The depth of the Divine Providence guiding us to salvation is made manifest in the major events of the life of Our Lord Savior Jesus Christ more patently than anywhere else.

The conception and the birth of Our Lord by the Every Virgin Mary and the very person of the Most Pure Mother of God point out what purity, what chastity, what humility and thirst for God are required to reach the perfect state of grace.  At the same time they bear witness to the true divinity of the Savior.  The incarnation itself of Christ reveals His finite humility and self-limitation.  The indissoluble tie between goodness and humility was proclaimed by the Most Holy Virgin Mary in Her hymn "My soul doth magnify the Lord."  The poverty of the cave and the manger in Bethlehem demonstrates that the magnitude of God's love is not linked to the glory of this world and that infinitely loving of man's freedom, God draws man to Himself without impressing his imagination with external magnificence.  But the shepherds and the Wise Men from the East were vouchsafed the revelation of the truth about the newborn God-Infant - was a reward for the humility of the former and for the thirst for truth of the latter.

This secret had been revealed also to St. Simeon the God Receiver and to Anna the Prophetess because they cared deeply about the spiritual fate of their nation and of mankind on whose behalf they awaited the Messiah.

The Childhood, boyhood and youth of Our Lord Jesus Christ are virtually hidden from us.  But the little we know about them, the years in an artisan family, the obedience of a boy who knew of His appointed lot at the early age of 12, proclaim again the same humility.

"Parish Life," January, 1986