Feast of St. Joseph the Worker/Carpenter

St. Joseph the Worker/Carpenter

May 1

            This is the second major feast dedicated by the Church to Mary's husband Joseph, the human foster father of Jesus. The principal feast is on March 19, commemorating Joseph as the father and provider.

            Prior to this feast, in 1870, Pope Pius IX declared Joseph as "patron of the universal Church and instituted another feast, with an octave, to be held in his honor on Wednesday in the second week after Easter." But the said feast was abolished Pope Pius XII in 1955. Instead he inaugurated another feast, the feast we celebrate today, the feast of St. Joseph the Worker/Carpenter. Purposely, this is to counteract a Communist holiday on May 1, the May Day also known as International Worker's Day or the Labor Day "a union, workers', and socialists' holiday commemorating the Haymarket affair in Chicago." Accordingly, "the appropriateness of this new feast is grounded in that fact that Joseph was a carpenter by trade (Matthew 13:55) and trained his son Jesus as a carpenter as well (Mark 6:3)."

            It would be good to know that, since the Roman Martyrology refers this feast as the "Memory of St. Joseph the worker, who as a carpenter at Nazareth provided for the needs of Jesus and Mary by his labor, and initiated the Son of God into human work...when a holiday in honor of workers is celebrated in many countries, Christian workers venerate him as their exemplar and protector." Since, Catholic and other Christian teachings and stories about or relating to Joseph and the Holy Family frequently stress his patience, persistence, courage, and hard work."

          

Sources:

Richard P. McBrien. Lives of the Saints: From Mary and St. Francis to John XXIII and Mother Theresa. (Harper One: USA, 2001), 185 - 186.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Joseph#