Second Sunday after Easter
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Today we are celebrating two important people: St. Joseph the Worker, and our First Communicants. First, I'll speak about St. Joseph.
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| St. Joseph's Workshop in Nazareth |
Holy Mother Church chose today, 1 May, to celebrate St. Joseph as a way to combat and convert celebrations that celebrated work in a communist mentality. Pope Pius XII established the feast in 1955. While we are not communists (at least I hope no one here is!), in many ways our understanding of work is still not fully in line with the Scriptures. Many think of work as the thing to avoid at all costs, to get away from as much as possible. We even may look back at Genesis and see that God cursed Adam and Eve and told them that only by their toil would the fruits of the earth come forth. But in Christ, our understanding of work developed, no longer as a curse, but as a way that we can grow in holiness. Christ was not subject to sin, and yet He still chose to work as a carpenter with His foster-father, St. Joseph. He redeemed work as He accomplished it. And so for us, work is no longer simply a drudgery, something to be avoided as a curse, but as a way that we grow in holiness, following the pattern of our Redeemer.
This may still seem counter-intuitive. And may ring empty from a priest who just got back from a vacation. But, we see that God has given each of us gifts, and our Lord tells us that we are to use our talents to progress society, as He tells us in the parable of the talents. It is to the lazy servant that Christ has the harshest words. You have gifts and talents that I don't, that are meant to build up society and help it to grow to be more like the City of God. When we don't use those gifts and talents, society suffers. We see that, not only from our unemployment numbers, but from how our society suffers when we don't band together to make it better.
But it even affects our salvation. When we use our gifts and talents, we are giving glory to God who has given us those gifts, and letting our light shine before others. When we don't use those gifts, we are hiding them under the bushel basket. We are not to brag about our gifts, but we are to use our gifts, recognizing that, without God we cannot do anything. At the same time, rather than looking in jealousy or envy towards others, we should see that they, too, have a part to play in building up society with their gifts, just as we do with ours. Both they and we are necessary for the building up the world, whether we feel like our job is glamourous or is menial. All work has dignity, and is a means of becoming a saint. In fact, some of our more popular recent saints had very menial work, and yet are celebrated more. St. Theresa of Calcutta worked with the poorest of the poor, taking those society had rejected, those who were often treated like trash and smelled worse than trash, and embracing them with the love of Christ. Or think about our own Michigan saint, Bl. Solanus Casey. He was ordained a priest simplex, not given all of the faculties that other priests had. He was a porter at St. Bonaventure, opening the door for and greeting people. And yet how many pilgrims flock to his site and seek his intercession! I think this is a beautiful way that God elevates the humble and shows their importance, even while so many "important" priests and bishops and lay-faithful are not counted among the saints and blesseds. They may have exercised jobs that the world considered more important on earth, but an earthly perspective doesn't count for much, if anything after death.
Indeed, St. Joseph was a nobody in his own day! He toiled without making much money, but had the important role as protector of the Holy Family. While he was one of the most unknown among his contemporaries, he is numbered among the greatest of the saints, after the Blessed Mother.
My dear first communicants, St. Joseph is also a perfect model for you today as you receive our Lord for the first time in Holy Communion. St. Joseph was obedient to the will of God in caring for Christ during the time before He started His public ministry. He cared for our Lord, making sure that He was safe, and felt the love that a child should from parents. Like St. Joseph, Christ will be coming to you in a miraculous way. Holy Communion is nothing other than a miracle, the greatest miracle we have. God changes ordinary bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ so that Christ can enter the home of our heart and live there.
You, like St. Joseph, are able to welcome Christ into your home today. Our Lord will be even closer to you than He was to St. Joseph. Your "job" as it were, is to welcome Jesus into you, and live a life that shows that you want Him to continue to be a part of who you are. No one else will know, except God, how well you do that, just as no one really appreciated all that St. Joseph did while he was alive. But the better job you do at making Christ feel at home within you, the more you can look forward to an eternal home in heaven with St. Joseph many decades from now.
I encourage you to never stop loving our Lord, especially in the Eucharist. Never lose the joy that you have today at being able to receive the Lord. And when you fall into sin, let that gift of Holy Communion push you towards the Sacrament of Penance, which we often call confession, so that you can, by the grace of God, clean your house of anything that makes our Lord not feel like a welcomed guest. It is so easy to treat Holy Communion like something that is a habit, something you do every Sunday just because it's what we do. But Holy Communion is the greatest gift God can give to you, greater than any present you could ever receive.
After you have received Holy Communion and returned to your pew, make sure you thank God for the gift that you just received in the Eucharist. I imagine St. Joseph, before he went to bed each night, thanked God for another day that he was able to spend with Jesus. Each time you receive Holy Communion, thank God that you were, once more, able to receive the same Jesus for whom St. Joseph cared. In that way, you will live like St. Joseph, and receive the same reward he received for always caring for our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live for ever in heaven. Amen.
