Worker's Prayer to St. Joseph, Patron of Workers

O Glorious St. Joseph, model of all those who are devoted to labor,
obtain for me the grace to work conscientiously,
putting the call of duty above my natural inclinations,
to work with gratitude and joy,
in a spirit of penance for the remission of my sins,
considering it an honor to employ and develop by means of labor the gifts received from God,
to work with order, peace, moderation and patience,
without ever shrinking from weariness and difficulties,
to work above all with purity of intention and detachment from self, having always death before my eyes and the account that I must render of time lost, of talents wasted, of good omitted, of vain complacency in success, so fatal to the work of God.

All for Jesus, all through Mary, all after thine example,
O Patriarch, St. Joseph.
Such shall be my watch-word in life and in death. Amen.

From the Angelus Missal, “Work, imposed upon man as a penalty, is transformed into a blessing through his communion with the life and work and death of Jesus Christ, a communion effected by the active part he takes in the sacrifice and Communion of the Mass – with St. Joseph as model and patron. This feast [the May 1 feast of St. Joseph the Worker] was instituted by Pope Pius XII in 1956.”

Painting of St. Joseph, the Carpenter by Georges de la Tour from Wikipedia Commons