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Nazareth
Jesus came to Nazareth, the place of the hidden life, of ordinary
life, of family life, of prayer, work, obscurity, silent virtues
practiced with no witness other than God, his friends and neighbors.
Nazareth, the place where most people lead their lives.
********
I think we can live the life of Nazareth anywhere, sink ourselves
into hiddenness, live in obedience, and embrace the Cross.
******** The life of
Nazareth can be followed anywhere; follow it in the place where it
is most helpful to your neighbors.
******** Nazareth is anywhere we work with Jesus in
humility, poverty, and silence.
******** Jesus speaks:
After My presentation and my flight into Egypt, I withdrew to
Nazareth,. There I spent the years of My childhood and youth,
till I was thirty years of age. Once again, it was for your sake
I went there, for love of you.
What was the meaning of that part of My life? I led it for
your instruction. I instructed you continually for thirty years,
not in words, but by My silence and example.
What was it that I was teaching you? I was teaching you
primarily that it is possible to do good to men -- great good,
infinite good, divine good -- without using words, without
preaching, without fuss, but by silence and by giving them a
good example.
What kind of example? The example of devotion of duty toward
God lovingly fulfilled, and goodness toward all men, loving
kindness to those about one, and domestic duties fulfilled in
holiness. The example of poverty, lowliness, recollection,
withdrawl: the obscurity of a life hidden in God, a life of
prayer, penance, and withdrawl, completely lost in God, buried
deep in Him.
I was teaching you to live by the labor of your own hands, so
as to be a burden on no one and to have something to give to the
poor. And I was giving this way of life an incomparable beauty
-- the beauty of being a copy of Mine.
******** Luke 2:50-51:
"And He went down with them, and came to Nazareth and was subject to
them."
"He went down": His whole life was spent in "going down." He went
down in the Incarnation, going down to be a small child, going down
in obedience, in becoming poor, abandoned, exiled, persecuted,
tortured, in always putting Himself in the lowest place.
"When thou art invited, go, sit down in the lowest place": it is
what He did Himself from the time of His coming into the feast of
life till the time of His death. He came to Nazareth, the place of
the hidden life, of ordinary family life: a life of prayer, work,
and obscurity, the silent virtues, practiced with God, His close
relations and His neighbors as its only witnesses. It was a humble,
holy, obscure life of well-doing -- the life of most human beings.
For thirty years, He was our example of it.
"He was subject to them": He, God, was subject to them, human
beings, so becoming our example of obedience, humility and, in the
real sense of the word, renunciation as infinite as His divinity. |
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Charles lived in
this shed while working as a handyman for the Poor Clares in
Nazareth.
See also:
"The Lessons of Nazareth,"
by Pope Paul VI, along with photographs of a pilgrimage Sr. Mary Elizabeth
made to Nazareth.
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