St Joseph the worker

(A hymn to St Joseph, as found in the breviary, on this feast day of St Joseph the worker)

Joseph, the scriptures live to trace

the glories of thy kingly line;

Yet no succession of thy race, 

no long posterity was thine... 

And though thy Son were God indeed, 

over that home no angels sang, 

but still, through years of toil and need, 

hammer and mallet bravely rang;

And surely 'twas a gracious thing

when, standing at this father's knee, 

the world's great Craftsman and its King

not king but craftsman learned to be.  

Indeed a very humbling but powerful testimony of the role and person of Joseph.  Will certainly appeal to anyone who has seen life in its ups and downs and yet not been carried away or bogged down by anything, always striving to maintain a sensible balance in both the divine and the not-so-divine...