St. Joseph the Worker
Patron of workers, laborers, craftsmen
On the first of May, 1955, Pope Pius XII established the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker in answer to communist May Day celebrations, proclaiming that the dignity of work belongs to the carpenter of Nazareth before it ever belonged to any ideology. Joseph is the silent saint of the Gospels — not a single word of his is recorded — and yet through his ordinary trade he taught the Son of God how to hammer and saw, how to live by the work of his hands. The feast unites the Christian worker to the Holy Family and stands as a permanent answer of the Church to the question of labor.