Sunday, December 28 : Saint Charles de Foucauld

My Jesus, who art present near me, shew me what to think about your hidden life. ‘He went down with them and went to Nazareth and was subject unto them.’ He went down, lowered himself, humbled himself. It was a life of humility. My God, you appear in the likeness of man, and becoming man you make yourself the lowest of men. Yours was a life of abjection. You took the lowest of the low places. You went down with them, to live their life, the life of the poor working people, living by their labour. Your life, like theirs, was poor, laborious, hard-working. They were humble and obscure. You lived in the shade of their obscurity. You went to Nazareth, a little village, lost, hidden in the mountains whence, it was said, ‘no good came forth.’ It was like a retreat. You were apart from the world and the towns, in this retreat you
lived. You were subject to them under their authority, as a son is to his father or his brother. It was a life of submission, of filial submission. You were a good obedient son. If your parents’ wishes were not in perfect accord with your divine vocation you would not carry them out. You would ‘ rather obey God than man,’ as when you stayed those three days in Jerusalem. But except in such a case when your vocation would claim you rather than the fulfilling of their wishes, you would fulfil them like
the best of sons, not only obeying their smallest wish, but forestalling them, doing all that could give them pleasure, consoling them, making life sweet and pleasant for them, trying, with all your heart, to make them happy, being a model for all sons, having great thought for your parents, that is to say, in the measure allowed you by your vocation. This was your life at Nazareth, and it is my infinite happiness and incomparable grace to live in this beloved Nazareth. Yours was the life of a model Son with your humble working parents.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team