The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker was established by Pope Pius XII in 1955.  May 1 is International Worker’s Day, or simply May Day which is a secular holiday that the Communists love because they see themselves as the Party for the worker. So, Pope Pius XII instituted this feast day to reinforce the Christian understanding of work.

I first learned that my understanding of work might not be entirely correct when I came across a statement from Jesus in Jn 6. This is after the multiplication of the loaves and he says:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. ²⁷ Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you…

Working for the food that perishes was exactly what I was doing. What is Jesus saying here?

About a year ago I gave a talk at the JP II Seminary on the vocation of the laity. I relied heavily on JP II’s Apostolic Exhortation of the same name (Christifideles Laici).

In that document he talks about the universal call to holiness; that lay people are called to the heights of holiness, and for lay people this takes place in the world. I tend to think: world bad, church good, but John Paul II is saying it is precisely in the world that lay people become holy. He goes on to say that lay people have a call and a mission to sanctify the world, and in so doing, they become holy. I’d like to illustrate what this can look like by looking at my wife’s neurosurgeon, Dr. Henderson.  

Dr. Henderson is an Evangelical Christian who performed 5 spinal surgeries on my wife. First of all, he’s an outstanding surgeon. People literally come from all over the world to see him. Second, he really cares about his patients. He works with them financially and after one really difficult surgery for Joni, he gave me his personal phone number and told me to call if I needed anything. I called 2 or 3 times because she was in so much pain and he would tell me okay try this. Third, before he goes into surgery, he would always ask Joni if he could pray with her. The first time this happened, she grabbed his hand and said “Absolutely!”

I have other examples of people who have been witnesses to me and I’ve tried to emulate them primarily in 3 ways – 1) strive for excellence. We give glory to God by excellence in our work. 2) Strive to love the people you work with, especially the difficult ones. I remember I worked with a guy who was especially difficult. He’s the kind of guy who would send you an email and then 30 seconds later send an IM asking if you had seen the email. Every day I would begin by asking the Lord to help me love this person. 3) Be open and look for opportunities to share your faith, not by preaching, but in a totally natural way; the way you might share a great experience with your family.

My guess is that most of us here will go from here to our work. I encourage all of us to do these 3 things: strive for excellence, strive to love everyone at work, be open for opportunities to share your faith.  

May God bless you all.