Pope Pius XII established the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker in 1955, replacing the Feast of the Patronage of Saint Joseph over the Universal Church. The latter was instituted by Pope Pius IX in 1847 and initially celebrated on the third Sunday after Easter, while the liturgical reform of Saint Pius X moved it to the previous Wednesday.
The feast instituted by Pope Pius XII aimed to Christianize what we paradoxically call the «Labor Day,» an international socialist creation from the past century with a clearly secular inspiration. In contrast, we present the figure of the worker whom the Word of God, in becoming incarnate, chose as his foster father. However, since not all nations celebrate Labor Day on May 1st, the new calendar of 1969 reduced the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker to an optional memorial.
