Just as Mary points to her Son as the way—”Do what he says”—Joseph’s commitment and dedication point to Jesus as the ultimate, true guide for all of us.
The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker strikes a chord that reverberates through the body and soul of every reflective Catholic boy or man. Without denying the contributions women have made in every era, Catholic men sitting in parish pews across the world invariably cast their gaze on the statue of St. Joseph because it communicates meaning and purpose.
St. Joseph’s gifts and vocation
The spouse of Mary and designated temporal father of Jesus connects our work-life efforts to the transcendent. Following Joseph’s lead, his son divinized our work efforts in the home, on the job, for ourselves and others.
Joseph’s sturdy, quiet image projects the authority of a father and the gentleness of a husband who wants what is true, beautiful, and good for his loved ones. Reflective faithful single men, husbands, and fathers hope to emulate Joseph’s love for Jesus and Mary within their own families.
Just as Mary points to her Son as the way—”Do what he says”—Joseph’s commitment and dedication point to Jesus as the ultimate, true guide for all of us. As the Gospels of Matthew and Luke attest, both Joseph and Mary traced their lineage to the patriarchs who lead the Israelites throughout their history, in good times and bad. Chosen by the Father and with the work of the Holy Spirit, Mary and Joseph became the earthly guardians and teachers of the Son.
Many statues depict St. Joseph holding a wooden staff or a long-stemmed lily that both represents a staff and a sign of Joseph’s purity. The blossoming lily/staff alludes to the blossoming staff of Aaron which signified God’s choice of the men of the tribe of Levi to serve as the chosen people’s priests (Num 17).
Recall Moses’s encounter with the burning bush (Ex 3-4). God told Moses to throw his staff to the ground. It became a serpent, but when God told Moses to pick it up by its tail it became his staff again. The Scripture later calls it the “staff of God.” Moses uses it to part the Red Sea (Ex 14). At Rephidim, Moses holds it up with the help of Aaron and Hur to defeat the Amalekites (Ex 17). He also uses it to strike a rock for the Israelites to drink water at Massah and Meribah (Ex 17).
David only had his staff, a sling, and five rocks when he slew Goliath (1 Sam 17).
The Ark of the Covenant held a gold jar of manna, the tablets of the Ten Commandments, and Aaron’s staff that bore buds and almonds (Heb 9:4). The image of Joseph and his staff reminds us of our salvation history.
Given our faith, the staff symbolizes the truth of God’s protection, guidance, and loving authority as opposed to our human frailty, waywardness, and self-indulgence.
In other depictions, St. Joseph adores the baby Jesus at the Nativity, holds the child Jesus in his arms, or works with the young Jesus at his side. St. Joseph’s quiet, steady, and loving presence offers every Catholic a source of inspiration.
The denial of the transcendent, the importance of St. Joseph
In the late 19th century, May 1 became a day for marches, demonstrations, speeches, and political efforts to rally workers and their families across the globe, especially with the demand for an 8-hour workday.
The impetus for the May 1 date came in the wake of the 1886 Hay Market Affair in Chicago, where policemen and demonstrators died from a bombing and an exchange of gunfire. Eight alleged perpetrators were found guilty of the bombing, four were executed, but others were ultimately pardoned. International socialist groups and labor unionists marked May 1 as a day for annual labor demonstrations and it remains a day to remember the needs and rights of workers across the globe.
The Church, however, had long recognized that Marxian materialism and determinism rejected God and, therefore, denied the transcendent character of faith-filled work and home life. In 1955, Pope Pius XII established May 1 as the feast of St. Joseph the Worker to remind Catholics and others that Jesus benefited from his parents’ efforts and toil, and his life sanctified work for all of us. Our spiritual nature and our capacity for self-transcendence make work meaningful and bearable.
The Church, moreover, teaches that every human being has equal dignity, while affirming the obvious fact that we are not all equal. Postmodernist activists and their enablers want the world to live by their “nonbinary” mantra, which is another attempt to stifle our spiritual nature and to live solely for immediate material ends.
The Scriptural accounts of Joseph and Mary continue to present and raise up their God-given gifts and vocations. By loving the Father, each other, and the Son, their example continues to manifest the sacred and spiritual to us.
The postmodern challenge to St. Joseph
Many postmodernists mistakenly want us to believe that women and men are biologically and physiologically the same (nonbinary), and therefore promote one’s freedom and will to “transition” from one sex to another. Thus, belying the obvious. Their embracing of “transitioning” requires their recognition and acceptance of the two sexes.
While we are made of the same flesh and bone, faith and reason point out the complementarity of men and women, as well as this complementarity’s importance for procreation and self-preservation. The iconic image of the Holy Family is eternal. To live it is to affirm one’s gifts and vocation by serving others, that is, to transcend oneself for the good of others. To be open to unconditional truth, love, goodness, beauty, and being, is to be a loving person.
If Catholics struggle to embrace the ethos of the Holy Family, then they need to continue to reflect and pray to the God who created them and loves them. With perseverance, patience, and trust in Providence, as modeled by Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, they will discover their meaning and purpose. But the discovery requires surrendering one’s liberty, memory, understanding, and will to God. This is the path to true happiness.
Today’s nonbinary moment and its distortions will not hold; vigilant and responsible parents, teachers, and communities must protect and defend children. The postmodern philosophical rejection of all narratives is a narrative—moreover, a godless narrative. The nonbinary advocates are pushing their peculiar and dangerous narrative on others, without calling it a narrative. To stand up to their bullying requires the love and fortitude of a St. Joseph, husband, father, and worker.
Faithful Catholics will acknowledge historical, social, and political injustices committed against people and will work for justice, with faith and reason. But they will always accept the Creator’s natural order in the complementarity of the sexes.
Postmodernism is a narrative of subjectivism and relativism. Nonbinary advocates champion a future society without rules and boundaries, but, in effect, they want to construct a society with their rules and boundaries. For example, they will establish boundaries that deny parents authority over their children. They live off of the convoluted thinking of Michel Foucault that made madness and sexual licentiousness new norms. They encourage a state of certain uncertainty (constant doubt) with the confusing language and text of Jacque Derrida. Yet, Derrida had to live his reality (day-to-day life) conceding to forms, concepts, and social conventions, including language.
The postmodernists have followed Friedrich Nietzsche’s so-called will to power to force their faithless “social construct” on the rest of us. This mistaken thinking, over time, will inevitably fail, just as the logical positivism of the 20th century met its logical end by the law of non-contradiction. Postmodernists are materialists, living in an affluent space and time, who mistakenly believe that promoting the sensual and eliminating the spiritual will bring people fulfillment.
Paul VI’s Humane Vitae was correct, procreation should not be separated from human sexuality. The nonbinary promoters are not responding to a God who created them, loves them, and only asks for love in return. Pope Francis has referred multiple times to genderism as a new form of “colonization.”
Masculinity and truth
Reflecting on St. Joseph the Worker, the Church presents a man with goodwill, discipline, and courage. In a gender-focused world, these characteristics are too often lost in the smear of masculine toxicity.
Women have made great strides and contributions to work life in the modern era. They have more opportunities than ever before, and their gifts are evident to anyone who thinks. Amid these successes, academics and social commentators are questioning the swing of the education and employment pendulum to a degree that significantly displaces males.
Almost 25 years ago, Christina Hoff Sommers wrote The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies are Harming Our Young Men. She described the challenges they faced in school and life while underscoring their importance to America’s future. She concluded that academics, administrators, and teachers discouraged the competitiveness and exuberance found in boys, in essence deconstructing them. She cited literature reviews of scientific studies “showing a strong biological basis for many gender differences.” Hoff Sommers found that boys needed more discipline than girls. They needed “conventional male socialization” from her perspective but not a disregard for their manhood.
In 2022, Richard Reeves published Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It. In his analysis, the U.S. educational system is structured against boys, and traditional male jobs will continue to disappear. He points out that today 58% of bachelor’s degrees go to women. Although the traditional role of the “male breadwinner” will not return, society can find the means to support boys and men.
Commenting that men are not “toxic,” he argues for a “positive vision of masculinity that is compatible with gender equality.” Other recommendations include starting boys later in school because “chronological age and developmental age are different for boys and girls,” preparing males for higher-paying work in the growing fields of health care, administration, and education (especially hiring more male teachers), and increasing the number of technical schools. He argues for equal paid leave for the care of children, a “symmetrical contribution.”
Reeves says that a child’s life is improved when a father who lives outside the home stays in contact. But I would add that the cultural acceptance of divorce has made this a challenging and imperfect solution. I venture that in his heart and mind he recognizes the advantage of a culture that respects marriage and its relationship to the transcendent.
The example of St. Joseph the Worker remains valid and vibrant because a life committed to love and truth is timeless. The sanctity of a marriage between a man and a woman is the source of the vital cell of every society, the family. Priests, religious men and women, and Catholic laity have a responsibility to live and teach the truth.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
(Editor’s note: This essay was posted originally on May 1, 2023.)
Sources:
Christina Hoff Sommers, The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies Are Harming Our Young Men, Simon & Schuster revised edition, (New York: 2000).
Maurice Mescheler, SJ The Truth About Saint Joseph: Encountering the Most Hidden of Saints, Sophia Institute Press, (Manchester, New Hampshire: 2017).
Richard Reeves, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do about It, Brookings Institution Press, (Washington, D.C.: 2022).
Robert Spitzer, S.J., Finding True Happiness: Satisfying Our Restless Heart, Ignatius Press (San Francisco: 2015).
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