"Maligayang Pasko!"

In Joseph's Workshop

By: St. Josemaría Escriva, founder of Opus Dei.

Page 16.

"If we want to live this way, sanctifying our profession or job, we must work well, with human and supernatural intensty.

"I would like to remind you now, by way of contrasts, of a story from the apocryphal gospels:

Jesus' father, who was a carpenter, made ploughs and yokes. Once, a certain important person asked him to make a bed. But it happened that one of the shafts was shorter than the other, so Joseph did not know what to do.

Then, the child Jesus said to his father:

Put the two shafts on the ground and make them even at one end.

Joseph did so. Jesus got at the other end, took the shorter beam of wood and stretched it until it was the same length as the other. Joseph, his father, was full of astonishment at this miracle and showered embraces and kisses on the Child saying:

How fortunate I am that God has given me this child!

"Joseph would give God no such thanks, he would never work in this way. He was not one for easy solutions and little miracles, but a man of perseverance, effort and, when needed, ingenuity."

Note: St. Escriba credits this lying story to something called Gospel of the Childhood, "falsely attributed to St. Thomas."