St Joseph the Worker

St Joseph the Worker

Growing up Catholic and Mexican had its perks. Your birthday was celebrated, but you also had a second birthday, that of the feast day of the saint you were named after. Unfortunately, in my family, all of the children were named after whatever saint happened to be the saint of the day on the day that we were born. My brother Patrick was born on March 17th. My sister Juanita was born on the feast of St. John. I was born on May 1st, the feast of St. Joseph the Worker. We kind of got gypped out of a second birthday. My father was a frugal man.

            Still, St, Joseph was one of the big three saints after the Blessed Virgin Mary and before St. Peter. I was in good company. I was always made a big fuss over because my saint was pretty famous, not like one of those secondary saints like St. Clara or worse, St. Christopher who was decommissioned in 1969, the papal see determining that there was not enough empirical evidence to support his sainthood.

            As young Catholic boys, we all wanted to be priests. We used to compete to be the holiest of the group. As kids, we were given the task in Catholic school to present our mothers on Mother’s Day with a spiritual bouquet, a handmade card promising to say so many rosaries and prayers for our mothers. We always over promised. I don’t think that I ever made good on most of those spiritual bouquets, often promising hundreds of rosaries to my mom. Now that I say the rosary every morning, I may eventually catch up. When we compared saints, mine was the big gun. I could only be trumped by a kid who was named Chuy, a nickname for Jesus, or some girl named Mary.

            In my third or fourth year of Catholic school, Sister Mary Lily, the meanest nun in our little school, gave us the task of researching our patron saints and then telling their stories to the whole class. It was a way to learn about the lives of the saints and to celebrate their works or martyrdom and perhaps learning to emulate them. Kid after kid raised their hand on the day of the presentation, starting with the day on the calendar that their saint was celebrated and proudly proclaiming why their saint mattered most. I hung back. My saint was the headliner. These other saints were simply the opening act. When my name was called, I stood up, cleared my throat and said, “My saint is St. Joseph. His feast day is May 1st and he is the stepfather of Jesus.” It had the expected effect on the class and I felt rather smug at that point, having crushed all the other saints, and then Sister Mary Lily spoke up.

            “May 1st is the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, patron saint of carpenters and working people,” she said a bit dismissively.

            I was taken aback. Had I been wrong about my saint? Some of the kids in the class began to snicker. I stood there motionless waiting for some sort of explanation.

            “Thank you, Joseph,” sister said. “You may sit down.”

            I was frozen in place. Sister peered over the top of her little half glasses and gave me that “nun” look indicating that she was done with me. I sat down, dejected. She went on to the next kid. How could I have been so wrong. Worse still, how could the church have named another saint after St. Joseph. He was one of the biggies. Another St. Joseph diluted the stepfather of Jesus’ authority. Worse still, it made me look stupid. I felt like a failure the rest of the day.

            When I got home that day, my mom could see that I was out of sorts, which was always an indication that I had done something wrong.

            “What did you do?” she asked me.

            “I shook my head ‘no’ to indicate that I had done nothing wrong.

            “Are you okay? Are you sick?” She touched her hand to my forehead to see if I had a fever. “Did something happen at school? Were those boys picking on you again?”

            I slowly lifted my head up.

            “Why didn’t you tell me that St. Joseph was a fake?” She looked surprised.

            “What are you talking about?

            “St. Joseph. He’s a fake. He’s not the stepfather of Jesus. He’s just a stupid carpenter.”

            “St. Joseph is the stepfather of Jesus and he was also a carpenter.”

            “That’s not what sister says. She said he is the patron saint of working people, not Jesus’ father.”

            “Stepfather,” my mom corrected, “and he’s both. St. Joseph was a carpenter, and he raised Jesus as his own son. He taught Jesus to be a carpenter just like he was.”

            I stood there with a blank look on my face.

            “Your birthday is May 1st. May 1st is the feast of St. Joseph the worker. St. Joseph also has an extra day, March 19th. That’s when we celebrate St. Joseph as not only the father of Jesus, but also as the husband of the Virgin Mary. If your brother had been born two days later, we would have named him Joseph.”

            “So, I get an extra birthday?” I asked excitedly.

            “Don’t get smart.”

           Years later, I looked into the whole St. Joseph the worker thing. When the industrial revolution brought changes to the workforce, mass production left many tradesmen without work. Child labor, long hours, unsafe work environments, and low wages became new problems that affected family life. In response to these new societal problems, the Church held up Saint Joseph as a model for all to emulate. In 1889, Pope Leo XIII pointed the faithful to Saint Joseph for inspiration. Unchecked capitalism began to tear families apart as money became the goal of work, rather than as a means of providing for one’s family.

Socialism presented itself as a friend of workers at the expense of religion, the family, and private ownership of property. The state took the place of God. One worked for the state, not the family. Saint Joseph did not work to get rich. He was a family man who found dignity in work and humbly provided for his family. On May 1, 1955, Pope Pius XII confronted the growing concerns posed by communism and its socialist philosophy by instituting the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. May 1 was chosen for the feast because socialist countries celebrated “International Workers’ Day” on that date. A Catholic feast, honoring the laborer in the person of Saint Joseph seemed a fitting way to combat socialist ideology and restore the dignity of labor to its proper place.

At 70, I have long returned to the faith of my childhood. While I am a poor example of St. Joseph, I strive each day to care for my small family, look after my friends and work my craft as unprofitable at it may be. I have finally found happiness in my work and I am blessed to have lived this life.