There is a class of persons whose number will never be known until that day which ushers in Eternity, and for those the Hidden Life of our Lord would, if familiar to them, be an abundant source of consolation.
It has been constantly maintained throughout the present little work, that in using the terms hidden souls and hidden life there is no intention of referring only to persons living in any particular state of life, or belonging to any special manner or condition of life. There may be persons who according to their state are called upon to reproduce the Life of Jesus of Nazareth, but who, alas! do not reproduce it; whilst others, placed in the midst of the world, reproduce it perfectly, at least within the secret of their souls.
Now, it is for the latter class that the present meditation is chiefly intended, although it may well be made available for those who are called aside from the crowd, and whose special vocation has placed them in that state which in itself is a perpetuation of Nazareth.
A soul which, independently of state or condition, reproduces within itself our Lord's Hidden Life, is one which for many reasons must be very dear to His Heart.
Among the highest grades of society, as in the more humble classes, Jesus can count His choice souls, and the Church her treasure-houses of spiritual gifts. He has not indeed openly called them apart from the crowd, but He has secretly made them captives of His love and sharers in the sorrows of His own Heart. How many there are who yearn for a solitude which would afford them readier facilities for prayer and meditation - who long for a mode of life which would remove them from scenes in which they must necessarily take part, and with which the aspirations of their own hearts have no sympathy. Yet, in the inscrutable designs of God, many of these souls are prevented by a combination of circumstances from following their attraction. None know, perhaps, the violence they are doomed to suffer - the inward struggle which again and again they must submit to, if they would keep their wills in subjection to that Sovereign Will which they know by faith has appointed all things.
Others there are who, without possessing precisely the attraction alluded to, yet have become the friends of the Heart of Jesus by drinking of His chalice, so that the world has lost its hold upon them, although they are obliged to dwell in the midst of it. They make no parade of extraordinary piety, they do not withdraw in any marked way from the rest of the world - it would be almost hypocrisy in them to do so, since they value the world only at what it is worth, and therefore have nothing to fear from it. We pass such persons daily in the streets, these hidden friends of God, who go on their way quietly doing good when- ever the opportunity crosses their path, yet endeavour to effect it noiselessly, unnoticed, known but to God alone. Such souls live more for others than for themselves. Self-sacrifice is the keynote of their lives.
Again, we meet with others whose souls are possessed by some stupendous, life-long sorrow. When the blow first fell upon them, it well-nigh crushed them beneath its weight, but they revived and grew strong again in the sunshine of God's love, and now they pass on through life chastened, hallowed by the abiding presence of their sorrow, which as a guardian angel keeps them "pure and unspotted from the world" and from the world's spirit. People around them have, perhaps, some knowledge of their "affliction," as probably they term it; but how many circumstances are there which most likely aggravate its pain and its intensity, of which no one knows but God. These are secrets between God and His friend which do but augment their friendship, and such secrets are all-sanctifying in their influence! Many such hidden sorrows form part of the treasure of the Church, for the friends of the Heart of Jesus quickly learn to consecrate their sufferings to an apostolic end. Thus is perpetually reproduced in the world around us the mystery of the Life of Nazareth, while the world goes on in its folly, little suspecting the mines of spiritual wealth it possesses in its midst.
If these lines should perchance meet the eye of any such souls as have been described, they will understand how to apply what has been said, and to detect the analogy between the Life of the Heart of Jesus at Nazareth and their own inner lives. There are others also, for whom God is providing the materials of becoming hidden souls, but who as yet know not how to avail themselves of their treasure.
Is it without a purpose that our Lord permits certain of His creatures to be frustrated in their most legitimate designs, baffled in their holiest aspirations, misunderstood and blamed through no fault of theirs even by the good? Is it for nothing that those gifted with lofty intellects are sometimes passed over in the schools, while those far beneath them in intellectual power carry away the palm? Happy souls, if only they knew the value of their vocation! Such as these are called to a higher friendship than that of the world; the prize for their victories will be something greater, more enduring than any that would be awarded them on earth; and all that they have panted for here below - their holy designs for the glory of God and for the interests of souls which here have been denied success - will be granted them hereafter, with "good measure, and pressed down and shaken together, and running over." (Luke 6:38)
Yet, it must be owned, there are many who frustrate God's designs in their regard, many who will not believe because they cannot see. They lose patience in the fire of tribulation, or grow soured beneath humiliation and disappointment, and thus the means, chosen by God for preparing them to reproduce before His eyes the Hidden Life of His Son, are changed into sources of bitterness and regret. To such persons we would quote these beautiful words in the second chapter of the Book of Ecclesiasticus, "Humble thy heart and endure... and make not haste in the time of clouds. Wait on God with patience: join thyself to God and endure.... Take all that shall be brought upon thee, and in thy sorrow endure, and in thy humiliation keep patience. For gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of tribulation."
But all this cannot be done alone. Join thyself to God, to the Hidden God of Nazareth, to His Sacred Heart, and learn of it to endure in silence, and to keep patience until sorrow has effected its chastening work, and then thou shalt know how sweet a thing it is to suffer alone with God, and, unknown to men, to glorify Him in the midst of thy heart, and silently to do His work. Then indeed will you have corresponded with your vocation, O souls, called to a hidden life, modelled on that of Nazareth, and to you it may well be said, "Blessed are ye," for your lot is destined to be among the saints.
- text taken from the 1906 edition of The Heart of Jesus of Nazareth - Meditations on the Hidden Life; it has the Imprimatur if Bishop John Baptist Butt, Diocese of Southwark, England, 5 February 1890