ST. JOSEPH - THE SELF-DENYING WORKER

(THÁNH GIUSE – NGƯỜI LAO ĐỘNG XÓA MÌNH)

Author : Jorathe Nắng Tím

Translator : A. Prisca

Normally, the person who takes the role of the breadwinner in a family has some dominant rights, wants to become a member that others have to be in awe of and easily tends to control all family activities.

Looking at the Holy Family in Nazareth, we realize St. Joseph is the breadwinner who makes earn of living for the whole family, protects Mother Mary, together with her, nourishes and educates Jesus.

Actually, there are few stories about St. Joseph in all Gospels as if God wants to hide him from us and even he himself wants to self-erase voluntarily.

God wants to hide him , so we just know that St. Joseph belongs to the House of Jacobs , coming from the offspring of  David or more clearly in the Gospel of Luke : “When Jesus began his ministry he was about thirty years of age. He was the son, as was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli.” (Lk 3,23). However, no tradition tells about his parents in details like Mother Mary’s ones, Joachim & Anna.

God wants to hide him, so we just know about St. Joseph through some events of Jesus’ childhood and no more clues after the event that Jesus at the age of 12 got lost in Jerusalem at the feast of Passover (cf. Lc 2,41-50)

God wants to hide him, so we just know that St. Joseph is mentioned briefly “a righteous man” (Mt 1,19) without any other praise or commendation.

God wants to hide him, so God assigns the Angel just to appear and say to him in his dreams (cf. Mt 1,20 ; 2,13.19), unlike the way to Zechariah, that is, the angel appeared to him directly in the temple (cf. Lk 1,11) or the direct way to Mother Mary in the Annunciation. (cf. Lk 1,26)

Hidden from others by God, St. Joseph voluntarily erased himself at the early time of marriage when “unwilling to expose her to shamed, he decided to divorce her quietly” beacause he did not know “it is through the holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.” (Mt 1,20).

St. Joseph voluntarily erased himself by living quietly to fulfill his duty as the breadwinner : loving, protecting, supporting Mother Mary , nourishing and educating Jesus.

St. Joseph voluntarily erased himself by self-sacrificing before any challenges to take the family to flee to Egypt for the sake of Jesus (cf. Mt 2,13-18).

St. Joseph voluntarily erased himself by keeping totally silent in service to the family. We can find no accounts on what he has said, even after 03 days of Jesus getting lost, while Mother Mary put one question to Jesus “Son, why have you done this to us?” (Lk 2,48).

And St. Joseph erased himself dramatically through his whole life of a normal worker : breadwinner with low income ; a carpenter making and repairing structures and fixtures from wood, from making wooden tables to the installation of kitchen cabinets for the need of any people in the village; a worker of manual labor who is usually looked down on when compared to people of mental work”; a man of a low social class with little respect from the others. The evidence is shown in the fact when Jesus came back to Nazareth, despite their praise to Jesus, people from that village did not show any great eargerness, talking to one another : “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” and when they showed their disrespect and the rejection , Jesus said : “I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.” (Lk 4,22.24).

Indeed, St. Joseph lived a life of  “a righteous man”  as mentioned in the Gospel in terms of not only trusting in God to follow His Commandments but also the spirit of self-denial in service to God as an unprofitable servant who just fulfills what is obliged to do.

On the contrary to St. Joseph’s spirit of a self-denying worker, nowadays, the focus on individual interests and benefits in the modern society leads to the unfair world with social inequality : the lack of equality of outcome, the lack of equality of access to opportunity,  the unequal distribution of income or wealth and other kinds of injustice. We can see evidently  the Covid-19 outbreak has become a chance for speculators to take advantage of to store hundreds of piles of facemasks, hand sanitizer gel, toilet papers, causing to the shortage and price hikes of these kinds of goods around the world regardless of the urgent need in all hospitals.

On the Feast Day of St. Joseph the Worker, we keep in our hearts and our prayers all kind-hearted workers and laborers in the world : nice and kind in their daily lives, choosing warm-hearted behaviors, caring and honest in labor work, sacrifice in daily work for the sake of the others. Let us pray for one another so that all of us, in all kinds and types of occupation in the society, humbly and self-sacrificingly work as faithful servants of God, the kind and loving Lord.