Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Confessor
Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe
La Crosse, Wisconsin
1 May 2026
Col 3, 14-15. 17. 23-24
Mt 13, 54-58
Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
From the beginning, God created man, male and female, “in [His] image, after [His] likeness.”[1] He breathed “into [man’s] nostrils the breath of life,”[2] the life of the soul. God created man in His own image and likeness to be His co-worker in the care of all creation and, above all, of human life, in accord with the Goodness, Truth, and Beauty of His Being, and to have communion with Him through prayer and worship. God worked for six days in the creation of the world and then rested on the seventh day, contemplating the goodness of what He had created. He taught man, His co-worker, to labor for six days of the week and to rest on the seventh day, the sabbath, contemplating the truth of the origin and being of all things in God.[3] The Third Commandment of the Decalogue makes clear the fundamental importance of the observance of the Sabbath: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.”[4]
Before the sin of Adam and Eve, man rightly understood work as a participation in the being of God, bringing to fruition all that God desires for the good of man and of the whole of Creation. The rebellion against God and His plan, which is sin, corrupted man’s mind and heart. Man, thinking, in his pride, to be God, no longer understood work as obedient cooperation with God but as a punishment. We remember the words of the Lord to Adam when He expelled him from the garden of Eden after the Fall: “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken: you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”[5] We remember them especially, with the imposition of ashes at the beginning of the Lenten Season. The Lenten observance brings with it the grace of turning away from sin and of turning toward Our Lord by a true conversion of our hearts.
God the Son Incarnate, Our Lord Jesus Christ, was born into the family created by the marriage of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph the Worker, a carpenter. Mary is the Virgin Mother of God, for God the Son was conceived in her womb by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. God desired that the work of salvation, the saving work of Our Lord Jesus Christ, be carried out with man’s cooperation, even as He had made the first of promise of salvation with these words to Satan after the Fall: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heal.”[6] The Blessed Virgin Mary, preserved from all sin from the moment of her conception, is “the woman” of the promise, who cooperated with God in a singular, truly unique, manner.
Saint Joseph, her True Spouse, was one in heart with the Virgin Mary in her cooperation with the saving work of her Divine Son. All pure and just in his heart, he is the Virginal Father of Jesus, providing for the Savior a home created by his marriage to Mary. As the Mystery of the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple manifests to us, Our Lord was obedient to Mary, His Mother, and Joseph, His Virginal Father, in the home of the Holy Family at Nazareth.[7] God the Son Incarnate lived as a member of the Holy Family. He was known as “the carpenter’s son,”[8] as we have heard in today’s Gospel.
Once Our Lord Jesus had accomplished the work of our salvation, He won for us the grace to imitate the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph in their cooperation with His saving work. Thus, in today’s Epistle, Saint Paul, with total realism, exhorts us: “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”[9] It is altogether fitting that we celebrate a feast honoring Saint Joseph as a worker, for his work was a privileged manifestation of the union of his Purest Heart with the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical Letter Quamquam Pluries, “On Devotion to St. Joseph,” teaches us:
As to workmen, artisans, and persons of lesser degree, their recourse to Joseph is a special right, and his example is for their particular imitation. For Joseph, of royal blood, united by marriage to the greatest and holiest of women, reputed the father of the Son of God, passed his life in labour, and won by the toil of the artisan the needful support of his family. It is, then, true that the condition of the lowly has nothing shameful in it, and the work of the labourer is not only not dishonouring, but can, if virtue be joined to it, be singularly ennobled. Joseph, content with his slight possessions, bore the trials consequent on a fortune so slender, with greatness of soul, in imitation of his Son, who having put on the form of a slave, being the Lord of life, subjected himself of his own free-will to the spoliation and loss of everything.[10]
Honoring Saint Joseph today under his title, “the Worker,” let us ask his intercession that we may understand more profoundly the nature of all work as a cooperation with God in His care for what He has created and, above all, in His love of man, male and female, whom He created in His own image and likeness. Thus may we, one in heart with his Most Pure Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, rest our hearts more completely in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, carrying out all our work, also the most menial of tasks, for the reign of His Heart in the hearts of all men.
I ask you to remember in your prayers the eternal repose of the immortal soul of Lawrence, “Larry,” Hubert for whom the Mass of Christian Burial is being offered today in his home parish of Saint Teresa of Kolkata at West Salem. Larry faithfully volunteered here, especially in the care of the grounds and flowers, from the time of its opening until his 98th birthday. He was a consecrated Marian Catechist and a regular member of the Honor Guard of the Knights of Columbus who had faithfully and generously participated in the life of the Shrine since its foundation. He died on this past Saturday at the age of almost 100 years. Larry certainly understood work as a participation in the being of God, as an expression of who we are as true “fellow workers [of Christ] in the truth.”[11] He joyfully carried out the most humble service here in order that the Shrine might be a true place of pilgrimage to the glory of God and the salvation of many souls. He was an example to us all. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.
Finally, I salute the Rosary Warriors of Operation Storm Heaven, both those present and those who are joining us through the social media. Praying faithfully each day the powerful prayer of the Holy Rosary, you invoke God’s help and mercy in these most tumultuous times for the Church and for the world. May God reward you. To those who are not yet part of Operation Storm Heaven, I invite you to contact Catholic Action for Faith and Family, to become part of this great spiritual work needed so much in our time.[12]
Let us now lift up our hearts, one with the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Purest Heart of Saint Joseph, to the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus. Let us unite our lives and, in a particular way, all our works to His Eucharistic Sacrifice, so that in everything that we think and say and do we may imitate the justice and purity of Saint Joseph the Worker, giving glory to God and serving the good of our neighbor.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
[1] Gen 1, 26.
[2] Gen 2, 7.
[3] Cf. Gen 2, 1-3.
[4] Ex 20, 8. Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2168
[5] Gen 3, 19.
[6] Gen 3, 15.
[7] Lk 2, 51.
[8] Mt 13, 55.
[9] Col 3, 17.
[10] “Sed proletarii, opifices, quotquot sunt inferiore fortuna, debent suo quodam proprio iure ad Iosephum confugere, ab eoque, quod imitentur, capere. Is enim, regius sanguis, maximae sanctissimaeque omnium mulierum matrimonio iunctus, pater, ut putabatur, filii Dei, opere tamen faciendo aetatem transigit, et quaecumque ad suorum tuitionem sunt necessaria, manu et arte quaerit. — Non est igitur, si verum exquiritur, tenuiorum abiecta conditio: neque solum vacat dedecore, sed valde potest, adiuncta virtute, omnis opificum nobilitat labor. Iosephus, contentus et suo et parvo, angustias cum illa tenuitate cultus necessario coniunctas aequo animo excelsoque tulit, scilicet ad exemplar filii sui, qui accepta forma servi cum sit dominus omnium, summam inopiam atque indigentiam voluntate suscepit.” https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/la/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15081889_quamquam-pluries.html English translation: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15081889_quamquam-pluries.html
[11] 3 Jn 8.
[12] Cf. https://www.catholicaction.org/take_heaven_by_storm