MARY, OUR MOTHER

Meditation 51

THE HOME OF NAZARETH

1. A Life of Obedience.
This is the consequence of order. When everybody commands and nobody obeys, there cannot be order. Consequently, there must be obedience in order to have a regular and orderly life. Nazareth, the model of order, is also a model of obedience.

The importance of this lie is stressed by the Gospel. Very little is said about the life at Nazareth. Although it embraced the longest period of the life of Jesus, yet the Gospel sums it up in two words. But those words underline that the life of Nazareth was above all a life of obedience.

Jesus was subject to His parents. Mary was subject to joseph, and Joseph to the Will of God. In this manner in Nazareth everybody obeyed and at no moment did they do their will. they just bent upon doing God's Will through obedience.

Go deeper into this truth and ask Our Lady to give you a practical knowledge of it. Ask Her to teach you to realize that only through obedience can we fulfill the Holy Will of God.

The purpose of our life is to serve God. He who serves does the will of his master. Therefore, we have always to do the Holy Will of God.

But this Will often appears obscure and difficult to know. Sometimes self-love blinds us and prevents us from seeing it. At other times the devil with his diabolical cunning tries to obscure it with temptations, taking us thereby away from the spring-source and cause of all sanctity which is the fulfillment of the Holy Will of God. What should we do then? Where ought we to seek the solution? How can we find out what God expects us to do? Only through obedience. When we obey we are not doing the will of a man but that of God, Who is commanding us through a man.

[Excerpted from 'MARIAN MEDITATIONS' Book by Rev. Dr. Ildefonso R. Villar, Salesian Philippine Province, Nihil Obstat; Imprimatur]