Saint Joseph the Worker
It is celebrated on May 1
The origin of the liturgical feast of Saint Joseph the Worker goes back to May 1, 1955. That day, Rome was a hive of people coming from many parts of the world, and in the Eternal City a new air seemed to flow, recently released. It was a massive and joyous meeting of more than 200,000 workers with Pope Pius XII. That same day, May 1, 1955, in the incomparable setting of Saint Peter’s Square full of workers, the Pope proclaimed the Labor Festival, and in the calendar of the universal Church the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker, patron saint of Workers.
The texts of the liturgy of the day constitute a catechesis of the meaning of human work through faith.
At least since 1891, when Leo XIII addressed the issue of work and the situation of workers with his extremely important encyclical Rerum Novarum, the Church has been lavish in publishing documents on the so-called “social question.” Among these documents, Quadragesimo Anno, by Po XI; Mater et magistra, of Blessed John XXIII; the Gaudium et spes, of the Second Vatican Council; Populorum Progressio, by Paul VI, and Laborem exercens, by John Paul II, in which the spirituality of work is deepened.
Next, you can read the prayer with which Pope John XXIII ended his address on this feast in 1959:
“Oh glorious Saint Joseph, who guarded your incomparable and royal dignity as guardian of Jesus and the Virgin Mary under the humble appearance of a craftsman, and with your work you sustained their lives, protect with kind power the children who are especially entrusted to you!
“You know their anxieties and their sufferings because you yourself tried them at the side of Jesus and his Mother. Do not allow them, oppressed by so many worries, to forget the purpose for which they were created by God; do not let the germs of mistrust take possession of their immortal souls.Remind all the workers that in the fields, in the offices, in the mines, in the laboratories of science they are not alone to work, enjoy and serve, but Jesus with Mary is with them. , His and our Mother, to sustain them, to wipe away the sweat, to mitigate their fatigue. Teach them to make work, as you did, a most lofty instrument of sanctification.”
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