On Tuesday 1May we will be celebrating St Joseph the worker. St Joseph is our patron Saint. We will be having a school mass this day and we will also join in tabloid games later in the day.
A message for children, and their parents, about St. Joseph the carpenter, the foster father of Jesus, who is the patron saint of all who work . Most kids don’t enjoy doing chores. It takes time away from play time and it can be boring as well as hard sometimes, but chores are very important in a family. Everyone must do his part to help out. Not only this, there is actually happiness to be found in working because to do chores is to offer something to the ones you care about in the same way that you give someone a gift – but in the case of work, the gift that you are giving is the gift of yourself.
St. Joseph was the foster father of Jesus and he is the patron saint of workers. He is a patron of workers partly because he was a worker himself – a carpenter – but also because of the gift that he gave of himself when he agreed to take care of Mary and Jesus. Joseph and Mary were not yet married when Joseph found out that Mary had been chosen to be the Mother of God, created to give birth and take care of Jesus. Mary and Jesus would need someone to care for them. That person was St. Joseph.
Through an angel, God asked Joseph to take Mary to be his wife. This was so that Jesus could grow up in a holy family with two holy parents. It was very important that Mary and Jesus have someone to care for both of them. Joseph was a hard-working carpenter, so he was able to give Mary and Jesus the things they needed to live. Joseph gladly gave of himself to be a husband to Mary and a father to Jesus. Although it is such a big job to take care of a family, it was even more important when you consider that the family he was caring for were Mary, the Mother of God, and Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus was also a good worker.
When Jesus was a child, until it was time for him to go out into the world, he helped his foster father St. Joseph with the carpentry work that needed to be done. We know that because Jesus never sinned, he certainly would have followed God’s commandment to honour His parents. It is certain that Jesus never dishonoured St. Joseph by refusing to do the work which St. Joseph asked Him to do. Families help each other even though it sometimes requires work. If you are ever frustrated by the work that you have to do to help your family, ask Jesus and St. Joseph to help you to be strong inside so that you can put away your bad feelings about it. Ask them to help you to remember how important it is for us not to ever be lazy and, most importantly, to serve each other for the sake of God’s Kingdom.