Main and secondary characters

Joseph and Mary had Me, True God, as their Son, yet they did not even have the meagre satisfaction of being poor in their own country, where they were known, where at least there was their ‘own’ little house and the problem of a dwelling did not add a harassing thought to their many problems, in the country where, as they were known, it was easier for them to find work and provide for the needs of their lives. They are two refugees just because they had Me. A different climate, a different country, so sad in comparison with the sweet countryside of Galilee, a different language, different habits, living amongst people who did not know them, and who generally distrusted refugees and people they did not know.

They are deprived of those comfortable and dear pieces of furniture of ‘their’ little house, of so many humble and necessary things they had there, and which did not seem to be so necessary, whereas here, in the void that surrounds them, seem even beautiful like the luxurious things that make the houses of rich people so charming. And they felt nostalgia both for their country and for their home, they worried about the poor things they had left behind, about the little kitchen garden where probably no one would take care of their vines and their figs, and the other useful plants. And they had to provide everyday as well as for food clothes, fire, and for Me, a Child, Whom they could not feed with the same food they took themselves. And they were sad at heart: because of their homesickness, because of the uncertainty of the future, and the lack of trust of people who are reluctant, particularly at first, to accept the offer of work of two unknown people.

And yet, as you have seen yourself, that house is pervaded with serenity, smiles, harmony, and by mutual consent they endeavour to make it more beautiful, even in its scanty little kitchen garden, that it may be more like the more comfortable one they had to leave behind. They have only one thought: that the land may be less hostile and less unpleasant for Me, since I come from God. It is the love of believers and relatives which reveals itself in many ways: from the little goat they purchased with many hours of extra work, to the little toys carved in scraps of wood, to the fruit purchased only for Me, while they denied themselves a morsel of food.

O beloved father of mine on the earth, how loved you have been by God, by God the Father in the Most High Heavens, by God the Son, Who became the Saviour on the earth!

In that house there is no quick temper, no sulkiness, no grim faces, neither is there any reproach against each other, and least of all against the God Who has not loaded them with material wealth. Joseph does not reproach Mary as being the cause of his discomfort, neither does Mary reproach Joseph because he is incapable of procuring greater worldly goods. They love each other in a holy way, that is all. And therefore they do not worry about their own comfort, but only about the comfort of their consort. True love is not selfish. And true love is always chaste, even if it is not perfect in chastity as the love of the two virgin spouses. Chastity united with charity yields a suite of other virtues and therefore two people who love each other chastely become perfect.

The love of Mary and Joseph was perfect. Therefore it was an incentive to every other virtue and in particular to charity towards God, blessed every hour, notwithstanding His holy will is painful for the flesh and the heart, blessed because, above the flesh and above the heart, the spirit was more lively and stronger in the two saints, and they exalted the Lord with gratitude because they had been chosen as guardians of His Eternal Son.

• Joseph of Jacob (Saint Joseph)
• The Virgin Mary

Humility reigns in that house. What a lesson of humility for the proud. Mary, from a human point of view, had a thousand reasons to be proud and to be adored by Her spouse. Many women are proud only because they are a little better educated, or of nobler birth, or of a wealthier family than their husbands. Mary is the Spouse and the Mother of God, and yet She serves — and does not expect to be served — Her consort, and She is full of love for him. Joseph is the head of the family, judged by God so worthy of being the head of a family, as to be entrusted by God with the guardianship of the Word Incarnate and the Spouse of the Eternal Spirit. And yet he is anxious to relieve Mary of Her work, and he takes care of the most humble jobs in the house so that Mary may not get tired, not only, but whenever he can he does his best to please Her and make Her house more comfortable and Her little garden more beautiful.

• Couple
• Family
• Humility
• Humility of the Virgin Mary
• Husband and wife - Husband and wife
• Joseph of Jacob (Saint Joseph)
• Love of neighbor
• Service
• The Virgin Mary
• The Virgin Mary - Mother of God

• Holy Family
• Jesus Christ
• Joseph of Jacob (Saint Joseph)
• Locations - Nazareth
• Summary of EMV

37.1 I see my little Jesus appear as sweet as a ray of sun on a rainy day; He is a little child about five years old, completely blond and very beautiful in His simple blue dress which reaches down to half His well-shaped calves.

He is playing with some earth in the little kitchen garden. He makes little heaps with it and on top He plants little branches as if He were making a miniature forest, with little stones He builds little roads and then He would like to build a little lake at the foot of His tiny hills. He therefore takes the bottom part of an old pot and fills it up to its brim and then adds water with a pitcher that He dips into a vessel, which is certainly used either for washing purposes or to water the little garden. But the only result is that He wets His dress, particularly its sleeves. The water runs out of the chipped pot which is probably also cracked and… the lake dries up.

Joseph appears at the door and for some time he stands very quietly watching the work of the Child and smiles. It is a sight, indeed, that makes one smile happily. Then, to prevent Jesus from getting wetter, he calls Him. Jesus turns round smiling, and when He sees Joseph, He runs towards him with His little arms stretched out. Joseph with the edge of his short working tunic dries the little hands which are soiled and wet, and kisses them. And then there is a sweet conversation between the two.

Jesus explains His work and His game and the difficulties He had. He wanted to make a lake like the lake of Gennesaret. (I therefore suppose that they have either spoken to Him about it or they had taken Him to see it.) He wanted to make a little one for His own pleasure. This was Tiberias, there was Magdala, over there Capernaum. This was the road that led to Nazareth going through Cana. He wanted to launch some little boats in the lake, these leaves are boats, and He wanted to go over to the other shore. But the water runs away…

Joseph watches and takes an interest as if it were a very serious matter. He then suggests to make a small lake, the following day, but not with an old cracked pot, but with a small wooden basin well coated with pitch and stucco, in which Jesus would be able to launch small real wooden boats which Joseph would teach Him how to make.

37.2 Just then, he was bringing Him some small working tools suitable for Him, that He might learn to use them, without any fatigue.

«So I will be able to help you!» Jesus says, smiling.

«So You will help me, and You will become a clever carpenter. Come and see them.»

And they go into the workshop. Joseph shows Him a small hammer, a tiny saw, some very small screwdrivers, a plane suitable for a doll, which are all lying on the bench of a budding carpenter: a bench suitable for little Jesus’ size.

«See, to saw, You must put this piece of wood like that. You then take the saw like that, and making sure that You do not catch Your fingers, You start sawing. Try…»

And the lesson begins. And Jesus, blushing with the effort and pressing His lips together, saws the piece of wood carefully and then planes it, and although it is not perfectly straight, He thinks it is nice. Joseph praises Him and with patience and love teaches Him how to work.

37.3 Mary comes back. She had certainly gone out, and She looks in at the door. Joseph and Jesus do not see Her because She is behind them. Mother smiles seeing how zealously Jesus is working with the plane and how loving Joseph is in teaching Him.

But Jesus must have perceived Her smile. He turns round, sees His Mother and runs towards Her, showing Her the little piece of wood not yet finished. Mary admires it, and She bends down to kiss Jesus. She tidies up His ruffled curls, wipes the perspiration on His hot face, and listens with loving attention to Jesus, Who promises to make Her a little stool so that She will be more comfortable when working.

Joseph standing near the tiny bench, with one hand resting on his side, looks and smiles. I was therefore present at the first work lesson of my Jesus. And all the peace of this holy Family is within me.

• Holy Family
• Jesus as a child
• Joseph of Jacob (Saint Joseph)
• The Virgin Mary

«I have consoled you, My dear soul, with a vision of My childhood, which was happy in its poverty, because it was surrounded by the love of two saints, the greatest the world ever had.

37.5 They say that Joseph was My foster-father. Oh! If, being a man, he could not feed Me with milk, as My Mother Mary did, he worked very hard indeed, to give Me bread and comfort and he had the loving kindness of a real mother. From him I learned — and never had a pupil a kinder teacher — I learned everything that makes a man of a child, and a man who is to earn his own bread.

If My intelligence, that of the Son of God was perfect, you must consider and believe that I did not want to deviate from the attributes and attainments of My own age group ostentatiously. Therefore, by lowering My divine intellectual perfection to that of a human intellectual perfection, I submitted Myself to having a man as My teacher, and to the need of a teacher. If I learned quickly and willingly, that does not deprive Me of the merit of submitting Myself to man, neither does it deprive the just man of the merit of being the person who nourished My young mind with the ideas which are necessary to life.

Not even now that I am in Heaven can I forget the happy hours I spent beside Joseph, who, as if he were playing with Me, guided Me to the point of being capable of working. And when I look at My putative father, I see once again the little kitchen garden and the smoky workshop, and I still appear to see Mother peep in with Her beautiful smile which turned the place into Paradise and made us so happy.

• Holy Family
• Jesus as a child
• Joseph of Jacob (Saint Joseph)
• The Virgin Mary

37.6 How much families should learn from the perfection of this couple who loved each other as nobody else ever loved!

Joseph was the head of the family, and as such, his authority was undisputed and indisputable: before it the Spouse and Mother of God bent reverently and the Son of God submitted Himself willingly. Whatever Joseph decided to do, was well done: there were no discussions, no obstinacy, no oppositions. His word was our little law. And yet, how much humility there was in him! There never was any abuse of power, or any decision against reason only because he was the head of the family. His Spouse was his sweet adviser. And if in Her deep humility She considered Herself the servant of Her consort, he drew from Her wisdom of Full of Grace light to guide him in all events.

And I grew like a flower protected by vigorous trees, between those two loves that interlaced above Me, to protect Me, and love Me.

No. As long as I was able to ignore the world because of My age, I did not regret being absent from Paradise. God the Father and the Holy Spirit were not absent, because Mary was full of Them. And the angels dwelled there, because nothing drove them away from that house. And one of them, I might say, had become flesh and was Joseph, an angelical soul freed from the burden of the flesh, intent only on serving God and His cause and loving Him as the seraphim love Him. Joseph’s look! It was as placid and pure as the brightness of a star unaware of worldly concupiscence. It was our peace, and our strength.

37.7 Many think that I did not suffer as a human being when the holy glance of the guardian of our home was extinguished by death. If I was God, and as such I was aware of the happy destiny of Joseph, and consequently I was not sorry for his death, because after a short time in Limbo, I was going to open Heaven to him, as a Man I cried bitterly in the house now empty and deprived of his presence. I cried over My dead friend, and should I not have cried over My holy friend, on whose chest I had slept when I was a little boy, and from whom I had received so much love in so many years?

• Family
• Holy Family
• Humility of the Virgin Mary
• Jesus as a child
• Joseph of Jacob (Saint Joseph)
• The Virgin Mary
• The Virgin Mary - Mother of God

37.8 Finally I would like to draw the attention of parents to how Joseph made a clever workman of Me, without any help of pedagogical learning. As soon as I was old enough to handle tools, he did not let Me lead a life of idleness, but he made Me work and he made use of My love for Mary as the means to spur Me to work. I was to make useful things for Mother. That is how he inculcated the respect which every son should have for his mother and the teaching for the future carpenter was based on that respectful and loving incentive.

Where are now the families in which the little ones are taught to love work as a means of pleasing their parents? Children, nowadays, are the tyrants of the house. They grow hard, indifferent, ill-mannered towards their parents. They consider their parents as their servants, their slaves. They do not love their parents and they are scarcely loved by them. The reason is that, while you allow your children to become objectionable, overbearing fellows, you become detached from them with shameful indifference.

They are everybody’s children, except yours, o parents of the twentieth century. They are the children of the nurse, of the governess, of the boarding schools, if you are rich people. They belong to their companions, they are the children of the streets, of the schools, if you are poor. But they are not yours. You, mothers, give birth to them and that is all. And you, fathers, do exactly the same. But a son is not only flesh. He has a mind, a heart, a soul. Believe Me, no one is more entitled and more obliged than a father and a mother to form that mind, that heart, that soul.

• Family
• Jesus as a child
• Joseph of Jacob (Saint Joseph)
• Laziness - Idleness
• Parents and children
• Words of Jesus Christ for our time
• Work

• Alphée de Jacob (father of James and Jude d'Alphée and uncle of Jesus)
• James of Alphaeus (apostle)
• Jesus as a child
• Joseph of Jacob (Saint Joseph)
• Jude of Alphée (apostle)
• Locations - House of Nazareth
• Summary of EMV

38.3 Jesus is playing under the trees with two children who are about His own age. They have curly hair, but they are not blond. One, on the contrary, is very dark: a little head of a little black lamb which makes the skin of his little round face look even whiter, and two most beautiful large, wide open blue violet eyes. The other is less curly and his hair is dark brown, his eyes are brown and his complexion darker, but with a pinkish hue on his cheeks. Jesus’ little blond head looks like a blaze of light. They are playing in perfect harmony with some little carts on which there are… various articles: leaves, little stones, wood shavings, little pieces of wood. They must be playing at shops, and Jesus is the one who buys things for His Mummy, to Whom He takes now one thing, then another one. Mary accepts all the purchases with a smile.

Then the game changes. One of the two children proposes: «Let us play at the Exodus from Egypt. Jesus will be Moses, I will be Aaron, and you… Mary.»

«But I am a boy!»

«It does not matter. It’s just the same. You are Mary, and you shall dance before the golden calf, and the golden calf is that beehive over there.»

«I’m not going to dance. I am a man and I do not want to be a woman. I am a faithful believer and I am not going to dance before an idol.»

Jesus interrupts them: «Don’t let us play that part. Let us play this other one: when Joshua is elected Moses’ successor. So there will be no terrible sin of idolatry and Judas will be happy to be a man and My successor. Are you happy?»

«Yes I am, Jesus. But then You will have to die, because Moses dies afterwards. But I do not want You to die; You have always been so fond of me.»

«Everybody dies… but before dying I shall bless Israel, and since you are the only ones here, I shall bless the whole of Israel in you.»

They agree. Then there is an argument: whether the people of Israel, after so much travelling, still had the same carts they had when leaving Egypt. There is a difference of opinion.

They ask Mary. «Mummy, I say that the Israelites still had the carts. James says they didn’t. Judas does not know who is right. Do you know?»

«Yes, My Son. The nomadic people still had their carts. They repaired them when they stopped to rest. The weaker people travelled in them together with the foodstuffs, and the many things which were necessary for so many people were loaded into them. With the exception of the Ark, which was carried by hand, everything else was on the carts.» The question is now solved.

38.4 The children go down to the bottom of the orchard and from there, singing psalms, they come towards the house. Jesus is in front and He is singing some psalms in His gentle silvery voice. Behind Him, there come Judas and James holding a little cart which has been elevated to the rank of Tabernacle. But since they have also to play the part of the people, in addition to Aaron’s and Joshua’s, with their belts they have tied other miniature carts to their feet, and thus they proceed very seriously as if they were real actors.

They cover the whole length of the pergola, they pass in front of the door of Mary’s room and Jesus says: «Mummy, hail the Ark when it passes by.» Mary stands up smiling, and She bows to Her Son Who passes by, radiant in the bright sunshine.

Then Jesus clambers up the side of the mountain that forms the boundary of the house, or rather of the garden; He stands up straight on top of the little grotto, and speaks to… Israel. He repeats the orders and the promises of God, He appoints Joshua as the leader, calls him, and then Judas in his turn climbs up the cliff. He encourages and blesses him. He then asks for a… tablet (it is a large fig leaf) and He writes the canticle and reads it. It is not quite complete, but contains a large part of it, and He seems to be reading it from the leaf. He then dismisses Joshua who embraces Him crying, and He then climbs further up, right up to the edge of the cliff. And from there He blesses the whole of Israel, that is the two who are prostrated on the ground, He then lies down on the short grass, closes His eyes and… dies.

38.5 Mary, who has been watching from the doorstep smiling, when She sees Him lying still on the ground shouts: «Jesus, Jesus! Get up! Don’t lie down like that! Your Mummy does not want to see You dead!»

Jesus gets up smiling, runs towards Her, and kisses Her. Also James and Judas come. They also receive Mary’s caresses.

«How can Jesus remember that canticle which is so long and difficult and all those blessings?» asks James.

Mary smiles and answers: «His memory is very good and He pays a lot of attention when I read.»

«I too, at school, pay attention. But then I get sleepy with all the hubbub… shall I never learn then?»

«You will learn, be good.»

• Bible - Book of Deuteronomy
• Bible - Book of Numbers
• Exodus
• James of Alphaeus (apostle)
• Jesus as a child
• Jude of Alphée (apostle)
• The Virgin Mary

There is a knock at the door. Joseph walks quickly across the orchard and the room and opens it.

«Peace to you, Alphaeus and Mary!»

«And peace and blessings to you.»

It is Joseph’s brother with his wife. A rustic cart, drawn by a strong donkey, is outside in the street.

«Did you have a good trip?»

«Very good. And the children?»

«They are in the garden with Mary.»

But the children have already come to greet their mother. Also Mary comes, holding Jesus by the hand. The two sisters-in-law kiss each other.

«Have they been good?»

«Very good, and very dear. Are the relatives all well?»

«Yes they all are. They send You their regards, and they have sent You many presents from Cana. Grapes, apples, cheese, eggs, honey. And… Joseph? I have found just what you wanted for Jesus. It is on the cart, in the round basket.» Alphaeus’ wife smiles. She bends over Jesus Who is looking at her with His eyes wide open, she kisses Him on those two strips of blue and says: «Do you know what I have for you? Guess.»

Jesus thinks, but He cannot guess. I doubt whether He does it deliberately, to give Joseph the joy of giving Him a surprise. Joseph in fact comes in, carrying a large round basket. He lays it down on the floor in front of Jesus, unties the rope which is holding the lid on, he lifts it… and a little white sheep, a real flock of foam, appears sleeping in the very clean hay.

Jesus utters an «Oh!» of surprise and happiness and He is about to rush towards the little animal, but then He turns round and runs to Joseph, who is still bent down as before, He embraces him, and kisses him, thanking him.

The two little cousins look with admiration at the little creature, which is now awake and is lifting its little rosy head bleating, looking for its mother. They take it out of the basket, they offer it a handful of clover. It browses while looking around with its mild eyes.

Jesus continues saying, «For me! For me! Thank you, father!»

«Do you like it so much!»

«Oh! Very much! White, clean… a little lamb… Oh!» and He throws His little arms round the sheep’s neck, He lays His blond head on its little head and remains thus, happy.

«I brought two, also for you,» says Alphaeus to his sons. «But they are dark. You are not quite so tidy as Jesus and your sheep would always be untidy, if they were white. They will be your herd, you will keep them together and so you will no longer be loitering in the streets, you two little rascals, throwing stones at each other.»

The children run to the cart and look at the other two little animals, which are more black than white.

Jesus has stayed behind with His sheep. He takes it into the garden, gives it water to drink and the little pet follows Him as if it had known Him forever. Jesus beckons it. He calls it «Snow» and the little lamb replies bleating happily.

The guests are sitting at the table and Mary offers them bread, olives and cheese. She also puts a jug on the table with cider or water sweetened with honey, I do not know exactly which, I see that it is a very pale colour.

They speak while the children are playing with the three little animals that Jesus wanted to gather together so that He can give water and a name also to the others. «Yours, Judas, will be called ‘Star’ because it has that mark on its forehead. And the name of yours will be ‘Flame’ because it has the blazing colours of certain withering heathers.»

«Agreed.»

The elder people are talking and Alphaeus says: «I hope I have solved the matter of the boys’ quarrels. I got the idea from your request, Joseph. I said to myself: ‘My brother wants a little sheep for Jesus, that He may have something to play with. I will get two, also for those naughty boys, to keep them quiet a little, and avoid continuous arguments with other parents with regard to bruised heads and skinned knees. What with the school and what with the sheep, I will manage to keep them quiet’.

• Alphée de Jacob (father of James and Jude d'Alphée and uncle of Jesus)
• James of Alphaeus (apostle)
• Jesus as a child
• Joseph of Jacob (Saint Joseph)
• Jude of Alphée (apostle)