The Holy Family at Nazareth are a Paradise on Earth
3 min • Digitized on July 29, 2021
From St. Joseph’s Life, Virtues, Privileges, Power, page 299
By Very Rev. Archdeacon Kinane, P.P.
“And his face did shine as the sun, and his garments became as white as snow. … Lord it is good for us to be here” (Matt xvii. 11.)
Consider that if one ray of the glory of Jesus on Mount Thabor inundated, as it did, the soul of St. Peter with heavenly delights, what must be the celestial joys of Joseph and Mary for so many years at Nazareth?
If our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ consoled His disciples by the dazzling glory of His Transfiguration, how often did not the same loving Saviour manifest to Mary and Joseph all the splendour, glory, and majesty of His divinity at Nazareth?
How often did not Jesus open the heavens and show to Mary and Joseph His kingdom and court, and all the joys and glories of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the very thrones and diadems prepared for themselves by God’s own hands?
No wonder that St. Joseph, seeing the glories of Paradise, should cry out, “How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts, my soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord” (Ps. lxxxiii. 1).
Where God is, there is His court; Jesus is God. His court is Nazareth, and hence countless millions of Angels, with outspread wings, kept watch and ward over the Infant Saviour, now reposing on the chaste bosom of His Immaculate Mother, another time pillowed asleep in the arms of St. Joseph.
Every now and again Jesus uplifted the veil, and all the glory and canticles of the heavenly Spirits broke upon the eyes and ears of Mary and Joseph, and transported their souls with celestial delights.
The unknown presence and conversation of Jesus with the disciples on the road to Emmaus set their hearts on fire with divine love. “And they said one to another: was not our heart burning within us whilst He spoke on the way?” (Luke, xxiv. 32.)
If the presence and the brief conversation of the unknown Jesus lighted up as it did with divine love the hearts of His disciples on the road to Emmaus, conceive, if you can, the love divine, the joys supreme, the delights so heavenly, that inebriated the hearts and souls of Mary and Joseph, who know Jesus to be the Son of God; lived in His divine presence; saw divine intelligence beaming in His countenance; and enjoyed the sweets of His conversation, not for one hour or day, but for the long space of thirty years.
The “Holy House” at Nazareth was a chapel; Jesus was God and man; Mary and Joseph were the holy worshippers.