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Day 1 Saint Joseph Worker
Day 1 Saint Joseph Worker

Reflection on the value of work


Author: Staff | Source: Gospel: Mt 13, 54-58



Day 1 Saint Joseph Worker 
Reflection on the value of work 
By: | Source: Gospel: Mt 13, 54-58 

And when he came to his city he began to teach them in his synagogue, so that they were admired and said: 
Where do this wisdom and these powers come from? Isn't this the craftsman's son? Is not his mother Mary and her brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas called? And your sisters, don't they all live among us? So where does all this come from? 
And they were shocked at him. But Jesus said to them, 
"There is no prophet who is not despised in his land and his house." 
And he did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. 

The value of work 

Today we celebrate with the whole Church St Joseph, the husband of the Blessed Virgin and, according to Jewish law, father of Jesus, even if it were not for the usual generation of the flesh. It was not, however, Jesus but the son of his heart that the common children are his parents. Without fear of exaggeration, we can affirm that Joseph is the father of Jesus, the son of Mary always Virgin, with lofty paternity and far superior to that of the fathers who beget according to the flesh. As St. Augustine affirms, Joseph is not only owed the father's name but is owed more than to another (...), what was father like? The more profoundly father, the more chaste his paternity was. Some thought that he was the father of our Lord Jesus Christ in the same way that other fathers, who breed according to the flesh, and not only receive their children as the fruit of their spiritual affection. That's why San Lucas says: He was thought to be the father of Jesus. Why does he say he only thought? Because human thought and judgment refer to what usually happens between men. And the Lord was not born of Joseph's germ. However, to Joseph's piety and charity, he was born a son of the Virgin Mary, who was the Son of God. 
Joseph loved Jesus as we are not able to love other men. He gave the Son of God incarnate the best of himself, including the work that filled his life and supported the family God wanted to be born, grow and reach his maturity among men. That is why our Lord was known as a craftsman: the craftsman's son. And we imagined it for many years — Jesus had at the beginning about thirty years, when he began his public life, as San Lucas tells us — in his father's workshop, Joseph, and later possibly in front of it. Jesus spent most of his days on the earth working, like all men and women of good. He occupied himself in a common task, without more relief most of the time than the supernatural, for the love of God and the perfection that he put in every detail. 
Work takes up most of our time. Work that is not exclusively professional occupation strictly speaking. Work is also any other productive activity in a broad sense, which usually requires some effort on the part of the person who performs it: from answering the mail to reading a cultural article that contributes to the training itself or chatting with a child or a friend, trying to help him. 
The effort: here is the difficulty. Difficulty added to work as a result of sin. You will win the bread with the sweat of your forehead, God warned Adam in the earthly paradise, after disobedience. Having lost, by disobeying, the original innocence, the work, since then, is in a sense a penalty, a punishment to the human rebellion. Now, work hard. Any activity – even the smallest – that man undertakes for his benefit implies effort: it is working, we say, to indicate that somehow it weighs us.

The work is not spontaneously done with taste and constancy. It is almost always necessary to maintain the decision that costs the order, the punctuality, the care of the detail... It happens, on the contrary, that the easy is generally of little value and does not cover the expectations and personal requirements. All that is worth is laborious and no ideal is made reality without sacrifice..., we read on the way. It is, in any case, an effort, a sacrifice, a waiver even if we want to call it that, even if it is bearable. Ordinary, indeed, what is expected of each person in the professional field and their family and social duties is possible, reasonable. 



However, the man worked before sinning. As the Book of Genesis says, he took Lord God to the man and left him in the Garden of Eden, to be tilled and cared for. Only after the sin did the man feel the difficulty of the effort. The work of the earth would not henceforth be a comfortable task: thorns and scarlet will produce you, God assured Adam. Which, in no way deprived the work of its original grandeur, by which man had been constituted the Lord of Nature: fill the earth and subdue it, God said to Men making him lord of all earthly creation. The work thus appears as a design and gift from God to men, by which he constitutes them in the lords of the world he had created for them. 

Human activity, therefore, since it can be work almost always, is a permanent occasion to configure our existence according to the divine desire, to love God thankfully and the fullest personal development: that beloved from the beginning by our Creator. 

We ask Santa Maria to contemplate in every moment that occasion that is presented to us, unrepeatable, of living according to God. With your maternal help, we will not lack the necessary strength and we can overcome the weakness and lack of constancy that are the result of sin.








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