Perhaps Our Blessed Lord instead thought back to His earliest memories and the adoration of Saint Joseph at the Holy Womb of the Blessed Virgin…
I have been meditating upon the Blessed Virgin and her Chaste Spouse Saint Joseph.
I recently saw a painting of this Holy couple, and I was moved by it and could not stop myself considering this couple in another light. The painting is called “Tabernacle” by Mike Moyers.
I have always considered that Holy couple as a couple of people who were fairly ordinary. They were after all not kings or princes or rich or important. They were not listened to or respected in their Holy Places or Communities much more than any other person. They never had followers. They never had people who listened to them preach. They never had anything in their lives that one could consider – in a worldly sense – important.
And yet, their existence was the prerequisite of our salvation. In other words, they were so special and important that I would not even have a chance of considering Heaven if it was not for the simple work that they did.
And while it is true that no crowds gathered to hear them preach – God Himself listened to their teachings.
It was the Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph who spoke the first words of God to Christ Himself. God the Father entrusted His Beloved Son to those two human souls so that they would be able to teach Him what it was to love God in a human sense.
After all, Christ is perfect God and perfect Man, and this means that He has a perfect Divine nature and a perfect Human nature. And though His Divine nature is literally Divine, in His Human nature, Christ had to deal with a myriad of Human issues. He was hungry and thirsty in the desert. He was tempted there too. And the temptations were of a HUMAN nature and not a spiritual one. He was offered money and power and glory on Earth. And as the PERFECT MAN, he was completely and utterly deserving of those things.
And as a PERFECT Being He was entirely able to do whatever He wanted and to achieve whatever He wanted. But He chose not to. That choice was NOT pre-determined. That choice was not certain or definite. It was not a theoretical choice. It was the decision of a moment. And in that moment of temptation, Christ could have chosen to do the easier thing. He could have chosen Earthly glory. He could have forsaken us and dropped the Cross and ascended to Heaven without ever thinking about us ever again. His HUMAN nature could have chosen such a choice.
But it did not. And the reason it did not was because He was taught – by His HUMAN parents what human love could be. In those darkest of all moments when He wished to choose otherwise, perhaps Our Blessed Lord instead thought back to His earliest memories and the adoration of Saint Joseph at the Holy Womb of the Blessed Virgin, and perhaps it gave Him strength to make His choices… That adoration might have been the one thing that spurred Him on…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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