Jesus the Worker

Our Founder had a profound reverence for the world of work. He grew up during the first workers' movements, and took Pope Leo XIII's teachings to heart. The Church had to be on the side of the worker. Alberione himself, though raised as a tenant farmer's son with all the hard work that implied, entered the industrial world of printing. The Pauline Family got its start when he established the "Little Worker Printing School" in Alba.

Although it is safe to say that Alberione (frail as he was) would have been utterly useless on the floor of the print shop, he learned a lot from his desk where he wrote the articles the "little workers" were typesetting, and checked the proofs when they came to him "hot" off the press (hot because of the flames that dried the ink). Even in this, he realized, Jesus was model and savior:

Adore Jesus the worker! Because there he offered an important lesson: that of example. Adore him, because he was the Son of God incarnate who, even though he had created all the riches that exist, earned his bread and carried out a humble work. Adore him, because Jesus redeemed the world in that carpenter's workshop just as much as he did when preaching the Gospel, and just as much as he did when dying on the cross: a school of example and at the same time, redemption. Adore Jesus, who willed to give the example of work, who willed to redeem humanity by means of work, and especially to redeem work itself: to uplift the worker!