BY ATTY. REX S. SALVILLA
EVERY May 1, we celebrate Labor Day, the feast day of St. Joseph the Worker.
In his Litany, we pray to him as Model of Workmen. What made him so?
Answer: his obedience and faithfulness to God and his patience in performing his work.
In the Bible, we had not read him uttering a single word although he suffered much in his obedience and faithfulness to God. He simply worked in silence and came out very successfully in his Divine Mission.
When they were in Bethlehem “looking for a room at the inn” for Mary to deliver the Holy Child, they were refused. Without complaining, he settled for a dirty stable which he patiently converted into a decent place visited by the shepherds and the Magi.
During the presentation of the Child Jesus at the temple, Joseph heard the prophet Simeon saying the heart of Mary will be pierced by a sword of sorrow. He took this in silence without complaining.
When the angel told him in a dream to flee from the sword of Herod to faraway Egypt, without much ado he left together with Mary and Jesus before the light of day broke.
As complete strangers in Egypt, they lived poorly for some years without complaining, too.
Back to their home town of Nazareth, one time they went to Jerusalem where the Child Jesus, already 12 years old, was lost with Joseph and Mary sorrowfully searching for him for three days. Not a word of complain was heard from Joseph. They later found Jesus at the temple amidst the doctors of the Jewish religion.
Back again to Nazareth, as a poor carpenter faithfully and diligently working, Joseph silently supported the daily subsistence of Mary and Jesus without complaining until he died few a years before Jesus started His public ministry.
Suffering all these in silence in obedience to his Divine Mission of caring for Mary and Jesus, Joseph was extremely successful.
This is a good spiritual food for the workers. Instead of complaining about their situation, why don’t they turn to God?
Godless communism turned to man (Lenin, an atheist) for solutions to their poverty, not to God for they do not believe in God.
Until Communist Russia collapsed, the workers have not improved a bit. So worker, instead of shouting to man to save you, pray to God like St. Joseph for your welfare.
The best example is our own EDSA Revolution. It was not won by turning to man to solve our problems. We turned to God praying especially to the Holy Rosary and other prayers. And the result is now history.
Like St. Joseph, let us not turn to man by shouting in the streets but to God by praying in silence./PN
