May 01 2017 - St. Joseph the Worker - Work without grumbling

I bet if I were to take a poll, every single one of us at some time have “grumbled” through our work. We’ve been asked by a parent or by an employer to do some chore or job that we didn’t want to do, (cleaning your room, shoveling the snow from the driveway, mowing the lawn, removing the dog droppings from the yard), and we’ve found ourselves grumbling, complaining, moaning, griping, throughout the chore; perhaps we even protested, raising some objection of why we shouldn’t have to do the work.

In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul says, “Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like lights in the world”.

Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. He is known as a worker, for one because we know his trade, he was a carpenter, and he worked as a carpenter to provide for the Holy Family. He is also a worker because he cooperated with the work God did to save our souls.

As a worker, in both our common labors and our labor for souls, St. Joseph gives us all an example. In the Scriptures, we never see him complaining or grumbling or protesting the work God calls him to, like so many of us do so often. In fact, in the scriptures St. Joseph barely says a word. And that is a good example for all of us. When we are called to do some difficult work, it is good to keep quiet.

St. Joseph teaches us HOW we should work. As we do our chores or household jobs, instead of grumbling, we should pray, we should keep our minds fixed on Jesus, fixed on all that he suffered that we may have eternal life, fixed on the example of the saints, fixed on the holy truths of our faith.

For his work, St. Joseph shines, like St. Paul says, as a light for the world. And when we do the work God calls us to, so do we. This also reminds us that we should never ask others to do for us, what we should do for ourselves. That’s laziness. Every time we don’t do what we should do, our souls weaken a bit, the light in our souls darkens. It’s not wrong to ask for help when it is needed, but we shouldn’t be lazy.

May St. Joseph the Worker continue to teach us to be free from the sort of laziness and selfishness which dims the light of God in our souls and help us to labor always and everywhere for the glory of God and salvation of souls.