Day 5: Patron of Workers

On the fifth day of the Saint Joseph Novena, we contemplate Saint Joseph as the patron of all Christian labor. The Gospels tell us that Saint Joseph was a tekton (Mark 6:3, Matthew 13:55), traditionally rendered carpenter. He worked with his hands. He earned his bread by his labor. He provided for his family by the daily work of his trade. The dignity of human work as a participation in God's creative providence is sealed by the fact that the Eternal Son of God spent thirty years working at the workbench beside Saint Joseph.

Today's meditation

Pope Pius XII established the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker on 1 May 1955, deliberately positioning the Catholic feast of human labor against the secular celebrations of May Day in the Communist world. The intention was clear: the dignity of human work is grounded in the Christian doctrine of the human person and is not the property of any political ideology. Saint Joseph, the worker of Nazareth, is the icon of the Catholic understanding of labor.

Pope Saint John Paul II's encyclical Laborem Exercens (1981) develops the Catholic theology of work at length. The first principle is that work is for man, not man for work. The second is that work has a particular dignity because it is a participation in God's own creative activity. The third is that the rights of workers (just wages, safe conditions, the freedom to associate, the protection of family time and the Lord's day) are grounded in the dignity of the human person who is the worker. All of this theology is, in iconographic terms, the theology of Saint Joseph at his workbench.

Today's intention

Today, place under Saint Joseph's patronage all the work of your life and the work of those you love. Pray particularly for those who are unemployed, for those whose work is precarious or exploitative, for those preparing for a career change, for those who are starting a business, for those in retirement who are searching for the meaning of the next phase of life. If you are praying this novena specifically for employment, this is the day to bring that intention with the most particularity.

The traditional St Joseph novena prayer

O Saint Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God, I place in you all my interests and desires. O Saint Joseph, do assist me by your powerful intercession, and obtain for me from your Divine Son all spiritual blessings, through Jesus Christ, our Lord; so that, having engaged here below your Heavenly power, I may offer my Thanksgiving and Homage to the most Loving of Fathers. O Saint Joseph, I never weary contemplating you, and Jesus asleep in your arms; I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press Him in my name and kiss His fine Head for me, and ask Him to return the Kiss when I draw my dying breath. Saint Joseph, Patron of departing souls, pray for me. Amen.

Reflection

There is a particular Catholic prayer to Saint Joseph the Worker, often added to today's novena prayer:

O glorious Saint Joseph, model of all who are devoted to labor, obtain for me the grace to work in the spirit of penance for the expiation of my many sins; to work conscientiously, putting devotion to duty before my own inclinations; to work with thankfulness and joy, considering it an honor to employ and develop, by means of labor, the gifts received from God. To work with order, peace, prudence, and patience, never surrendering to weariness or difficulties. To work, above all, with a pure intention, and with detachment from self, having always death before my eyes and the account 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 in imitation of you, O Patriarch Joseph! Such shall be my watchword in life and in death. Amen.

This prayer captures the entire Catholic theology of work as expressed through the patronage of Saint Joseph. Work is for the expiation of sins, for thanksgiving, for the development of God's gifts, for the imitation of the patriarch of Nazareth. Today, in whatever form your work takes, pray that it may be done in this Josephite spirit.

Closing prayers

Pray seven times each: the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.

Saint Joseph the Worker, pray for us.