(4) Poverty. "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that being rich, He became poor for your sakes, that through His poverty you might be rich" (2 Cor. viii. 9). In His zeal for our wealth, He made Himself poor, He deliberately adopted poverty as one of His methods in His life of zeal. Poverty is the voluntary laying aside of all that we might have, in order that our purpose may be single. All can do this whether rich or poor, for all have much that they would rather not lay on one side, and all have self. Let us think what the Eternal Word was as God, and then what He was in Mary's womb, and we shall understand what poverty means. If we are to be zealous in His service, we must not only understand, but copy.
(5) Patience. Patience is a twofold grace, that of waiting and that of suffering, both are a great aid to zeal. The Eternal Word's zeal for the salvation of men had existed in all its perfection and all its fulness from all eternity, yet think how long He waited! When the conditions were changed and He had at length become incarnate, He still waited patiently for nine months, and after that He waited for thirty years! This was zeal, zeal in its perfection. Is my zeal tempered with patience? Am I patient with souls, patient with myself, patient above all when God says: Wait, do nothing?
Jesus showed His patience in the womb of His Mother not only by waiting; but by suffering, as we have already seen, all the inconveniences that were incident to His new existence. He doubtless also forestalled all the sufferings that were in store for Him and offered them all to His Father. Zeal without the aid of suffering cannot go far and it was one of the methods He chose. If I have not courage enough to choose it, I must, if my zeal is to be at all like His, be ready for it when He chooses it for me.
It will probably be seen one day that those whose lives have been lives of suffering, and who have never been able to do any active work for Him, are those whose zeal has effected the most for His glory and His Kingdom.
Those of us who are not entrusted with this wonderfully blessed gift of suffering, can at any rate offer to Him for souls all the many little inconveniences and incommodities of our lives, and so copy to some small extent the life of Jesus hidden in Mary.
O my little Jesus, help me, at whatever cost to self, to copy Thee.
Colloquy with Jesus hidden in Mary, asking Him for grace, so to adopt His methods that He may use me as an instrument of His zeal.
Resolution. Not to shrink from adopting His methods.
Spiritual Bouquet. "Every one that hath zeal ... let him follow Me" (1 Macc. ii. 27).