24 December, Antonio, Cardinal Bacci: Meditations For Each Day

A CHRISTMAS NOVENA

IX. The Holy Family

1. We have in the Holy Family the highest possible models of perfection—Jesus, Mary and Joseph. As God, Jesus is essentially holy. By means of the Hypostatic Vision this sanctity is transmitted also to His human nature. The holiness of Jesus was only gradually revealed as He grew older, because He wished to be like us in everything save in sin.

As the Gospel says, He “advanced in wisdom and age and grace before God and men.” (Luke 2:52) Therefore, Jesus did not dazzle the world from the very beginning with the splendours of Mount Tabor. He gave us instead an example of holiness which we should find it easier to imitate because it was eternally increasing all the time. He offered us as an example the kind of sanctity which has its beginning and foundation in utter humility and detachment from worldly goods. “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” (Mt. 11:29)

Socrates advised his followers to have few desires and to desire these as little as possible in order to remain content, for the man who is full of desires is always uneasy and restless. This human counsel is very true, but it is incomplete. It recommends detachment from earthly things, but fails to teach the ardent and practical desire for supernatural things. Jesus Christ teaches us both. After He has urged us to become gentle and humble like Him, after He has told us not to worry about the future and not to fret about what to wear and what to eat, He points out the way in which Providence clothes the lilies of the field and feeds the birds of the air. Then He adds: “Seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be given you besides.” (Cf. Luke, 12:22-31)

We must limit and moderate our desire for earthly goods, therefore, but should ardently yearn to love God, to serve and obey Him in this life and to enjoy Him forever in Heaven. This is what the Infant Jesus wishes to teach us.

2. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the second model proposed for our imitation in the Holy Family. She is the purest and most beautiful creature ever fashioned by the hand of God. As Mother of the Word Incarnate, her dignity touches the divine. Preserved from all stain of sin from the moment of her conception, she is full of grace. Except in God Himself, no greater beauty and holiness can be found elsewhere than in Mary.

We do not read that Mary worked miracles, had ecstasies, or possessed any extraordinary external gifts. Her sanctity was completely internal. She trod the ordinary way of perfection, therefore the way most easily imitated by us, and nevertheless reached the highest peak of holiness. Since we are her devoted and affectionate sons, let us ask her for the grace to follow her in the way of perfection and of complete resignation to the will of God. Although we may have to follow her from afar, let us follow with enthusiasm.

3. The third member of the Holy Family is St. Joseph, the most just of men, faithful to his vocation as foster-father of the Child Jesus and chaste spouse of the Virgin Mary. Let us imitate his purity, his utter dedication to the service of God, and His burning love for Jesus, Whom he was privileged to clasp to his breast before any other man. Let us ask him to obtain for us the grace to be able to imitate him in his life so that we may also imitate him in his holy death. May he who died with Jesus and Mary by his side obtain peace for us in our final agony, so that we may expire with the names of Jesus and Mary on our lips and in our hearts.