9.08.2017

St. Joseph, the Worker


The following Homily was given by Fr. Herbert Nicholls on September 4th, Labor Day,  at the Mother of the Light Convent

In the beginning of time, God gave us the vocation to work. It was not meant as a punishment but a means to bring creation to perfection. God actually commanded three different forms of labor:

1.      To increase and multiply – cooperating with Divine grace to bring a new generation of human persons into existence. Without God there is no respect for human life. From the very moment of its origin, to its last gasping breath, without God we are all at the mercy of one another. Without God we live until someone else decides that we have served our purpose for the good of society; and it is time that we be terminated. A world without God makes itself God.

Joseph took Mary and her child into his home and loved and cared for them. Joseph must have been a man without selfishness. The Bible says so little and yet so much when it says of Joseph: He was a just man, not just a man.

2.      To fill the earth and subdue it – to bring forth from the earth fruits and vegetables from the soil; medicines from plants and glass and computer chips from sand. God gave us this vocation to work in order to discover what it means to become more and more in His image.

The four Gospels tell us nearly nothing of the hidden years of Jesus’ life in Nazareth, but they are certainly not without importance. Most of Jesus’ life was not spent in preaching, but in laboring: making tables, chairs, maybe houses, whatever needs were presented. As He said often: He did whatever was pleasing to His Father. Though referring to His Heavenly Father, He no doubt did what was pleasing to His earthly father as well.

But skills and human formation were not the only teaching which Joseph passed on to Jesus. Joseph also knew the importance of faith formation. In these formative years, the human nature of Jesus learned to integrate human work into Divine plan. He learned to understand the meaning of the third form of labor.

3.      Have dominion over all living creatures by treating them as gifts of God. So great was Jesus’ appreciation for human work that He continued to use it in analogy to the Kingdom. Often He favorably mentions shepherds, farmers, physicians, housebuilders, servants, stewards, merchants, laborers, soldiers, cooks, tax collectors, and scholars. He compared the work of evangelization to the manual work of harvesting and fishing.

Realizing that work is so important to God, here are three suggestions on how to pray for understanding:

1.      Offer your work as a sacrifice to God as Abel did – offer anything and everything.
2.      Offer your gift for a specific intention – whether for yourself or for another, but never lift it without consciousness, intention truly makes it a Liturgy of the Hours.
3.      Many of the same virtues which we learn in prayer are the same virtues that help us to sanctify our work – perseverance, humility, doing it for the will of God. And the virtues that we learn working – punctuality, dependability, diligence, doing the best that we can, foster better prayer.

When work takes on this significance, we and our work can become the means through which God can sanctify others. That is why work is an essential part of life – not a punishment but a gift.

We have not been allowed to know when or how the life of St. Joseph came to pass. But most surely it happened in the presence of those dear to him – the Virgin Mary and Jesus, perhaps the family and towns people of Nazareth. At that time it was common for families to live closely together.

According to custom of the time the wake was held in the family home, and the nearest male kin would lead prayer. Perhaps Jesus might have prayed similar words to these:

My Father, and Father of all mercies, Father of Truth, listen to me, Your beloved  Son, who implores you on behalf of my earthly father, Joseph……by the work of Your hands, send the Archangel Michael, protecter of souls; and Gabriel, a familiar face and messenger of light to accompany the soul of my father, Joseph, until he pass beyond the straights of the terrible. This is indeed the moment in which he is in need of mercy. (History of Joseph the Carpenter, Coptic Version, 20-22)


Family is that place where we learn to put it all together and where Jesus learned to recognize God’s plan for our lives. It is the place where we learn to step out of ourselves, to accept others, to accept forgiveness…and if nothing else we might learn how to become not just a person, but a “just person”.