Among his many titles, Saint Joseph is known as “Patron of Workers”. While March 19th is the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Husband of Mary, the May 1st Optional Memorial of St Joseph the Worker was established in 1955 by the Servant of God, Pope Pius XII, both to honor St. Joseph as Patron of Workers, as well as to hold up the ideal that while work is good for the human person, God makes work for man, not man for work. Pope Pius XII established this Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker on May 1st to counter the erroneous ideas concerning labor and laborers promoted and celebrated by atheistic communist regimes, particularly in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc nations in their May Day celebrations held annually in those countries on May 1st. ST. John Paul II, in “Redemptoris Custos” (Guardian of the Redeemer) wrote, “If the Family of Nazareth is an example and model for human families, in the order of salvation and holiness, so too, by analogy, is Jesus’ work at the side of Joseph the carpenter in our own day, the Church has emphasized this by instituting the liturgical memorial of St. Joseph the Worker on May 1st.” In 2005 Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI noted: “It is necessary to live a spirituality that helps believers to sanctify themselves through their work, imitating St. Joseph, who had to provide with his own hands for the daily needs of the Holy Family and whom, consequently, the Church holds up as Patron of Workers.”