May the Lord give you peace and good health in the Holy Spirit. WISHING YOU ALL A HAPPY WORKER’S DAY. It is May 1st, 2025.
May St. Joseph intercede for all workers and teach us how to labour with love reflect on Genesis 1:26-2:3 and Matthew 13:54-58.
We enter another new month celebrating the memorial of St. Joseph, the Worker. He is the patron of all working people, and for most of us who work, he remains a model and motivation to persevere in what God has entrusted us to do.
May St. Joseph intercede for all working people who face uncertainty and job insecurity every moment, and may he intercede for a world of equality and respect for human labour.
May we turn to St. Joseph daily, before we begin the day of work. A circus performer who made a living by pushing a wheelbarrow across a high wire would ask the crowd, “Do you believe I can do it?” and they would respond, “Oh, yes! We believe you can do it.”
Then he would ask, “So, who’s going to get in the wheelbarrow?” and there would be pin-drop silence. Pope Francis reminds us: “Work is fundamental to the dignity of a person. Work, to use an image, ‘anoints us’ with dignity, fills us with dignity, makes us similar to God who has worked and still works…” —Pope Francis, General Audience, 2015
The feast was instituted by Pope Pius XII in 1955. During the construction of a great cathedral in France, a wealthy tourist approached a janitor mopping the floor and asked, “What do you do here?”
The man smiled and replied, “I’m building a cathedral to God.” He didn’t see himself as just mopping a floor; he saw himself as part of something bigger and eternal, just like Joseph, just like you and me.
The readings shed light on the dignity of labour and the labourer. We heard from Genesis: “Be fruitful and multiply… fill the earth and subdue it.” (Gen 1:26, 28)
God wants the healthy rhythm of creation and co-creation. Work is not a punishment but a partnership with God, constructing spiritually, not merely materially.
We are all working indeed. Whom are we working for? Are we glorifying God through our work? St. Joseph worked not for recognition and appreciation from his family but with love, responsibility, and trust in God’s providence.
Every honest work, however insignificant, has value when it is offered to God. Some of us have become workaholics by giving importance to profit, productivity, and extracting the best, even at the cost of losing human dignity.
St. Joseph reminds us that human dignity is not in what we do but how we do it – with love, humility, and faith. Saint Joseph’s work reminds us of that God himself, in becoming man, did not disdain work.
It is a day we need to pray for all workers. Let us keep focused on God like St. Joseph, so we can be productive and in line with God’s plan in our lives. May God bless you abundantly. Have a lovely day.