Christmas Novena to the Christ Child
Day Eight
The Life Of The Child Jesus In Egypt And In Nazareth.
Reflection:
Our Blessed Redeemer spent the first part of His childhood in Egypt, leading there for several years, a life of poverty and humiliation. In that land Joseph and Mary were foreigners and strangers, having there neither relatives nor friends.
Only with difficulty could they earn their daily bread by the labour of their hands.
Their home was poor, their bed was poor, their food was poor. Here Mary weaned Jesus, dipping a piece of bread in water, she would put it in the sacred mouth of her Son.
Here she made His first little garments and clothed Him with them.
Here the Child Jesus took His first steps, stumbling and falling as other children first do.
Here too He spoke His first words but stammeringly. O wonder of wonders!
To what has not God lowered Himself for love of us!
A God stumbling and falling as He walks! A God stammering in His speech!
Not unlike this was the poor and humble life that Jesus led in Nazareth after His return from Egypt. There, until He was thirty years old, He lived as a simple servant or workman in a carpenter shop, taking orders form Joseph and Mary. “And He was subject to them.” Jesus went to fetch the water, He opened and closed the shop, He swept the house, gathered the fragments of wood for the fire and toiled all day long, helping Joseph in his work.
Yet who is this? God Himself, serving as a apprentice!
The omnipotent God, who with less than a flick of His finger created the whole universe, here sweating at the task of planing a piece of work! Should not the mere thought of this move us to love Him?
Prayer:
O Jesus, my Saviour!
When I consider how, for love of me, You didst spend thirty years of Your life hidden
and unknown in a poor workshop, how can I desire the pleasures and honours and riches of the world?
Gladly do I renounce all these things, since I wish to be Your companion on this earth,
poor as you were, mortified and humble as You were,
so that I may hope to be able one day to enjoy Your companionship in heaven.
What are all the treasures and kingdoms of this world?
You, O Jesus, are my only treasure, my only Good!
I keenly regret the many times in the past when I spurned
Your friendship in order to satisfy my foolish whims.
I am sorry for them with all my heart.
For the future I would rather lose my life a thousand times
than lose Your grace by sin.
I wish never to offend You again but always to love You.
Help me to remain faithful to You until death.
O Mary, you are the refuge of sinners, you are my hope. Amen
AnaStpaul 
How good it is to reflect on the Hidden Life of the Lord…. He knows all the joys and trials of my daily life…. the repetition of daily tasks, the wonder and the anxiety brought by a new dawn, the annoyances of things going wrong, the delight in greeting friends and neighbours I meet in daily events, the beauty of a child’s sticky kiss, the truth of daily meeting God in prayer, the love in the friendly smile, the mystery that the Lord God chose to live this life that he had given us to live….
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I have often wondered WHY He chose those 32 years in obscurity for He knew the who, what and the how of the lives of His creatures. An answer would perhaps be this quotation, posted a few days ago, which for me, contains in a small sentence, the entire theology of the Incarnation, the life, the death and the living with us in our small daily lives and in the Eucharist in particula) – “Christ…took our nature,
when He would redeem it,
He redeemed it by making it suffer
in His own Person –
He purified it, by making it pure
in His own Person.
He first sanctified it in Himself,
made it righteous,
made it acceptable to God,
submitted it to an expiatory passion
and then, He imparted it to us.
He took it,
consecrated it,
broke it
and said,
“Take and divide it among yourselves.”
Blessed John Henry Newman
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