Angelus News | May 7, 2021 | Vol. 6 No. 9

Georges
Museum
MONS
years, and more than any other king in
antiquity he was known for his architectural
skill.
He commanded the construction of
harbors, amphitheaters, marketplaces,
racetracks, boulevards, and public
baths. Still today, he holds several
world records for his building projects.
The whole nation prospered, and the
other Judean aristocrats were eager to
raise up signs of their prosperity. They
wanted mansions and monuments,
symbols of their high status and great
wealth.
So builders and artisans were in demand,
and the future looked endlessly
bright. Some of Herod’s projects promised
to go on for decades, continuing
into the reign of his heirs. From childhood
onward, St.
Joseph probably
worked with
crews of men,
who commuted
together to such
worksites.
An ancient tradition
tells us that
St. Joseph’s craft
was carpentry, a
trade in which he
apprenticed his
son Jesus. When
people were astonished
at Jesus’
teaching, they
asked, “Isn’t this
the carpenter’s
son?” (Matthew
13:55).
And all of this is fitting. Spiritual
writers since the fourth century have
pointed out that Jesus’ earthly father
shared two titles with his heavenly
Father. Both St. Joseph and God are
known as fathers and builders.
As a builder, St. Joseph was godlike.
But that divine quality would have
been his if he had practiced any other
honest trade. Work is part of our basic
human vocation and identity; and St.
Joseph knew this not because of an
angel’s message, but because he knew
Scripture.
Some years ago, Pope Francis spoke
of the meaning of human labor, and
he drew his teaching from the Book of
Genesis: “It is clear from the very first
pages of the Bible that work is an essential
part of human dignity; there we
read that ‘the Lord God took the man
and put him in the garden of Eden to
till it and keep it’ (Genesis 2:15). Man
is presented as a laborer who works
the earth [and] harnesses the forces of
nature.”
The Book of Genesis introduces God
as a worker (Genesis 2:2) and man,
furthermore, as someone made in the
image and likeness of God (Genesis
1:26). Humanity was made to have
dominion over all the creatures of
the earth, and sea, and sky. Adam was
told to “fill the earth and subdue it”
(1:26–28), to “till it and keep it” (2:15).
That’s work.
Thus human beings were created
with work as a basic part of their
nature. All of this happened before the
original sin. Work was seen as something
good.
In fact, it was holy. We see this in
the way the story is told. Adam is
commanded to “till” and “keep” the
garden. The original Hebrew verbs
are “abodah” and “shamar,” which are
elsewhere used to describe the work of
priests as they tended the sacred rites of
the tabernacle.
So, at the moment of his creation,
Adam was given a sacred and priestly
task. The entirety of the earth was to be
his altar and his offering, and his labor
was to be his act of sacrifice.
That moment is the true “big bang”
in any biblical understanding of work.
The event remains like background
radiation through the rest of salvation
history, informing the way labor and
laborers are portrayed in the religion of
Israel — and how they’re protected and
regulated in Israel’s law.
That doesn’t mean that work is easy.
After Adam sinned, God confronted
him with the consequences of his
actions, and most of them would
affect his work: “Cursed is the ground
because of you; in toil you shall eat
of it all the days of your life; thorns
and thistles it shall bring forth to you”
(3:17–18).
Work itself was not a punishment for
sin or a consequence of sin. Because
of sin, however, work became troublesome
and frustrating. Nonetheless,
from the beginning, it was holy and
good.
And so it was in
the life of Jesus,
whom St. Paul
calls the “New
Adam.” In his
“Christ in the House of
His Parents,” by John
Everett Millais, 1849.
| WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
young life, Jesus
reconsecrated labor
as he assisted
St. Joseph in his
workshop.
In time, Jesus
took up the work
of craftsmen, draftsmen, builders,
teachers, and physicians — and he
restored it all to its original goodness,
lifting it up to his Father in heaven.
Later in life, he sailed with fishermen
and sanctified their trade. At the wedding
feast of Cana he even came to the
assistance of bartenders.
In all of the tasks he took up, he
established a model for that kind of
work. He earned the title that went
with his trade. When he was a carpenter,
people called him “the carpenter,”
as if it was his name. Later on, when he
was an itinerant teacher, he was “the
teacher,” as if he exemplified the job
done at peak performance.
The early Christians delighted when
they shared in work that Jesus had
May 7, 2021 • ANGELUS • 21