Homily for the Feast of St Joseph the Worker

 + “Idleness is the enemy of the soul. The brethren, therefore, must be occupied at certain hours in manual labour, and again at other hours in sacred reading,” St Benedict enjoins his monks. (Rule, Ch. 48)
 
This insistence on manual labour in monastic life often comes as a surprise, perhaps even as a shock, to some aspirants—singing the Divine Office and celebrating the other sacred rites with solemnity and beauty is attractive. Time spent in study brings its reward. But ‘hands-dirty’ manual work is hard and unglamourous. And it is often something to which the young traditionally-minded vocation enquirer is quite unused.
 
And yet, St Benedict insists upon it. Hence the popular Benedictine motto “prayer and work”. And as any monk who perseveres in life according to the Rule comes to know and treasure, manual work has a value that is far greater than its utilitarian ends—affording opportunities to offer sacrifices for particular intentions, to perform penances for one’s sins, to give freely of oneself in fragrant obedience for a good one may not fully yet appreciate, etc. For the monk, therefore, manual work takes its rightful place alongside prayer and study as an integral part of the monastic diet and can (indeed it should!) itself become prayer—an efficacious and truly worthy 'prayer of the hands,’ as it were.
 
There are those who belittle such work and believe it ‘too ordinary’ for people of a superior class or education. Indeed, their voice echoes in the Gospel of this Holy Mass, deriding our Blessed Lord as “the carpenter’s son.” What would He know? What could He know? He is a carpenter!
 
Here we enter into those mysterious years of our Lord’s childhood, youth and young adulthood where—tradition teaches us—He lived and presumably worked with our Blessed Lady and St Joseph, Himself praying with His hands in the steady and worthy toil of carpentry, unknown and unnoticed. Today’s feast invites us to contemplate this reality. This can be difficult: very little is recorded about it.
 
And yet, we know this reality ourselves. The monk toils in the garden or the kitchen or the sacristy or the refectory. The mother of a family knows only too well the endless hours that must be invested in caring for a family and a home for whom a father rightly expends all his energies. We work in laboratories or offices, in construction or consultation, in presbyteries or in the world of politics, often quietly and relatively unknown, praying with our hands and our minds and other energies.
 
Some of our work is hard. Some may be quite unpleasant (blocked drains have to be unblocked by someone). Some may be challenging. Some may even bring forth in us, and from us, gifts we did not know we had, and inspire us to further achievements. But all of our work can be, indeed all of our work should be, prayer—that is, it should be offered to Almighty God in reparation, in supplication, in thanksgiving, in adoration to He who has given us the gift of life and to Whom all our efforts for the good should lead and give glory.
 
Working with one’s hands leads inevitably to cuts and bruises and other injuries. Without doubt St Joseph had occasion to bind up a bruised finger or a cut hand—his own, or our Lord’s. Working to create something new and good involves the risk of making mistakes which can injure us, perhaps even scar us permanently. But no carpenter gives up because of a cut or other injury. The work of reparation, of supplication, of giving thanks to Almighty God for all of His gifts and in adoring Him as worthily as we are able—as we seek to do in these ancient rites—requires effort and perseverance (particularly when some are trying to forbid even this!). But, as our Lord teaches, “No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Lk 9:62) What we have begun, we must at all costs strive to finish.
 
My brothers and sisters, in the Epistle of this Holy Mass the Church teaches us in the words of St Paul: “Whatever your task, work heartily, as serving the Lord and not men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you are serving the Lord Christ.” This truth invites us to consider anew the work we must do each day and, with St Joseph and his Foster Son, to take it up with renewed fervour, in silence and humility, but with the confidence that it is indeed prayer, the very prayer of our hands, which we can—which indeed we must—offer to Almighty God in reparation, supplication, thanksgiving and adoration on our own behalf, for the Church and for the world. St Joseph: assist us in this most noble of works!
Amen. +