Page:Jesus of Nazareth the story of His life simply told (1917).djvu/109

 This is why He spent almost His whole life in a cottage and a workshop. And there was another reason.

What a prince touches, or does, or likes, receives a value which it had not before. When the Son of God came into the world, He found labour despised and shunned. So He consecrated it by the touch of His divine hands, and now it has become honourable and dear to those who love Him. We should esteem it as all the saints have done. How much better is a life of labour than one of ease and luxury! Let us thank God if we have to work hard with our heads or our hands. This will save us from the dangers that idleness brings; and if like our Lord we do our work for the love of God, it will be very pleasing in His sight and deserve a great reward.

When evening came our Lord and His Blessed Mother took their simple meal and said their night prayers together. He would speak to her of the time fast approaching when He must leave her to go out into the world and save the souls of men. She would see Him now and then during the time of His preaching, but His Father's business would fill His days, and prayer His nights. She must be content to follow Him with the holy women who would minister to Him, and mix in the crowd and see and hear Him from afar.

In His tender, loving talks during those last days at Nazareth, He would tell her many things about that Kingdom of His, the Church, which He was going to found, many secrets which because of her holiness she was fit to hear. When our Lord came to mix with men, we find Him sighing again and again at their want of faith, at the dullness of their understanding, at the slowness of their hearts. What a joy it must have been to Him to have such a one as Mary to teach, and how