Today the Holy mother church celebrates ST JOSEPH THE WORKER.
The Gospel of Matthew began with the genealogy of Jesus for a particular reason. That is, to insist on the humanity of Christ, that does not interfere with his divinity. However it is pivotal to know that Jesus is both man and God.
In today’s Gospel the people asks, is this not the carpenter’s son? Matthew Henry in his commentary said “They upbraid him with his father. Is not this the carpenter's son? Yes, it is true he was reputed so: and what harm in that? No disparagement to him to be the son of an honest tradesman. They remember not (though they might have known it) that this carpenter was of the house of David (Luke 1:27), a son of David (Luke 1: 32); though a carpenter, yet a person of honor.” What then is the soteriological implication of this? St Anslem in his book Cur Deus Homo teaches that to sin is to steal God’s honor. Man sinned, thereby he stole God’s honor which is infinite. If God over looked man’s sin it will be unjust, and God is a Just God. Therefore, Man must pay, but he cannot pay because God’s honor is infinite, and man is finite, for that reason, out of divine love God became man to pay for the sin of man. It is to this that Matthew provides an explicit account of Jesus in Human history. After tracing Jesus' antecedents from Abraham down to Joseph, Joseph is shown accepting the mystery of Jesus' miraculous conception and, by giving him his name, adopting him as his own. The Messiah was to be a “son of David” indicating that a ‘man’ must save ‘man’ and the term son of Abraham was applied to Jewish people in general; as such Matthew reminds us that Jesus is a Jew whose linage is traced back to the origins through Joseph of the house hold of David Hence what we celebrate today is not just Joseph the carpenter ‘NO’ it a celebration of Joseph who co-operates with the work of redemption, that sacred work to save humanity, perhaps that explains why the Holy mother church put to us in the first reading, the Genesis account of creation not from the beginning but from verse 26 where God creates man. This creation must be sustain by man as prescribed in the office of reading this morning from the Constitution of the Vatican II council on the church in the modern world that is as men and women provides for themselves and their families, in such a way as to be of service to the community as well, they can rightly look upon their work as a prolongation of the work of the creator.
Pope Leo XIII in 1889, proposed St Joseph as a model particularly for proletarians workers. On May 1 1955, Pope Pius XII instituted the liturgical feast of St Joseph the worker and assigned it to the 1st day of May.and pointed out that he did this that all men may realize the dignity of labour By and large he is seen as an honest worker, provider of the Holy Family, chaste guardian of our savior, Husband of Mary, caretaker of the church, and father of all workers.
My brothers and sisters if we interpolate today’s feast into our community we shall see a perfect community of Jesus Mary and Joseph, where Joseph as the superior leads the community to divine union, loving the family as a Just and righteous Man, "just and righteous" means being even more. The Aramaic term for "just man" has several other connotations, which can also mean pious, quiet, kind, not given to quarreling, and that sort of thing. The term "righteous" itself means being in a right relationship with God. So there are several other things going on here besides being "just" according to the Law. He was a faithful follower of God, and personally, as far as we can tell from what we can see in the Scriptures, he was a quiet, kind, and peaceable man.
On this day as we celebrate the workers day let us be reminded that all workers are important a medical doctor will not have energy to work without food. There will be no food without farmers. Farmers also need technology to make working tools. Hence we all depend on one another . No one should look down on the other because we all are co-workers in the work of ungoing creation.
Finally , as Christians we honor St Joseph as patron of divine providence, may God’s providence never depart from us. As he provides for the holy family may he also provide our needs both spiritual and physical through Christ our lord Amen.
Rev Fr Lawrence Ogundipe Sdv.
The Gospel of Matthew began with the genealogy of Jesus for a particular reason. That is, to insist on the humanity of Christ, that does not interfere with his divinity. However it is pivotal to know that Jesus is both man and God.
In today’s Gospel the people asks, is this not the carpenter’s son? Matthew Henry in his commentary said “They upbraid him with his father. Is not this the carpenter's son? Yes, it is true he was reputed so: and what harm in that? No disparagement to him to be the son of an honest tradesman. They remember not (though they might have known it) that this carpenter was of the house of David (Luke 1:27), a son of David (Luke 1: 32); though a carpenter, yet a person of honor.” What then is the soteriological implication of this? St Anslem in his book Cur Deus Homo teaches that to sin is to steal God’s honor. Man sinned, thereby he stole God’s honor which is infinite. If God over looked man’s sin it will be unjust, and God is a Just God. Therefore, Man must pay, but he cannot pay because God’s honor is infinite, and man is finite, for that reason, out of divine love God became man to pay for the sin of man. It is to this that Matthew provides an explicit account of Jesus in Human history. After tracing Jesus' antecedents from Abraham down to Joseph, Joseph is shown accepting the mystery of Jesus' miraculous conception and, by giving him his name, adopting him as his own. The Messiah was to be a “son of David” indicating that a ‘man’ must save ‘man’ and the term son of Abraham was applied to Jewish people in general; as such Matthew reminds us that Jesus is a Jew whose linage is traced back to the origins through Joseph of the house hold of David Hence what we celebrate today is not just Joseph the carpenter ‘NO’ it a celebration of Joseph who co-operates with the work of redemption, that sacred work to save humanity, perhaps that explains why the Holy mother church put to us in the first reading, the Genesis account of creation not from the beginning but from verse 26 where God creates man. This creation must be sustain by man as prescribed in the office of reading this morning from the Constitution of the Vatican II council on the church in the modern world that is as men and women provides for themselves and their families, in such a way as to be of service to the community as well, they can rightly look upon their work as a prolongation of the work of the creator.
The feast of Saint Joseph the Worker is not a mere Catholic copying of the Communist First of May – any more than Christmas is a mere copy of the pagan feast of Saturnalia. The dates are taken over, for obvious reasons; but the content is radically different.
The Christian view of work is the opposite of the materialist view. A worker such as St Joseph is not a mere lump of labour – “1.00 human work units.” He is a person. He is created in God’s own image, and just as creation is an activity of God, so creation is an activity of the worker. The work we do echoes the glorious work that God has done. It may not be wasted; or abused; or improperly paid; or directed to wrong or pointless ends. To do any of these things is not oppression, it is sacrilege. The glory of the present economic system is when it gives so many, of whatever class, the chance to build and create something worthwhile, whether from their own resources, or in collaboration with others, or by attracting investment from others. But its shame is when that does not happen: when people are coerced, by greed or by poverty, into being “lumps of labour.” Whether the labour is arduous or not makes no difference; whether it is richly paid or not makes no difference.
Because she must combat the anti-humanist Communist heresy the Church is sometimes thought to be on the side of capital. Reading the successive Papal encyclicals on labour and society, from Rerum Novarum (1891) onwards, will soon dispel that illusion. The enemies of the Church have no reason to read them; all too often we feel too comfortable in our present economic state and refrain from reading them also.
My brothers and sisters if we interpolate today’s feast into our community we shall see a perfect community of Jesus Mary and Joseph, where Joseph as the superior leads the community to divine union, loving the family as a Just and righteous Man, "just and righteous" means being even more. The Aramaic term for "just man" has several other connotations, which can also mean pious, quiet, kind, not given to quarreling, and that sort of thing. The term "righteous" itself means being in a right relationship with God. So there are several other things going on here besides being "just" according to the Law. He was a faithful follower of God, and personally, as far as we can tell from what we can see in the Scriptures, he was a quiet, kind, and peaceable man.
On this day as we celebrate the workers day let us be reminded that all workers are important a medical doctor will not have energy to work without food. There will be no food without farmers. Farmers also need technology to make working tools. Hence we all depend on one another . No one should look down on the other because we all are co-workers in the work of ungoing creation.
Finally , as Christians we honor St Joseph as patron of divine providence, may God’s providence never depart from us. As he provides for the holy family may he also provide our needs both spiritual and physical through Christ our lord Amen.
Rev Fr Lawrence Ogundipe Sdv.
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