archives

“I want to be more specific. Twenty hundred years of triumphs and of piety in the hearts of men and women on earth have surrounded the members of that holy family with so much glory that we tend to place that family in a world beyond us altogether. But let us not forget at the time they lived, especially at the time they lived in Nazareth, that to the people of their day they were not known as Jesus Christ, the Savior of men, the Son of God, nor as the Blessed Virgin Mary or the great St. Joseph. Indeed not!"

"Into that family’s life came real poverty, hard work, and severe, very severe humiliations, and to say the least, intense pain and suffering. Angels did not come to do the work for Our Lady. She had to prepare meals and fix clothes and sweep the house. And Joseph had to work to get food for that House; and Jesus, the Son of Mary, was hungry and had to be fed and he wore his clothes out and they had to be fixed and new ones had to be bought. The humiliations and sufferings they had to undergo can be imagined in your own way, but just remember this that when Jesus Chris was a baby, He and His mother and His foster father had to flee for their lives. And finally, when they crucified Our Lord, His Mother stood at the foot of the Cross on which He was nailed. And remember that she was not the mother of a great hero, of a great soldier – the glory of Mary was the glory of suffering and humiliation. Let us not forget that! Mary, in that day, was the mother of a criminal – and remember too, that Mary’s heart was as human and as capable of suffering as your hearts are. But remember that through it all these three lived and suffered together. Remember that once these three came together there was courtesy and kindness and consideration for one another’s failings. There was obedience and love and happiness. They bore all the difficulties for God and for the work of God. And because they did the will of God and followed that will of God’s throughout the days and throughout the years, no matter what that Will determined they should bear – they are for us of today, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Redeemer of men; and that woman is the Blessed Virgin Mary, the queen of heaven and of earth and Joseph is the great St. Joseph, the patron of the entire Church. Their reward for their holy and good life, for the life they lived on this earth, is the glory they have in heaven today, and the glory and homage we give them today."