May Day?

Today is the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.

Pope Pius XII hoped that this feast (established 1955) would accentuate the dignity of labor and would bring a spiritual dimension to labor unions. May 1st had been designated by communists as the day to celebrate the international solidarity of workers. Communism, and Capitalism to a certain degree, both lack truly benevolent behavior towards workers. Not that there aren't scattered examples of workers being treated well. The Church has put much effort in to combatting this attitude towards laborers. in 1891 Pope Leo XIII wrote his ground breaking Encyclical Rerum Novarum (On Capital and Labor). This Encyclical was instrumental in providing the moral impetus in changing the way laborers and industrialists related and how governments in the West finally took action to protect the lives and wellbeing of the workers.With Quadragesimo Anno in 1931 Pope Pius XI built on Rerum Novarum in pointing a way for us to establish a more just society in light of the changing political and industrial landscape of the times. With Laborem Exercens John Paul II further developed the thoughts of the previous Encylicals and applied them to the present day in order to address technological advances and failures of society in practicing the behaviors encouraged in the previous documents. In Centesimus Annus (On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum) John Paul II honored the 100th anniversary of Rerum Novarum by pointing out successes over the last 100 years and advances in the development of a more just society in relation to human labor. He also synthesised the thoughts of all the previous documents in pointing out needs of the present day and the future.

It's a lot of reading to make it through all those documents. But it would be very rewarding. It's often said that Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher were instrumental in the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe. Most of you could probably say what Reagan and Thatcher did to bring down the Iron Curtain. But you'd be hard pressed to describe what John Paul the Great did. Read these documents, then imagine a man who embodied the virtues put to paper and emboldened others to do the same. Half a billion people were freed from Communism without armed conflict. That's a miracle.

Thanks and honor to St. Joseph, Patron of Workers, who through the love of God the Father, the grace of God the Son, and the power of the God the Spirit confers God's blessings upon us in the Communion of Saints.

Pyro