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Cornelius Buckley S.J.Aug 2, 2024 12:00:00 AM1 min read

2 August 2024

Optional Memorial of Saint Peter Julian Eymard, priest

The Gospel in today’s mass, on this, the first Friday of the month honoring the Sacred Heart, gives us a wonderful insight into the mystery of God taking flesh to become man, an event we highlight on the feast of the Annunciation and at Christmas.

For thirty years after his birth, Jesus, God-made-man, lived briefly in Egypt, and then permanently in Nazareth with Mary and Joseph in a tradesman’s house, having for neighbors, what one might say, “a basket of deplorables.” The Savior of the world! Thirty years! Think about that!

The lesson here for us is that by learning to hammer nails and make chairs, Jesus did as much for the redemption and salvation of the world as he did by working miracles and confronting the Pharisees. He culminated his mission, of course, at the crucifixion and resurrection, at the age of about thirty-three.

By his spending long years of his life in quiet seclusion Jesus teaches me that my doing what God has called me to do, the ordinary, the unspectacular, is far more important than my feeling sorry for myself because I am not another Thomas Aquinas or Theresa of Avila.

Resolve: I will spend some time today thanking God, my heavenly Father, for creating me and giving me a particular job to do in cooperation with Jesus’ work of redemption and sanctification. And, and with the intercession of Mary and Joseph, I shall ask Jesus to be the model for me to know and carry out the Father’s will. Finally, I shall ask the Holy Spirit to give me the vision to see what the baskets of deplorables really are, despite their lack of vision, - members of the Body of Christ

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