St. Joseph the worker: Patron saint of All Saints Month

March is National Athletic Trainers month.

What does this have to do with anything?  Well, it starts the story of how All Saints Month came to be and why St. Joseph the worker is the patron saint of it.  (If there can be such a thing as a patron saint of a month dedicated to all saints.  Now that I think about it...Maybe I should just call him the inspiration of All Saints Month).

Anyway, 3 years ago, A friend and I were walking down the main part of our University Campus.  Hanging high above us in between two lampposts, so big that nobody could miss it, was a banner with the words:  NATIONAL ATHLETIC TRAINERS MONTH.

We discussed this banner on the rest of our journey.  Athletic Trainers month?  Yes, I am sure that the work of Athletic Trainers is very important, but it just seems so random.  And to put it on a huge banner in the middle of campus?  Why?  But also, is there just a National month for anyone?

If there is a month for Athletic Trainers and it is such a big deal, there could be a National month for anyone.  We should make our own National month.  Why not make it for saints?  They all only get one day in November.  A whole month would be much better.  What month could we make the National All Saints month?  November would be too obvious.  May doesn't seem to be the National month of anything, so we'll make it May.

During this month we could spread awareness of the Saints.  So throughout April we planned.  What would we do?  Who would be our first saint?  To reach the largest amount of people, we decided to post a saint a day on social media.  The saints would be the ones that are underappreciated or unheard of.  St. Joseph is one of these saints.  Arguably the most underrated saint ever, he helped raise Jesus and was the role model for Jesus in a major part of Christ's life.  Tell me that's not a huge deal. He's so underappreciated.

Although his feast day was gone and past (March 19th) St. Joseph was to be the first saint we would promote on the first day of All Saints Month, May 1st.  Lo and behold, May 1st comes, and my friend and I, eager for the beginning of our project, go to daily mass.  In the introduction of mass, the priest announces that today, May 1st, we celebrate the feast day of St. Joseph the Worker.  My friend and I started laughing in the middle of the mass because it was St. Joseph's feast day.  I'm sure the priest was wondering what he said was so funny.

No, neither of us knew that the feast of St. Joseph the worker was a feast or that it was on May 1st.  It was total coincidence, (and I would argue a Godwink) that we chose to spread awareness of St. Joseph on his own feast day.  So All Saints Month goes on, and with St. Joseph, I hope to spread the meaning of true Sainthood, as expressed in the canonized Saints, but also in the not-yet-canonized saints, and how each of us is able to become a Saint one day.  Please join me on this journey!!!