St. Joseph the Worker
May 2, 2019
CollectGen 1: 26—2: 3
DBCR School Mass, Takoma Park, Md.
Since
holding a corporate job is an essential component of a student’s life at Don
Bosco Cristo Rey High School and Corporate Work Study Program—the full name of
our institution in Takoma Park, Md.—as it is of all the more than 30 schools in
the Cristo Rey Network, we celebrate the memorial of St. Joseph the Worker with
a little solemnity, including an all-school Mass. This year it was observed on May 2, a day
late, because of another event on the school calendar for May 1.
Today
we’re celebrating St. Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, as an example and
patron for us, particularly as a worker.
St. Joseph the Carpenter (Georges de La Tour) |
What
makes him an example for us? Not just
that he was a worker, a craftsman, a carpenter—probably a good carpenter. The 1st thing is that he carried out what our
opening prayer calls “the law of work for the human race.” That may sound a little bit like drudgery or
even servitude—work is a law! But our
reading from Genesis spoke of the 1st man and woman, Adam and Eve, in the
garden of Eden before they sinned and
were punished. God shows them the
beautiful world he’s created for them—the animals, the fish, the birds, the
plants, and everything else—and tells them to “subdue” this creation. That means some form of work—not as a
punishment, not as a burden, not as servitude, but as a share in all God’s
creative work. They’re put in charge as
his agents to keep things in good shape.
Everything around them on which they will continue God’s own work is his
gift to them. They are to be co-creators
with God thru what they do.
That’s
what St. Joseph did; he worked with God’s materials—wood and tools and maybe
other materials. Undoubtedly part of his
work was also to repair the tools of the people of Nazareth, like plow handles,
ax handles, and parts of weaving looms, the tools with which other people would
be able to do their work.
Work
has its own dignity, a dignity that belongs to it, that lives within it. God worked, as we heard in Genesis, and he asks
us to work along with him. St. Joseph
models this just by being a good carpenter.
He’s an example and patron for us, not because we’re carpenters; none of
you do carpentry as your job, right? Most
of us have something resembling an office job.
But we’re people who use God’s gifts in some creative, productive
way—even in office work, school work, music, and teaching. If we don’t do much work with our hands as a
carpenter does, we work with machines and paper and electronic gadgets, and
above all with our minds—all things that come, ultimately, from God for us to
use to “subdue” what’s around us and so make our lives and our world better.
The
2d thing St. Joseph did was to pass on his skill. He taught the carpenter’s craft to Jesus,
which is the way everyone lived and worked in the 1st century anywhere in the
world. Boys learned a skill from their
fathers: how to farm or fish or care for
sheep, how to make pottery or benches or ironware, and how to be fathers. Girls learned household skills from their
mothers: how to weave and sew, cook and
bake, nurse a sick child, and how to be mothers. All children learned social and family skills
from their parents. So Jesus learned
from St. Joseph and Mary.
You,
my young friends, learn similar things, and so much more, from your parents,
teachers, coaches, and work supervisors.
In that, you’re like Jesus at St. Joseph’s side. But you older students are like St. Joseph
when you guide your younger schoolmates or younger siblings, helping them learn
important life skills, as eventually most of you will also do for your own
children.
In
our prayer this morning, we didn’t just observe that St. Joseph is an example
and patron for us. We actually prayed
that “God, Creator of all things,” will help us “complete the works” he’s “set
us to do”—whatever our work is now and will be in the future, whatever his plan
for each of us may be, by which we’ll continue, with God, to create the world,
to make the world better and happier:
works that may include learning and teaching, parenting, craftsmanship,
engineering, health care, social work, entertainment, a vocation in the Church,
any career—all noble work, as St. Joseph shows us.
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