"Give Glory to God through Our Work" : Bishop Paolo on the Feast of St. Joseph, the Worker

Abu Dhabi.

Bishop Paolo Martinelli celebrated the Holy Mass at St. Joseph's Cathedral Abu Dhabi for the Feast of Saint Joseph The Worker. Below is the full text of the homily delivered during the occasion.

Today we are gathered in our cathedral to celebrate the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. St. Joseph is our patron saint. He is the keeper of the redeemer and the bridegroom of the virgin Mary. He continues to watch over the Church and each of us. He guards our relationship with Jesus now, as he guarded the relationship between Mary and our Savior.

Today we remember him as a worker. This title makes it even closer to our life and daily situation. We are a Church of migrants, and we have left our homeland to work and support our families.

As the Gospel we have just heard reminds us, Jesus was known by all as the son of Joseph, the carpenter's son. Joseph, with his work, supported the Holy Family of Nazareth. For this reason, today, we turn to him in prayer. We entrust our work and our families to him.

But what is the meaning of the work? Is there a Christian meaning to the daily work? Indeed, working allows us to live and support our families. Honest income will enable us to live with dignity and in peace. With the fruit of our work, we can make our children grow up well and allow them to have good education, that they can enter society and have a decent and honest job. Through work, we can help our loved ones and all those in need, especially the poor.

But before all this, work is a task God has given to human beings. We have heard from the Book of Genesis that God created man and woman in his image and likeness and entrusted them with caring for, cultivating, and dominating all creation. As we see, this is a critical task. Creation is entrusted into the hands of human beings. In this way, we can consider the unique place that man and woman occupy in the universe. Through work, we enter into a relationship with all the reality and are called to transform it and make it fruitful. In a certain sense, human beings are called to collaborate with God so that creation develops according to the divine plan. God trusts us enough to entrust us with his creation.

We can only accomplish such an essential task in profound communion with the Creator. Indeed, we note that when man forgets God and distances himself from him, his relationship with reality is also ruined, and instead of supporting creation, we waste it and wound it.

Pope Francis, especially in the document Laudato si, has called all humanity to pay attention to the serious ecological problems that exist in the world due to the indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources. This troubled relationship with creation is a result of man's estrangement from God.

For this reason, thinking of the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker, we are invited to think about the sanctification of work. We are called to care for creation and to take care of this suffering and wounded world. St. Joseph the Worker helps us to understand our work as a positive development of life and improvement of everyone's condition and never as an unjust exploitation of resources.

Dear brothers and sisters, with our work, we are called to give glory to God. Through our daily work, we are committed to building the kingdom of God. By working daily, as St. Joseph did, we contribute to a better world.

Finally, I would like to remind you that during Holy Mass, there is the moment of the offertory, when we bring the bread and wine to the altar, which are the fruit of the earth and our work (human hands). We offer the fruit of our work to become the body and blood of Christ. The power of the Holy Spirit transforms our work and makes it sacred. It becomes the Eucharist, thanksgiving.

The rite of the Offertory can well summarize the meaning of our daily work. When we offer God our work, the power of the Holy Spirit transforms it, and it becomes a thanksgiving to God. This way, we discover that the Eucharist is the universe's destiny. The whole world, through the work of man and woman, and the action of the Holy Spirit, is called to be transfigured into God. At the end of history, God will be all in all, and we will give thanks to God for his love for them.

Let us ask the intercession of Saint Joseph to help us do our work well, protect our families and make us grow in love for everyone.