Saint Joseph the
Worker, Man of Faith and Prayer
Homily of H. H.
John Paul II
Termoli, Italy
March 19, 1983
1. "The
favors of the Lord I will sing forever" (Ps 89:1). The words
of the Responsorial Psalm which has just been proclaimed
rise spontaneously to my lips as I gaze at this magnificent
assembly of yours, beloved brothers and sisters of the
Churches of Termoli and Larino, Campobasso, Isernia and
Trivento, who have gathered here to meet me, a pilgrim in
your land, and to manifest -- with your presence, with your
voice, with your song -- the joy of being a living part of
the one flock of Christ.
Yes, I give thanks to the Lord for the demonstration of
faith that you offer me in this meeting, in which I can have
direct contact with the population of Molise, strong and
generous from the ancient traditions of industriousness,
honesty, faithful attachment to the religion of your
fathers. I give thanks to the Lord and I address to you my
most cordial greeting.
A greeting first of all to your Bishop, our venerated
brother Cosmo Francesco Ruppi, who has guided the combined
Dioceses of Termoli and Larino for about three years. I know
that today's meeting takes place within the program of the
pastoral visit that he is making to the various communities
in which this portion of Christ's flock entrusted to him
lives, and with joy I have learned of the reawakening of the
faith that is taking place in the dioceses thanks to the
apostolic commitment of the priests, religious and laity.
May my coming among you serve to strengthen the promising
first fruits of this renewed springtime of Christian life.
I greet also the bishops of the other dioceses of Molise and
the Region of Abruzzo, who have wanted to take part in this
Eucharist in order to attest to their bonds of fraternal
communion that link their Churches with the Successor of
Peter. I thank them and entrust to them the task of bringing
to their respective populations the assurance of my
affection and my prayer.
Special greetings
I address a respectful and cordial greeting likewise to the
authorities of every rank and grade assembled here,
particularly to the mayors of the 136 municipalities of
Molise, who have wished to honor this meeting of ours with
their presence. In expressing grateful appreciation for this
courteous gesture, I like to read in it the expression of
the sincere intention to collaborate with the Church, within
the limits of their respective competences, in attaining
those objectives of civic progress desired by the best
forces of this noble and often sorely tried region.
Finally, I wish to address a special greeting to the Italo-Albanian
and Slav communities who for almost four centuries have
lived in the Dioceses of Termoli and Larino, carrying on
their line of fidelity to the Gospel of Christ and to the
Church founded by him. I hope that, drawing from the rich
heritage of their traditions, they will be able to persevere
in this commitment of active Christian consistency so that
the torch of faith may be passed on, always burning and
shining, to the generations to come.
By the work of his own hands
2. Today the Church is honoring St. Joseph, the "just man",
who in the humility of the shop in Nazareth by the work of
his own hands, provides support for the Holy Family. Today,
therefore, is above all the day of men of work. To you,
therefore, workers, farmers, artisans, fishermen, to you
workers of the land and the sea, who with daily sweat earn
what is necessary for your families, I wish to address in a
special way my thought and my word in order to point out for
your reflection the example of one who, having shared your
experience, can understand your problems; take up your
anxieties, direct your efforts toward the building of a
better future.
Saint Joseph stands before you as a man of faith and prayer.
The Liturgy applies to him the word of God in Psalm 89: "He
shall say of me, 'You are my father, my God, the rock, my
Savior'" (v. 27). O yes: how many times in the course of
long days of work would Joseph have raised his mind to God
to invoke him, to offer him his toil, to implore light,
help, comfort. How many times! Well then, this man, who with
his whole life seemed to cry out to God: "You are my
father", receives this most special grace: the Son of God on
earth treats him as his father.
Joseph invokes God with all the ardor of his soul as a
believer: "my Father", and Jesus, who worked at his side
with the tools of a carpenter, addressed him calling him
"father".
A profound mystery: Christ, who as God directly experienced
the divine fatherhood in the bosom of the Most Blessed
Trinity, had this experience as a man through the person of
Joseph, his foster father. And Joseph in his turn, in the
home in Nazareth, offered the child who was growing beside
him the support of his well-balanced virility, his
far-sightedness, his courage, his gifts which every good
father has, deriving them from that supreme source "from
whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name"
(Eph 3:15).
The great role of fatherhood
A great role, this role of fatherhood, which not a few
parents today have tried to abdicate, opting for a
relationship on a par with their children, which ends up
depriving the children of that psychological support and
that moral backing which they need to successfully get
through the precarious stage of childhood and early
adolescence. Someone has said that today we are experiencing
the crisis of a "fatherless society". We notice ever more
clearly the need to be able to count on fathers who can
fulfill their role, combining tenderness with seriousness,
understanding with strictness, camaraderie with the exercise
of authority, because only in this way will children be able
to grow harmoniously, overcoming their fears and preparing
themselves to meet courageously the unknown factors in life.
But where, dear fathers, will you be able to draw the energy
necessary to assume in various circumstances the right
attitude that your children, even without knowing it, expect
from you? Saint Joseph offers you the answer to this: it is
in God, the source of all fatherhood, it is in his way of
acting with men, which is revealed to us by Sacred Scripture
that you can find the model of a fatherhood capable of
making a positive impression on the educational process of
your children, not smothering their spontaneity on the one
hand, nor abandoning their still immature personality to the
traumatizing experiences of insecurity and loneliness on the
other.
Specific moral value
3. Joseph and his most chaste spouse, the Virgin Mary, did
not abdicate the authority that was theirs as parents. It is
very significantly said of Jesus in the Gospel: ". . . and
he was obedient to them" (Lk 2:51). A "constructive"
obedience, which the walls of the home in Nazareth
witnessed, since it is also said in the Gospel that thanks
to that obedience, the Child "progressed steadily in wisdom,
age and grace before God and men" (ibid. 52)
In this human growth Joseph guided and supported the boy
Jesus, introducing him to the knowledge of the religious and
social customs of the Jewish people and getting him started
in the carpenter's trade, whose every secret he had learned
in so many years of practicing it. This is an aspect that I
feel compelled to stress today: Saint Joseph taught Jesus
human work, in which he was an expert. The Divine Child
worked beside him, and by listening to him and observing
him, he too learned to manage the carpenter's tools with the
diligence and the dedication that the example of his foster
father transmitted to him.
This too is a great lesson, beloved brothers and sisters: if
the Son of God was willing to learn a human work from a man,
this indicates that there is in work a specific moral value
with a precise meaning for man and for his self-fulfillment.
In the Encyclical Laborem Exercens, I mentioned precisely
that "through work man not only transforms nature, adapting
it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a
human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes more a human
being" (n. 9)
How can we not recognize then the great dignity of work,
whatever kind it may be in its concrete expression? How can
we not see the fundamental role that it fulfill in the life
of the individual, of the family, of society? Unfortunately,
greed and egoism have often pushed men to abuse the
intellectual and physical talents of their fellow men and to
impose upon them working services that are revealed in
various ways to be harmful to their personal dignity.
Against these deteriorations of labor relations unions
justly arise to defend those whose legitimate rights they
see trampled.
If this is just and merits approval, an attitude would be
incomprehensible that would succeed in questioning work as
such, not recognizing its providential role' indicated in
the first Biblical command: "Subdue the earth!" (cf. Gen
1:28). This role Saint Joseph recognized and accepted in his
life, transmitting to the young Jesus who was growing at his
side the spirit of joyful readiness with which he resumed
his daily task every morning. For this too Saint Joseph
stands before the Christian people as a shining model of
life, to whom every father can and must look in the concrete
choices that are imposed upon him by the responsibility of a
family.
Call on St. Joseph
4. "I have made you father of many nations" (Rom 4:17), was
proclaimed a short time ago in the First Reading of the
Mass. The words which God spoke to Abraham, at the time
already old and still without offspring, the Liturgy applies
today to Saint Joseph, who did not have any carnal offspring
at all. And we who are reflecting on his personal
experiences can quite appreciate the suitability of this
approach. After having been a special instrument of Divine
Providence with regard to Jesus and Mary, above all during
Herod's persecution, Saint Joseph continues to carry out his
providential and "fatherly" mission in the life of the
Church and of all men.
"Father of many nations": the devotion with which Christians
of every part of the world, encouraged in this by the
Liturgy, turn to Saint Joseph to confide their troubles to
him and to implore his protection confirm the singular fact
of this limitless fatherhood.
Therefore look with confidence to Saint Joseph, you men and
women of Molise and Abruzzo, persevering in a devotion that
is so deeply inscribed in the traditions of your ancestors.
Is he not a magnificent example for every committed lay
person who within the parish and the various ecclesial
movements wants to give courageous witness to Christ?
Have recourse to St. Joseph, particularly you priests and
religious, you consecrated souls, who in his virginal
chastity and spiritual fatherhood see the highest ideals of
your vocation reflected. He teaches you love for meditation
and prayer, generous fidelity to commitments assumed before
God and the Church, selfless dedication to the community in
which Providence has placed you, however small and unknown
it may be. In the light of his example you will be able to
learn and appreciate the value of all that is humble,
simple, hidden, of what is accomplished, without show and
without clamor, but with decisive results, in the
unfathomable depths of the heart.
And you, families of today, who are experiencing rapid
changes in modern society and suffering their sometimes
worrying repercussions, you can find in the family of
Nazareth, which Joseph watched over with anxious care, the
ever-present model of a community of persons in which love
assures an understanding that is daily renewed. Invoking
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the members of every family of your
ecclesial communities can rediscover in the various moments
of their lives the joy of the reciprocal gift, the comfort
of solidarity in trials, the serene peace of those who know
how to count on the omnipotent, even if mysterious, Divine
Providence.
"He shall say of me, 'You are my father'". Like Saint
Joseph, you too must invoke the heavenly Father with
persevering and fervent prayer, and you will experience, as
he did, the truth of the following words of the Psalm:
"Forever I will maintain my kindness toward him, and my
covenant with him stands firm" (Ps 89:29).
© L'Osservatore
Romano
