Glorious St. Joseph, model of all those who are devoted to labour, obtain for me the grace to work in a spirit of penance for the expiation of my many sins; to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my inclinations; to work with gratitude and joy, considering it an honour to employ and develop, by means of labour, the gifts received from God; to work with order, peace, moderation and patience, without ever recoiling before weariness or difficulties; to work, above all, with purity of intention, and with detachment from self, having always death before my eyes and the account which I must render of time lost, of talents wasted, of good omitted, of vain complacency in success, so fatal to the work of God. All for Jesus, all for Mary, all after thy example, O Patriarch Joseph. Such shall be my watchword in life and in death. Amen.
Prayer to St. Joseph, Model of Workers
'To work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my inclinations' — the prayer of the workshop, indulgenced by Pius X in 1907, half a century before the feast of St. Joseph the Worker existed.
Before the day's work; on 1 May, the feast of St. Joseph the Worker; by those out of work or worn out by it.
This is the most practical prayer in the Raccolta. It asks for nothing miraculous: to work in a spirit of penance; to work conscientiously, putting duty above inclination; to work with gratitude and joy; with order, peace, moderation and patience; and above all with purity of intention and detachment from self — with 'the account which I must render of time lost, of talents wasted, of good omitted, of vain complacency in success, so fatal to the work of God'.
Pius X indulgenced it in 1907, in the decades when the Church was working out its answer to the industrial question. Pius XII gave the same instinct a feast in 1955, placing St. Joseph the Worker on 1 May, the workers' holiday. The text is the Raccolta's of 1910.
Three hundred days, once a day — Pius X, 15 March 1907 (Raccolta, 1910, no. 315).
