Nazareth is all about human life.

"I want to preach the Gospel with my life", Charles de Foucauld often said.  Charles who? Oh yes, that's the nobleman, soldier and adventurer who fell in love with Christ at 27 with the strength of a Saint Francis and set up the Little Brothers of Jesus to live and serve the pooresrt of the poor in the Saharan desert. Born in Strasbourg in 1858, he began the passionate search for the intentions which guided His Divine Master in the choice of his life. Why hadn't Jesus become a scribe, he wondered?  Why hadn't he wished to be born into one of those families destined for command, responsibility, social and political influence?

Carlo Carretto, an Italian who also left a lucrative life behind and joined de Foucauld's order in the Nineteen Fifties, writes (in his book "Letters from the Desert"), that his founder had realised early that the most effective method of preaching the gospel was to live it.  Especially today, people no longer want to listen to sermons. They want to see the gospel in action. Carretto asks: What does it mean to learn how to live the gospel, to be an apostle?

In his book he says that the word is one of the most misunderstood today.  It is a term used both correctly and incorrectly.  Everybody has become an apostle, and even moving a chair counts as apostolic activity.  Perhaps we have gotten into the habit of using big words to enhance parochial or diocesan life, he says, but things don't change and words remain words.

"All I should like to say on the subject is that having meditated for a long time I have learned from the depths of this mystery a deeper appreciation of the life of the layman and the life of the priest, of the apostolate of the laity and the apostolate of the priest.  My generation has lived through an extraordinary and in many ways chaotic period and many things must be justified either by reason of our childish incompetence and lack of preparation or attributed to special historical circumstances" he writes.

"To me the greatest  inspiration for the spirituality of the laity is in the life of Jesus, Mary and Joseph at Nazareth." From here Jesus has taught us to live "every hour of the day as saints.  Every hour of the day is useful and may lead to divine inspiration, the will of the Father, the prayer of contemplation -  holiness. Every hour of the day is holy.  What matters is to live it as Jesus taght us.  And for this one does not have to shut oneself up in a monastery or fix stange and inhumane regimes for one's life. It is enough to accept the realities of life.  Work is one of these realities;   motherhood, the rearing of children, family life with all its obligations, are others. 

"These realities must be sanctified; we must not think that a person is holy just because he hasmade vows.  One with  this outlook thinks of the hour of spiritual reading or prayer as the only time forthe spiritual life and ignores the longer time dedicated to work and everyday living.The result is at best an anemic and unreliable religious personality.  The whole person must be transformed by the gospel message.  Nothing one does can be indifferent.  All one's actions must be determinded by the gospel . Nazareth therefore is the life of a person, of a family, fully engaged in human activity" reasons Carretto with such simple logic that confounds the theological.    And a young mother who has just given birth to a child and who frets and worries deeply because this same child is already in danger of losing the few hours of life that she has, is definitely closer to God that she believes.  As I hope I am too now, concluding this post.