Symphony of Admiration and Hierarchy

Every Christian should desire total union and identification of spirit with God, as Our Lord says: “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).

To this end, it is useful and beneficial to keep the hidden life of the Holy Family in our hearts and minds, and to seek with devotion and respect to know and to grow in love of this model, adoring Our Lord Jesus Christ and venerating Our Lady with hyperdulia and St. Joseph with protodulia.

How much we can learn from this intimacy between the Three, even though not all the events that took place between were recorded!

A divine and human Heart

Let us consider Our Lord Jesus Christ. God became flesh and dwelt among us (cf. Jn 1:14). It is this humanity of Jesus, united to divinity in the Person of the Word, that we should contemplate and by which we should be enraptured.

If we cannot fathom God in Him, we can at least understand the Man, endowed with a Heart capable of all natural emotions and who possessed, in perfect order, equability and balance, our own sentiments elevated to an infinite plane! How we would desire to contemplate Him at the age of thirty, in His human beauty illuminated by divinity, fascinating, with an imperial majesty and a sublime gentleness!

What would Our Lord’s divine gaze be like? How would the serenity of his countenance be, the manifestation of His affection and kindness through a smile? What were the joys and sorrows that permeated His soul?

The love He had for others, His brethren, caused Him to rejoice in their joys and suffer at the sight of their evils, His compassion embracing all moral sufferings, indifference, ingratitude, disappointment and contempt…

Our Lord, so pure, so kind and majestic, spread a fragrant and delightful peace that filled souls and satiated the immense need of every human heart to love and be loved.

For thirty years Jesus lived under the same roof with Our Lady and St. Joseph, in an atmosphere of poverty and grandeur, of love and peace, in silence, seclusion and mutual slavery…

There He grew in wisdom and grace (cf. Lk 2:52), prepared by a divine action from above for His great mission in the future, and closely accompanied by a maternal physiognomy, the admirable image of pure dedication, Mary Most Holy, who showed Him all her affection in a combination of adoration, obedience, and the exalted understanding She had of His destiny.

There, as a youth, He was instructed by St. Joseph in the carpenter’s craft, mastering the use of the tools of the trade. He spent thirty years ennobling labour and glorifying humility, in order to teach us the way to Heaven through abnegation, mortification and penance.

A wise and maternal Heart

In this ambience, the Sacred Heart of Jesus found a perfect replica of Himself, respecting all due proportions, in the Immaculate Heart of His Mother.

In the episode of the Annunciation, when Our Lady receives the immense honour of bringing God to the world, and especially from the birth of the Child Jesus onwards, we can appreciate in Her the paradox of uniting the highest attributes of feminine nature: virginity and motherhood. Shortly thereafter, She enters the Temple to offer her Firstborn as an expiatory victim for the sins of humanity.

Always very recollected, pondering all things in her Heart (cf. Lk 2:19.51), the Most Holy Virgin must have constantly applied her maternal instinct and her psychological sense, combined with the supernatural gifts She possessed, to Our Lord. Now, it is proper to human nature that the more one knows, the more one wants to know. And She, who knew more than all the Angels and saints put together, undoubtedly had an immense desire to understand more!

At the same time, the Child-God must have been happy to awaken holy curiosity in His Mother, providing opportunities for her to ask questions. And Mary asked questions, in a respectful tone, whenever She could!

At times, it was Jesus who, in a very natural way, posed questions, to help her express her impressions and give her merit for answering. But during her explication, her Son discreetly inspired her, so that She could conclude what He wished. Thus, when the explanation was ended, Mary would thank Him for the question, because it was She who had learned.

It is evident that Our Lady had a faith greatly illuminated by mystical phenomena, so that She would not languish later, during the Crucifixion.

Theologians are unanimous in affirming that gifts or privileges granted to any saint were also given, in the highest degree, to Mary, as long as it was befitting to her.¹ Now, if Our Lord was transfigured before three Apostles on Mount Tabor, and later revealed so many divine mysteries to St. Paul, during His life in Nazareth He must have been transfigured several times before Our Lady.

We can even imagine that in her dreams, while sleeping, She sometimes saw the Child Jesus in His splendour and glory. In fact, He Himself must have inspired His Mother’s dreams at night, to give her a true notion of Himself. Upon awakening, Mary’s eyes immediately turned toward her Son and contemplated Him sleeping serenely, in adorable innocence. It was the humanity of the Incarnate Word that then became manifest, to accustom her to contemplating the supernatural sides of His human aspects, and thus to broaden her discernment.

A strong and paternal heart

Finally, we must consider the strong and gentle, serious and affable heart, full of energy and resolution, of a man who played a role of utmost importance in the mysteries of the sacred childhood of Our Lord: St. Joseph.

This noble man’s most powerful and honourable title is that of having been called the father of Jesus.

We know that, according to the laws of property, if someone has a tree growing on his land, he also has the right to the fruit that the tree produces. Now, Jesus Christ is the blessed fruit of the Blessed Virgin, who belongs to Joseph as his legitimate wife. Therefore, more than by mere adoption, he is father because he is the spouse and guardian of the virginity of the One who bore the Son of God.

Furthermore, since Jesus was born on earth, subject to hunger and cold, exposed to persecution and insults, the Heavenly Father gave His Only-begotten Son a guardian to govern and defend Him, to shelter, nurture and protect Him.

But the elucidation of his legal paternity does not express the whole reality. The begetting of progeny is not solely or principally a biological question, although this aspect is indispensable in accord with the laws of simple nature. Under normal conditions, the conception of offspring requires both spouses’ consent of the will. And this is the noblest aspect of begetting, for it involves human rationality and not merely the corporeal dimension.

When the Holy Patriarch clearly learned of the miracle occurring in Our Lady, he rejoiced exceedingly, with adoration and gratitude, conforming himself entirely to God’s action within His virginal Spouse (cf. Mt 1:24).

And since the Almighty never destroys but rather uplifts nature, He willed that Joseph, by his voluntary acceptance of this mystery, be fully and rightfully father of the fruit of Mary’s womb, notwithstanding the exclusion of the natural act of generation.

Therefore, the Angel, emissary of the divine will, commands him to name the Child who is to be born and to accept his Spouse, who by then showed signs of the divine pregnancy (cf. Mt 1:20-21). Thus, the marriage between Our Lady and St. Joseph was not only real but also fruitful, albeit miraculously so, making him the virginal father of the Child Jesus.

Joseph lived exclusively for Jesus and Mary, dedicating himself to supporting and exalting both. When he gazed deeply at the Child, his enchantment and admiration were such that he modelled his own personality according to what he observed. And in relation to Our Lady, he was her protector, her friend, her comforter.

In circumstances in which he perceived it his duty not to appear, we see him vanish like the smoke of incense. This was the case during the visit of the Kings from the East and the Presentation in the Temple, episodes in which the attention of all was concentrated more especially on the Blessed Virgin Mary.

When, on the other hand, during the flight into Egypt it was necessary for him to take the lead in his role as head of the family, he reappears. And later, when Our Lord Jesus Christ was fully grown, St. Joseph felt that his mission was fulfilled, and he withdrew once again.

The Holy Patriarch is for us an admirable model of humility and complete forgetfulness of self! Despite his calling to such an exalted mission, little is known about him personally. Thus St. Joseph gives us the great lesson that all human authority must bow down and give way when God’s interests become manifest in this regard.

Symphony of admiration and perfect hierarchy

In the Holy Family there was a paradoxical situation, created by Providence, whereby the one who should have governed the most was the one who most obeyed.

The Creator, presenting Himself as a child, wanted to enforce this rule of paradox to such an extent that He offered Himself as a slave to Mary, by His total dependence on her during the nine months He spent in her maternal womb. He rejoiced in feeling like a Son and wanted to remain in the hands of Our Lady and St. Joseph throughout His family life, as a boy, as a youth, and as a young man, until the moment when He left home to begin His public life.

The Mother of God, chosen in the order of creation to be elevated to the relative hypostatic plane, the holiest of mere creatures, submitted to her husband.

Finally, Joseph was inferior to Our Lady and the Child Jesus; but as husband and father he had to govern. Perfectly zealous in fulfilling all his conjugal duties, he guided them and led them.

What was the relationship of this true trinity on earth like? It would have been a symphony of admiration, of appreciation of the grace dwelling in one another, from which each of them benefited, creating a union whose foundation and centre was God Himself.

This shows how God loves authority and wants mediation to be respected. The idea that all men are equal disintegrates before the example of the Holy Family, in which we find the school of perfect hierarchy. When the family is balanced, the man has a more prominent role of command than the woman and the children; and order is established based on this principle.

It can be seen that, in Paradise, the devil wanted precisely to put an end to the excellence of inequality: Eve gave the animal a value that was greater than its due; and Adam, in turn, had a love for Eve that was no longer entirely based on God. That is why he subjugated himself to the woman by accepting the forbidden fruit, and thus they both sinned.

The school of ceremonial and of liturgy

For the Holy Family, in the midst of this elevation, everything took place within the ordinary environment of everyday life, in a coexistence that was, for the most part, very human.

Where was the palace? Where was the grand cradle for the Child? The rich garments, the trappings? And the honour due to a king? They could have lived in a sumptuous dwelling; however, having left the Grotto of Bethlehem and, after their return from Egypt, they lived in a simple and humble house! Why?

Providence desired it thus to highlight the important role of ceremonial because, when one does not have a palace and is forced to live in conditions of poverty, the decoration and beauty of the walls must be constituted by the light that comes from the ceremonious behaviour of those living there.

It is in the tiny abode of the Holy Family that we will learn good customs and polite manners. It is in little Nazareth that we will receive the lesson of grandeur and of ceremonial. There we understand how indispensable it is to do everything with constant pulchritude and elevation of spirit.

The divine worship and rites that later emerged in the Church are derived from how the members of the Holy Family interrelated with one another, which, in turn, echoed in some way the divine and unsurpassable “liturgy” existing in the relations of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity.

This convivial coexistence was the delight of the Angels, who must have taken turns contemplating that magnificent permanent ceremony, composed of a God made Man, the most sublime of all mere creatures and the glorious Patriarch of the Holy Church.

Under the sign of triumph

However, who from among the humanity of that time was aware of what was happening in Nazareth?

The majority were completely unaware. Others, because of their ambition, were astonished when they learned of the mysterious events surrounding the birth of Jesus: “He came to His own home, and His own people received Him not” (Jn 1:11).

Many of those who had contact with the Holy Family perceived nothing, because they did not have sufficient faith…

Later, others, like the Pharisees and Herod, would scoff at Jesus. These are the sensual ones, who do not understand, despite having the Truth before them: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn 1:5). And it reaches the point of aberration: “The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand” (Is 1:3). He came for all, but few, very few, heard the voice of God; these are the men of good will.

That Child, born under the sign of persecution that would culminate in the Passion and Death on the Cross, also came under the sign of triumph, for He brought about His own Resurrection! He wished to suffer for us, but He never abandoned His royalty, as He said to Pilate: “You say that I am a king” (Jn 18:37).

His religion, His revelation, the infallibility of the truth that He conferred on the Church, the holiness that He brought to us are immortal and invincible.

That Child divided History until the end of time, being the cause of the rise of those who believe in Him, and of the fall of those who abandon and reject Him (cf. Lk 2:34-35).

It is in relation to Jesus, Mary and Joseph that the thoughts of hearts are revealed and the division occurs between those who will be on the right or left of the Divine Judge on the last day; those who are of God and those who are of Satan; those who will go to Heaven and those who will be cast into hell. ◊

Excerpts from oral presentations given
between 1992 and 2009, as well as
from the work St. Joseph: Who Really Knows Him?…

Notes

¹ Cf. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE, OP, Réginald. La Mère du Sauveur et notre vie intérieure. Lyon: Les Éditions de l’Abeille, 1941, p.135-136; ROYO MARÍN, OP, Antonio. La Virgen María. Teología y espiritualidad marianas. 2.ed. Madrid: BAC, 1997, p.47.