St Joseph and the Sacred nature of work
Are you a Saint where you live and work? The nature of work is sacred. Sacramental. Jesus worked with Joseph, his foster father, for the better part of thirty years.
All of us have a spark of God in us. What we do with that Divine spark is our spirituality. We need to find ways to balance our lives and our jobs. God is in the noise, crowds and complexities of life. We do not find him only in retreats and solitude.
St Joseph is the model to help us balance our everyday work with our spirituality. In the Gospels, St. Joseph does not say a single word. In his quiet strength he provided for and protected his family, whether that meant fleeing to Egypt during the night or working in the humble shop in Nazareth.
St Joseph was very concrete in his actions. He was never loud or boastful. Always he sought to do God’s will. Joseph would have observed the Sabbath, resting well as God commanded. We can imitate that in today’s world.
I have written about the sacred nature of work before. My parents had their fields and workbenches and bedrooms blessed. We prayed grace before and after meals, and some of our parents’ generation would go into a church to propose marriage. That was their way of making everyday actions sacred.
You and I have the opportunity to do this by offering our works, activities and our very lives to the Lord daily and on Sunday mornings when we gather as a community. As a child I was taught to say a morning offering that gathered my prayers, works, joys and sufferings daily and united them to the sufferings of Jesus for the salvation of all.
Offering our daily efforts as prayer has the added bonus of turning our joyful activities into prayer. Our leisure pursuits, be they artistic or routine, are all for the glory of God. The pure joy of using God’s gifts in some creative work can describe our leisure activities or, if we are fortunate, our daily work.
Sunday morning worship turns our daily offerings into a weekly offering united to our monetary donations on the altar of God so that our life’s work is sanctified. This routine goes back to Old Testament offerings. The same Lord accepts it all and blesses our lives.
How important is this Sunday ritual to our life’s meaning? Bertrand Russell a renowned atheist said, "Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless." Daily prayer and Sunday offerings help make our lives sacred.
In a Knights of Columbus video series Into the Breach – The Dignity of Work we hear: Work is significant. Imagine every task Joseph worked on. “Open your heart to what God is calling you to do. When you put your heart and your mind and your faith together to drive your life, whatever work that is, that’s where you’ll find joy.”
Our job affects many. Our work contributes to the right ordering of the world. And in all these ways we help build up God’s kingdom on earth. Yes, we work to earn a living, but our work also contributes to the common good, and that’s God's beautiful plan for work.” (The Dignity of Work).
“Jesus Christ wants us to understand that work is sanctifying, that work is holy, that work brings order to chaos, that work brings family together, community, society, culture,” says Father Dominic Couturier of the Diocese of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
(592 words)
