Thirteenth Subject. Sanctification of Labor (the labour at Nazareth)

I am poor and in labor from my youth.—Ps. lxxvii. 16.

Let us adore our Divine Saviour in the house at Nazareth, applying Himself with Mary and Joseph to the hardest labors, in order to teach us, to sanctify ours, and to merit for us the grace to do so.

Have we often in our occupations this holy model before our eyes, and do we endeavor to enter into His views, into His dispositions? Do we unite our labors, our pains, our repugnances to His?

An upright and laborious workman can, each evening, present himself before his employer and demand his wages; is it so with us? If at night we should seriously enter into ourselves, to take account of our occupations and of the manner in which we have acquitted ourselves of them, interiorly as well as exteriorly, would we dare to say to God that we have merited well of Him? That we have labored with zeal in union with Jesus Christ, solely to please Him?

What would we say to a servant, to a workman, to a pupil who during the day had no more entered into our views than we have entered into the views of God, who had no more sought to please us than we have sought to please God?

Let us think seriously of this and not deceive ourselves; let us remember that we shall reap only that which we shall have sowed, and that one day, our actions will not only be counted but they will be weighed.

Holy persons have desired that a festival might be established to honor the labor of Jesus in the house of Nazareth; let us form this same desire, and meanwhile let us ourselves celebrate this festival, by following the advice which St. Paul gives us in the words: Whatsoever you do in word or in work, all things do ye in the name of Jesus Christ; giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.—COLOS. iii. 17.

Pause.

ACT OF CONTRITION.—How pleasing my labor would have been to Thee, O my God! had I performed it in the spirit of faith, and in union with that of Jesus Christ when He was upon earth, but alas! I have most frequently only done it from habit, and without any holy motive. Pardon, O my God, for the past, and especial assistance for the future, by the merits of the same Jesus Christ, and the mediation of Mary and of Joseph.

I make the resolution to......