EXCERPT FROM THE HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS, POPE BENEDICT XVI, ON THE FEAST OF ST. JOSEPH

“Work is of fundamental importance to the fulfillment of the human being and to the development of society. Thus, it must always be organized and carried out with full respect for human dignity and must always serve the common good. At the same time, it is indispensable that people not allow themselves to be enslaved by work or idolize it, claiming to find in it the ultimate and definitive meaning of life.

‘Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day. Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, your God’ (Ex 20:8-9). The Sabbath is a holy day, that is, a day consecrated to God on which man understands better the meaning of his life and his work. It can therefore be said that the biblical teaching on work is crowned by the commandment of rest.

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church speaks opportunely of this: ‘For man, bound as he is to the necessity of work, this rest opens to the prospect of a fuller freedom, that of the eternal Sabbath (d. Heb 4,9-10). Rest gives men and women the possibility to remember and experience anew God’s work from Creation to Redemption, in order to recognize themselves as His work (d. Eph 2, 10), and to give thanks for their lives and for their subsistence to Him who is their author’ (n. 258).

Work must serve the true good of humanity, permitting ‘men as individuals and as members of society to pursue and fulfill their total vocation’ (Gaudium et Spes, n. 35). For this to happen, technical and professional qualifications, although necessary, do not suffice; nor does the creation of a just social order, attentive to the common good.

It is necessary to live a spirituality that helps believers to sanctify themselves through their work, imitating St. Joseph, who had to provide with his own hands for the daily needs of the Holy Family and who, consequently, the Church holds up as Patron of work­ers. St. Joseph’s witness shows that man is the subject and protagonist of work. I would like to entrust to St. Joseph those young people who are finding integration into the working world difficult, the unemployed and everyone who is suffering hardship due to the widespread employment crisis.

Together with Mary, his Spouse, may St. Joseph watch over all workers and obtain serenity and peace for families and for the whole of humanity. May Christians, looking at this great Saint, learn to witness in every working environment to the love of Christ, the source of true solidarity and lasting peace. Amen!”

PRAYER TO ST. JOSEPH THE WORKMAN

By Pope St. Pius X

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 by your example, O Patriarch, St. Joseph! Such shall be my watch-word in life and in death. Amen