"O Jesus, how I love to contemplate You as a Child, in the
poor house at Nazareth, with Mary and Joseph! Your simple, humble life was just
like that of any other child of Your age. You, the splendor of the Father, did
not wish anything to distinguish You from the children of men; You, uncreated
wisdom, wished to learn from Mary and Joseph, Your creatures, the ordinary
little details of life. Joseph showed
You how to handle his tools and You watched Him attentively, You learned and
You obeyed. Mary taught You holy hymns and recounted tales from the Sacred
Scriptures; You listened to her like a humble disciple, You who are the one
true Teacher, You who are Truth itself. No one, neither Your relatives nor Your
fellow townspeople, knew who You really were. Everyone believed You to be the
carpenter’s son and paid no more attention to You than they would have paid to
an ordinary apprentice.
"Only Mary and Joseph knew; they knew by divine revelation
that You were the Son of the Most High, the Savior of the world, and yet they
knew it more by faith than by experience. Your ordinary way of life concealed
Your majesty and divinity from them so completely that when, without their
knowledge, You remained among the doctors in the Temple, they could not
understand the reason for Your unusual behavior. That incident, however, was an
isolated one; immediately afterward, You wished to return to the hiddenness of
Your most humble life. You went back with them, and were subject to them. And
this, day by day, until You were thirty years old.
"O most sweet Jesus, grant that I may imitate, at least to
some degree, Your infinite humility! You, the Creator, were obedient to Your
creatures. Teach me to bow my proud head and willingly obey my superiors. You
came down from heaven to earth. Give me the grace to humble myself, to come
down, once and for all, from the pedestal of my pride! How can I bear the sight
of Your humility and self-effacement,O my God and my Creator, when I, who am
nothingness and sin, use the gifts I have received to set myself above others,
to prefer myself even to my superiors?"
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