Christus Resurréxit!  Today May 1^st, is the Feast of St. Joseph the Workman* – a relatively newer feast established in 1955. It remains a 1^st class feast in the Traditional Calendar (ranked lesser in the new).  Being the Year of St. Joseph in our diocese, we wanted to highlight this important day (*called Workman in the 1962 Missal) dedicated to the foster father of Our Blessed Lord.

The feast day was established to promote to the dignity of human labor, provide a patron to the working class, and to combat the communist “holy day” called May Day. This connection of St. Joseph and anti-communism was not new as Pope Benedict XV in 1920 declared St. Joseph the patron against socialism (Bonam Sane Moto Proprio), and Pope Pius XI placed the battle against atheistic communism under St. Joseph’s protection in his 1937 encyclical Divini Redemptoris:

To hasten the advent of that “peace of Christ in the kingdom of Christ”[48] so ardently desired by all, We place the vast campaign of the Church against world Communism under the standard of St. Joseph, her mighty Protector. He belongs to the working-class, and he bore the burdens of poverty for himself and the Holy Family, whose tender and vigilant head he was. To him was entrusted the Divine Child when Herod loosed his assassins against Him. In a life of faithful performance of everyday duties, he left an example for all those who must gain their bread by the toil of their hands. He won for himself the title of “The Just,” serving thus as a living model of that Christian justice which should reign in social life.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19370319_divini-redemptoris.html

While political communism has been relegated to North Korea and China (pray for Cardinal Ignatius Kung’s canonization), many of its secularist ideologies continue to manifest itself in the western world as cultural communism or marxism (abortion, contraception, evolution, etc.) – something Our Lady of Fatima warned about to Sister Lucia.

On this day, first Friday May 1st, then, you may wish to offer some prayers to St. Joseph the Workman, and pray for an end to communism (especially in China), for an end to the cultural communism which infects our society today and for an end to the COVID-19 crisis.

Other News for May 1st

• Joseph’s Seminary: Today is also a big day for St. Joseph’s Seminary as they celebrate their feast day and the expected completion of this magnificent building. Bishop Jugis will be visiting the grounds late this afternoon. You can preview Fr. Kauth’s walkthrough here: http://catholicnewsherald.com/88-news/fp/5729-feast-of-st-joseph-the-worker-coming-up-may-1
• National Re-consecration to the Blessed Mother: We should also mention that today at 3pm the U.S. and Canadian Bishops will re-consecrate their countries to the Blessed Mother to ask for her intercession with the global pandemic. Our local Catholic Radio station will broadcast it online: https://www.carolinacatholicradio.org/ as will ETWN https://www.ewtn.com/media/press-releases-article.asp?aId=1316

For other news and updates, we hope to send a weekend update later tomorrow.  Please don’t forget that Saturday May 2^nd is First Saturday and the related devotions to the Immaculate Heart (15 minutes of meditation on scripture, Rosary, etc.). You may also want to re-consecrate your family to the Immaculate Heart:

http://www.veritascaritas.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Family-Consecration-to-the-Immacualte-Heart-of-Mary.pdf