Novena to St Joseph the Worker: Nine Days Before 1 May

The novena to St Joseph the Worker is nine days of prayer to the carpenter of Nazareth, said from 22 to 30 April so that it ends on the eve of his feast on 1 May. People pray it for work, for those without a job, for the families who depend on what they earn, and for the grace to make daily labour holy. Below is the full novena: the prayers for each day, a meditation on a scene from St Joseph's working life for each of the nine days, the famous St Joseph the Worker prayer of St Pius X, and the history of the feast as the 1962 Missal keeps it.

The novena to St Joseph the Worker in full

If you are new to the practice, our guide to what a novena is explains where the nine days come from and how to keep them. No single text of this novena has been fixed by the Church, so we build it from prayers that are certain: the collect of the feast from the Roman Missal, the prayer for workers attributed to St Pius X, and the great prayer of Leo XIII.

The daily prayers

Each of the nine days, begin with the Sign of the Cross and name your intention. Then pray the collect of the feast of St Joseph the Worker, as the 1962 Missal gives it:

O God, Creator of all things, who dost impose on man the law of work; grant in Thy goodness that, by the example and patronage of blessed Joseph, we may both accomplish the work Thou dost command and attain the reward Thou hast promised. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Read the day's meditation below and make your petition in silence. Next, pray the St Joseph the Worker prayer of St Pius X:

Glorious St Joseph, model of all who devote their lives to labour, obtain for me the grace to work in the spirit of penance in order thereby to atone for my many sins; to work conscientiously, setting devotion to duty in preference to my own whims; to work with thankfulness and joy, deeming it an honour to employ and to develop by my labour the gifts I have received from God; to work with order, peace, moderation and patience, without ever shrinking from weariness and difficulties; to work above all with a pure intention and with detachment from self, having always before my eyes the hour of death and the accounting which I must then render of time ill spent, of talents wasted, of good omitted, and of vain complacency in success, which is so fatal to the work of God.

All for Jesus, all through Mary, all in imitation of thee, O Patriarch Joseph! This shall be my motto in life and in death. Amen.

End with Leo XIII's prayer To thee, O blessed Joseph, prescribed in 1889 in his encyclical Quamquam pluries; its full text is in our prayers to St Joseph. Then say the day's invocation from the Litany of St Joseph, followed by an Our Father, a Hail Mary and a Glory Be.

Day 1 (22 April): the just man

"Joseph her husband, being a just man" (Matthew 1:19). Holy Writ gives St Joseph only this one word of praise, and it is enough. His justice was not a matter of feeling. It was a life ordered to God in small things: honest measures, honest prices, a day's work for a day's bread. Ask him today for justice in your own work, both in what you give and in what you take.

Joseph most just, pray for us. (Name your intention.)

Day 2 (23 April): rising from sleep to obey

"And Joseph rising up from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and took unto him his wife" (Matthew 1:24). The Gospel never records a word from St Joseph's mouth. It records only that he did what he was told, at once. Ask him for the same quick obedience once God's will for your work is clear.

Joseph most obedient, pray for us. (Name your intention.)

Day 3 (24 April): no room in the inn

Mary "laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn" (Luke 2:7). The man responsible for the Holy Family met a door closed in his face, the oldest humiliation of the poor. This day of the novena is for all who have knocked and been turned away: the job-seeker, the man passed over, the family without a home.

Lover of poverty, pray for us. (Name your intention.)

Day 4 (25 April): the offering of the poor

At the Presentation, Joseph and Mary offered "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons" (Luke 2:24), which the Law allowed to those who could not afford a lamb. Butler notes that this offering proves the Holy Family was poor. St Joseph gave God what he had, without shame that it was little. Ask him to help you offer your wages, and the work that earned them, with the same simplicity.

Joseph most faithful, pray for us. (Name your intention.)

Day 5 (26 April): the flight into Egypt

"Who arose, and took the child and his mother by night, and retired into Egypt" (Matthew 2:14). He had to leave his trade, his tools and his customers overnight and start again in a foreign country. Pray today for workers far from home, for exiles and migrants, and for everyone forced to begin again.

Joseph most strong, pray for us. (Name your intention.)

Day 6 (27 April): the house at Nazareth

Back from Egypt, "he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth" (Matthew 2:23). For years the Son of God lived in a workman's house, kept by a workman's wage. Commend your household to the head of the Holy Family: its bills, its debts, its peace.

Head of the Holy Family, pray for us. (Name your intention.)

Day 7 (28 April): sought with sorrow

"Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing" (Luke 2:48). St Joseph knew three days of anguish when the Child was lost. Pray today for those who have lost their work, their way or their faith.

Mirror of patience, pray for us. (Name your intention.)

Day 8 (29 April): subject to them

"And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them" (Luke 2:51). The Word by whom all things were made learnt a trade at St Joseph's bench and obeyed him for thirty years. Ask for the grace to do ordinary work well, without complaint, as an offering.

Model of artisans, pray for us. (Name your intention.)

Day 9 (30 April): the carpenter's son

"Is not this the carpenter's son?" (Matthew 13:55). The people of Nazareth meant it as a slight, but the Church chose these very words for the Gospel and the Communion antiphon of the feast. On this last day, the eve of 1 May, think of the end of every working life: St Joseph, by constant tradition, died before Our Lord's public life, in the arms of Jesus and Mary. Ask him for a happy death, and for a life's work that will bear the accounting the prayer of St Pius X speaks of.

Patron of the dying, pray for us. (Name your intention.)

The novena to St Joseph the carpenter

The novena to St Joseph the carpenter is the same devotion as above, under the oldest of his titles, the one his neighbours used. St Matthew calls Our Lord "the carpenter's son" (Matthew 13:55) and St Mark has them ask, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?" (Mark 6:3). The Greek word in the Gospels means a craftsman in general, a builder who works mostly in wood, which is why the Latin liturgy calls St Joseph opifex, "the workman". To pray to St Joseph the carpenter is to bring your need to someone who earned his living with his hands.

The St Joseph the Worker prayer of St Pius X

Of the many prayers to St Joseph the Worker, the one given above in the daily prayers, Glorious St Joseph, model of all who devote their lives to labour, is the best known and the most widely printed. Catholic prayer-books ascribe it to Pope St Pius X: Fr Francis Filas printed it under his name in 1947, and traditional collections still do today. The wording differs a little from book to book ("model of all who are devoted to labour", "all for Jesus, all for Mary, all to imitate thee"), never the substance. We have not found an official papal document containing it, nor a published indulgence we could verify, so we present it simply as the prayer of St Pius X the prayer-books have handed down.

As a prayer to St Joseph the Worker it is unusually complete. It does not ask for work alone. It asks that our work be penance, duty, thanksgiving, order and pure intention, and it keeps death and judgement in view.

St Joseph the Worker prayer for a job

When the intention is a job, the novena above serves well; name the work you need on each of the nine days. Our novena to St Joseph for a job sets out the devotion for the unemployed in more detail. Scripture is plain that work is a duty as well as a need: "If any man will not work, neither let him eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10). Our article What Does God Say About Work? gathers the rest of that teaching. Ask for work, and also for the strength to do it justly once it is given.

How and when to pray the novena

Begin on 22 April and finish on 30 April. The novena then ends on the eve of the feast of St Joseph the Worker, 1 May, and on the feast itself the faithful go to Mass and, where they can, to Holy Communion. Say it at the same hour each day, ideally before work; if you miss a day, take it up again and continue to the end.

The novena can of course be prayed at any time of year, for any urgent need. For the great novena before 19 March and the "never-failing" devotion, see our novena to St Joseph. The Iter Fidei novena app puts the day's text in front of you each day of the nine and reminds you to pray it.

The feast of St Joseph the Worker (1 May)

When is the feast of St Joseph the Worker? On 1 May. Pope Pius XII announced it on 1 May 1955, in St Peter's Square, to the Christian Associations of Italian Workers (ACLI). The liturgical feast he instituted bears the title St Joseph the Workman, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Confessor, and is kept each year on 1 May. He chose the date on purpose: the workers' holiday of 1 May had been claimed by socialist and communist movements, and the Pope gave it back to Christ through the carpenter of Nazareth.

The new feast changed the calendar in two ways. It replaced the Solemnity of St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Patron of the Universal Church. Pius IX had extended this feast of the Patronage of St Joseph to the whole Church in 1847, on the third Sunday after Easter, and St Pius X, in his reform of the Breviary, moved it to the Wednesday before that Sunday, the Wednesday of the second week after the Octave of Easter, with an octave of its own.

The new feast also moved the feast of the Apostles Sts Philip and James, kept on 1 May since the sixth century, to 11 May. In the 1962 Missal and Breviary, St Joseph the Worker on 1 May is a feast of the first class. It is the second feast of St Joseph, after 19 March, his chief feast, which keeps first place. You will find both on our 1962 liturgical calendar.

The Mass of the day, Sapientia reddidit, says a great deal in a few texts. The Introit takes Wisdom 10:17: "Wisdom rendered to the just the wages of their labours". Its psalm verse adds: "Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it" (Psalm 126:1). The Epistle (Colossians 3:14–15, 17, 23–24) gives the rule of all Christian work: "Whatsoever you do, do it from the heart, as to the Lord, and not to men." The Gospel is the scene at Nazareth (Matthew 13:54–58), and the Offertory begs, "direct thou the works of our hands" (Psalm 89:17).

Who is St Joseph the Worker?

St Joseph the Worker is not a different saint. He is St Joseph himself, spouse of the Blessed Virgin and foster-father of Our Lord, honoured under his title of workman. Butler's Lives of the Saints reminds us that our certain knowledge of him comes from the Gospels alone. He was of the royal line of David, and he was a poor man, as the offering of the doves shows. Above all, "it was Joseph's trade that Jesus learnt". Butler sets aside the apocryphal gospels, with their tale of the suitors' rods, as worthless, and keeps to the eulogy of Holy Writ: he was "a just man".

Devotion to him grew slowly. Butler traces it through St Bridget of Sweden and St Vincent Ferrer, then through Gerson, Cardinal Peter d'Ailly and St Bernardino of Siena in the fifteenth century, until the feast of 19 March entered the Roman books. St Teresa of Avila spread his cultus through the whole Church, and Gregory XV made his day a holy day of obligation in 1621. Pius IX declared him Patron of the Universal Church in 1870, and Leo XIII, in Quamquam pluries (1889), held him up as the model of working men. The feast of 1955 grew out of this teaching. For his whole life and his titles, read our article St Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is St Joseph the Worker the father of Jesus?

Not by nature. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary (Matthew 1:20). St Joseph is His foster-father and His father in the eyes of the law: Mary's true husband, head of the Holy Family, the one who gave the Child His name (Matthew 1:25). That is why Our Lady could say, "Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing" (Luke 2:48).

What is St Joseph the Worker the patron saint of?

He is the patron of workers and craftsmen, especially carpenters and builders, of fathers of families, of those looking for work, and of a happy death. He is also Patron of the Universal Church, the title Pius IX gave him in 1870.

When is St Joseph the Worker feast day?

Always on 1 May, unless a day of higher rank falls on that date. Under the rubrics of the 1962 books, a feast of the first class that is impeded is transferred to the next free day. This happens when 1 May falls within the Octave of Easter, on Low Sunday (as in 2011), or on Ascension Thursday (as in 2008); in those years St Joseph the Worker is kept on 2 May or the first free day after it.

What is the feast of St Joseph the Worker?

It is the Church's feast of holy work: a day to offer our labour to God through St Joseph and to ask that it be done for Him. The Postcommunion of the Mass sums it up, asking that the sacred mysteries we have received may, through the intercession of blessed Joseph, both perfect our work and confirm our reward.

Is the feast of St Joseph the Worker a solemnity?

In the 1962 calendar, which we follow, it is a feast of the first class, the highest rank; the word "solemnity" belonged to the older feast it replaced. In the reformed calendar of 1969 it became an optional memorial. It is not a holy day of obligation.

What is St Joseph the Worker known for?

For hidden, faithful work. He never preached and the Gospel records no word of his, yet he obeyed every command of God at once, and by the work of his hands he fed and housed the Son of God. Pius XII gave him to the world on 1 May as the answer to every ideology that would either despise work or worship it.

The Iter Fidei app carries the novenas, the litanies and the prayers to St Joseph, with a daily reminder, in Latin and in English, even offline. Join early access here.

Sources. The Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims (Matthew 1:19–25; 2:14, 23; 13:54–58; Mark 6:3; Luke 2:7, 24, 48, 51; Colossians 3:14–24; 2 Thessalonians 3:10; Wisdom 10:17; Psalms 89:17, 126:1). Missale Romanum (1962), Mass of St Joseph the Workman, 1 May, Sapientia reddidit; Breviarium Romanum (1962), calendar. Butler's Lives of the Saints, St Joseph (19 March). Pope Pius IX, decree Quemadmodum Deus (1870). Pope Leo XIII, encyclical Quamquam pluries (1889). Pope Pius XII, address to the Christian Associations of Italian Workers, 1 May 1955. The Litany of St Joseph (approved by Pope St Pius X, 1909). Prayer to St Joseph for workers attributed to Pope St Pius X, in F. L. Filas, The Family for Families (1947) and traditional prayer-books.