Saturday, May 1, 2004
St. Joseph the Worker

1st Reading: Gen 1:26-2:3 or Col 3:14-15, 17, 23-24
Gospel: Mt 13:54-58

Jesus went to his hometown and taught the people in their synagogue. They were amazed and said, "Where did he get this wisdom and these special powers? Isn't he the carpenter's son? Isn't Mary his mother and aren't James, Joseph, Simon and Judas his brothers? Aren't all his sisters living here? How did he get all this?" And so they took offense at him.

Jesus said to them, "The only place where prophets are not welcome is their hometown and in their own family." And he did not perform many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

Commentary

MARK never polishes the surface of the Gospel story, as the others do. In this reading, Matthew's gospel calls Jesus "the carpenter's son" (verse 55). But Mark's gospel simply calls him "the carpenter" (6:3). He was a carpenter, of course, as well as being the son of a carpenter. Otherwise, what was he doing for thirty years? We need to celebrate Jesus the worker as well as Joseph the worker.

In the past we used to refer to manual work as "servile work". It was forbidden on Sundays. If you were an accountant you could spend all your Sundays accounting, but if you were a farmer, for example, or a carpenter, you had to remain idle. "Servile" comes from the Latin "servilis", meaning "of a slave". "Servile work" means "the work of slaves". This disdain of manual work is certainly not from the Gospel. It is from class-conscious societies that expected manual workers to be "servile" not only in their work but in their manners. It is tragic that this was ever allowed to infect Christian practice.

When Pius XII in 1955 established May 1 as the commemoration of St. Joseph the Worker, it was an attempt to steal the fire of the Communist celebration. It was a late move, because in many countries the working classes had already been lost to the Church.
We could honor St. Joseph today by consciously seeing our manual work as a way of meditation, and a way of sanctification.

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