People venerated St. Joseph a long time ago. His most distinctive characteristics were gradually invoked, and thus the Litany to St. Joseph was formed. In it, there are two significant ejaculations: Joseph, obedient and Lover of poverty. These virtues of Joseph also touched Blessed Alphonse Marie, who chose St. Joseph for a principal patron of the Congregation.
“You shall eat the fruit of your handiwork; happy shall you be and favored” (Ps 128:2). “The poor shall eat their fill” (Ps 22:27). Work means any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very nature, by virtue of humanity itself. Man is made to be in the visible universe an image and likeness of God himself, and he is placed in it in order to subdue the earth. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. Work is one that distinguishesman from the rest of creatures. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth (cf. John Paul II.: Laborem exercens).
