“Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house, O Lord; they shall praise Thee forever and ever.”
Belonging to the hidden years at Nazareth, this feast reminds us that God has in view always our needs and our trials. Christ came on earth to save us. His was the tremendous task of converting a hard-hearted world to a way of life that would upset all man’s notions of self-indulgent living. Yet, with this great work to be fulfilled, he spent but three years in public life. The remaining thirty years were passed in a town so small and so thoroughly unimportant that people were to say to Him, doubtingly, “Can any thing good come out of Nazareth?”
Probably this was in the decrees of God because so many of us live what the world considers very unimportant lives. Armies do not march at our command; people do not go halfway around the world to see us; history will have nothing to say of us. No one, in fact, pays very much attention to us. If we take for ourselves no other models than those who are world-famous or even notorious, this will hurt us a great deal and result in a lifetime of striving to *’be somebody.” But if we follow the model of a Redeemer who for thirty years lived in obscurity, it should not distress us to be ignored. There are very few people of worldly importance; far in the majority are the multitudes of ordinary people whose path to heaven is unexciting and unromantic. How very kind of God to show us by His long hidden life that His plan of redemption includes everyone, even those whose lives are so unremarkable that the world does not notice at all!
To Mary the hidden life brought its peculiar joys and sorrows: the joy of being always with Jesus, the sorrow of knowing that this beautiful Child must grow to be the Man of Sorrows. Mary and Joseph were privileged above all the earth’s peoples in being able to live under the same roof with God Incarnate. They shielded Him on the frightening flight into Egypt, guarded Him during the exile. They heard His first word, guided His first step, and watched Him grow out of babyhood into boyhood and young manhood. With God dwelling in it, the little house at Nazareth was as near to heaven as anything on earth could be. However humble their work, it was sweetened by the joy of doing it for Jesus.
And it goes without saying that their household tasks were tiresome, as such tasks have always been. Saint Joseph worked hard as a carpenter, receiving probably just enough wages to keep his little family supplied with necessities. Our Lady had nothing of convenience in her tiny home. A home where Jesus was did not need to have anything but Himself to make it heaven on earth. The house at Nazareth was to be the model for all the ages to come, when the unending tasks of millions of hard-working mothers and fathers would be dignified by being patterned after those of the Holy Family. It could not be the material model for the electrically run homes of today, but it is a lasting proof that material conveniences do not make a home. Only the people within it can do that.
Mary and Joseph watched their holy Charge lovingly. They understood, when He was obedient to them, that He was showing them, and through them the whole world, the real meaning of humility. Later He was to say to the apostles:
“…learn from me; I am gentle and humble of heart; and you shall find rest for your souls.”
He began to teach there, in the obscurity of Nazareth.
Only the humble need apply for the heavenly help of the Holy Family. The proud, and those who are concerned with social position, would be uncomfortable in the poor home of a village carpenter. But the poor in spirit, whom Our Lord was to call “blessed” in His sermon on the mount, are never embarrassed to be found suppliant at the feet of the Holy Family.
Christ preached many times against wealth, because it so often blinds men’s hearts to the important things of God. The Scriptures are filled with references to God’s care of His creatures and the futility of our worrying about worldly goods. In Psalm 39 is sweetly stated:
“The Lord is careful for me.”
The idea is even more developed when in the 90th Psalm, said during Compline (the night-prayer of the Church), is sung:
“O Thou that dwellest beneath the shelter of the Most High, and abidest under the shadow of the Almighty…. With His pinions shall He shelter thee, and under His wings shalt thou be secure…”
Loving confidence in God is the keynote of these and many other psalm verses: they breathe the spirit of the Holy Family. Mary and Joseph were filled with confidence in God’s mercy, and they sought nothing outside their humble little home, which was the sanctuary of the Most High.
Christian homes today are few, partly because of man’s – and woman’s – mad pursuit of wealth and position. The little home at Nazareth, in which the gracious Queen of heaven dwelt humbly as the village carpenter’s wife, could teach many lessons to parents of today and tomorrow. The virtues of humility and poverty of spirit, and the great and beautiful virtue of charity, are just as hard to practice today as they have always been. But this same gracious Lady – who is also our Mother – has a personal interest in helping each one of us to practice them. If only we would remember to ask her!
“O God, the protector of all that trust in Thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing holy: increase and multiply upon us Thy mercy, that Thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things which are eternal . . .”