of workers.

To make an even bolder statement against the rising worker movements, Pope Pius XII established a new feast day in the Church’s calendar, dedicating May 1 to “Saint Joseph the Worker.”

[As] the Vicar of Christ, we wish to reaffirm highly, on this day of May 1 … the dignity of work, and [to] inspire social life and laws, based on a fair share of rights and duties … [We have determined to] establish the liturgical feast of St. Joseph the Worker, assigning it precisely on the 1st of May … because the humble craftsman of Nazareth not only embodies the dignity of the arm of the worker … he is also always the guardian of you and your families.

By making it into a Catholic feast day, Pius XII reclaimed May 1 and gave it a Christian dimension. Christian workers were shown a model to imitate in Saint Joseph and a reminder of their dignity.

In the end, the Church has always taught that workers should be justly rewarded for their labor, but begs workers to go to Joseph instead of trying to violently overthrow the social order to achieve their ends.

Saint Joseph the Worker, pray for us!

 Diane Montagna

Pope Benedict XVI especially encouraged married couples and parents to turn to St. Joseph, saying: “God alone could grant Joseph the strength to trust the Angel. God alone will give you, dear married couples, the strength to raise your family as he wants. Ask it of him! God loves to be asked for what he wishes to give. Ask him for the grace of a true and ever more faithful love patterned after his own. As the Psalm magnificently puts it: his ‘love is established for ever, his loyalty will stand as long as the heavens’ (Ps 88:3).”

And Pope St. John Paul II, with Pope Benedict and their predecessors, held up St. Joseph as a model of the interior life, pointing to the silence of St. Joseph which speaks louder than words. “The Gospels speak exclusively of what Joseph ‘did,’” Pope John Paul II said. “Still, they allow us to discover in his ‘actions’ — shrouded in silence as they are — an aura of deep contemplation. Joseph was in daily contact with the mystery ‘hidden from ages past,’ and which ‘dwelt’ under his roof.”

The liturgical feast of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Confessor of the Faith, is celebrated each year on March 19th. In preparation for this feast, we offer our readers a powerful 30 Day Prayer to St. Joseph.

Why 30 days, you might wonder? According to tradition, St. Joseph died just before Jesus entered into his public ministry. The prayer therefore honors St. Joseph for each of the 30 years he spent with Jesus and Mary on earth. 

The Church has given us much to consider about this "silent saint"

A line from Pope Pius IX’s 1870 decree by which St. Joseph was declared patron and protector of the universal Church strikes me as an open window into the home of Nazareth.

The Church, Pius said, “after the Blessed Virgin, his spouse, has always held [Joseph] in great honor and showered him with praise, having recourse to him amid tribulations.”

I originally misread it, and formed the idea of the Blessed Virgin, not the Church, showering Joseph with praise. My imagination sat with that and savored it.

Our Lady, the humble girl of Nazareth, the future queen of heaven, lovingly showering her spouse with praise. Her affections and affirmations would have been answered with his own unabating honoring of her, as the first representative of the first generation of all those generations that would call her blessed.

Our Savior had left the glories of heaven to take residence in that holy house, but with such interchange between his parents, he must have experienced some taste of what he’d left behind.

When I realized that I’d misread the line from the decree — that it was the Church doing the praising, not Mary — it seemed to me a providential error. What a lesson for me (my husband doesn’t hear nearly enough praise from his wife). And as Mary is the image of the Church, in this too I’m sure the Church is following her example.

I love St. Joseph — my firstborn, who was due on his feast day, carries his name — but I’ve never had a particularly strong devotion to him. Yet when I find him in prayer, his testimony and example always bring light. Just like you’d expect from a dad, I guess.

One factor that can complicate devotion to St. Joseph is his silence. There are a handful of references to him in Scripture, but he himself never speaks.

Nevertheless, the Church even in just the last couple centuries has given us much to consider about his life.

There’s the aforementioned declaration of Joseph as patron of the Church.

Then, just a few years later, in 1889, Pope Leo XIII devoted an encyclicalto him. (I always love reading old documents of the Church. Imagine what the poor pontiff would think if he were alive today, since in 1889 he had this to say: “We see faith, the root of all the Christian virtues, lessening in many souls; we see charity growing cold; the young generation daily growing in depravity of morals and views; the Church of Jesus Christ attacked on every side by open force or by craft …”)

On the 100th anniversary of that document, Pope St. John Paul II offered an apostolic exhortation on St. Joseph, which includes a mini-reflection on eight key moments in Jesus’ life when Joseph was the protagonist. These could serve as mysteries of a “Joseph rosary”: the census, the birth, the circumcision, conferral of the name, presentation in the temple, flight into Egypt, Jesus’ stay in the temple and the support and education of Jesus in Nazareth.

Both Leo’s and John Paul II’s documents are brief but provide much fruit for meditation.

There’s also the Litany of St. Joseph, promoted for public use by Pope Pius X, but rather unknown today.

Without any words of Joseph’s own to meditate upon, the listing of his virtues in the litany gives direction to our prayer: He is remembered as just, chaste, prudent, strong, obedient and faithful.

Then there’s the special titles attributed to him, some an invitation to virtue, others a source of comfort in life’s difficulties. Mirror of patience, for example, and lover of poverty. But also solace of the wretched and patron of the dying. I’m going to introduce my own Joseph to the saint’s title as terror of demons. What action hero-crazed 7-year-old wouldn’t relish contemplating his patron in that way?

Yes, St. Joseph has much to tell us, even in his silence.

As Paul VI said: “He is the proof that in order to be a good and genuine follower of Christ, there is no need of great things — it is enough to have the common, simple and human virtues, but they need to be true and authentic.” 

A little-known devotion that honors Joseph's joys and sorrows.

St. Joseph, while he never spoke a word in scripture, is one of the most beloved saints of Christianity. His silent example of obedient faithfulness is one that spoke much louder than any words.

Over the centuries there grew many different devotions to St. Joseph, expressing a deep filial love for the foster-father of Jesus. Among them was the powerful Seven Sundays devotion.

According to Salt and Light Media, “The story goes that two Franciscan monks who were shipwrecked at sea clung to a plank for two days, and were saved by a man of venerable appearance who miraculously brought them to shore. When they asked who he was, he replied, ‘I am Joseph, and I desire you to honor my seven sorrows and seven joys.'”

Whatever the origins may be, a devotion was developed where the seven sorrows and seven joys of Joseph became the focus of meditation on the seven Sundays preceding his feast on March 19. The first Sunday of these meditations is typically either the last Sunday of January or the first Sunday of February.

Below are the following joys and sorrows of St. Joseph, along with their respective passages in scripture. One approach to these Sundays is to read each passage and consider how Joseph would have felt in the situation. This is a form of lectio divina or “divine reading,” where you are able to put yourself into the scene and see Joseph’s expressions during each episode.

When praying the Seven Sundays devotion, it is customary to pray for a specific intention, asking St. Joseph’s powerful intercession for your needs.