A third cause that made the life of Christ so holy was that He did everything perfectly well: “He hath done all things well” (St. Mark vii, 37). Our goodness does not consist so much in what we do as in the manner in which we do it. In fact, during the thirty years of His private life, which we are now studying, Christ did no great things whatever. His occupations were of the humblest kind; millions of men are doing the same day after day; but His actions derived their excellence from the perfection wherewith He did them, and our goodness consists in imitating His perfect manner of acting.
The excellence of a masterpiece in painting and sculpture results from the excellent delicacy and appropriateness of every, even the smallest, detail; the beauty of a specimen of good penmanship does not result from bold dashes, but from the perfection of every single letter; and so the excellence of the life of Christ, and the lives of those who wish to become like unto Him, lies not in doing great things, but in doing everything excellently well.
Few of us, if any, have occasion of doing many great things in the course of our life; but we can all, with God’s grace, do a multitude of little things well, and thus resemble our Divine model. Our crown in Heaven will not consist of some one or two magnificent jewels, as does the crown of many glorious Martyrs, but of countless little gems, each shining with its own peculiar lustre. These are the lessons we should learn from the private life of the God incarnate.
THE THIRD MEDITATION
On the Public Life of Christ
1st Prelude. Recall the facts: Christ began His public labors for the salvation of souls by leaving His Blessed Mother, by being baptized among sinners, then fasting forty days. Next He travelled on foot from town to town during three years, in great poverty, through Galilee and Judea; selected ignorant men as His Apostles, instructed them most patiently, and predicted His sacred passion.
2nd Prelude. Behold Christ, attended by His Apostles, while He addresses a miscellaneous multitude.
3rd Prelude. Ask earnestly that you may learn from Him an intense zeal for souls and generosity in following His example.
POINT I. Consider the grandeur of the work of saving souls. It is the noblest occupation possible, as is expressed in the maxim attributed to St. Dionysius the Areopagite: “The most Divine of all Divine works is the salvation of souls.” In fact the saving of one soul is a higher achievement than the creation of the material universe; for the value of an action is properly measured by the result achieved, and a glorified soul is as far above all bodily substances as the knowledge, love and fruition of God is above mere matter. We admire the poet who composes a grand epic, the painter or sculptor who produces a masterpiece of his noble art, the architect who erects an imposing structure, etc.; but what is all this compared to the salvation of a soul, that will be for eternity an ornament of Heaven. To Christ belongs the glory of all salvation of souls, but He deigns to share this glory with His followers, to whom He says: “I have chosen you and have appointed you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain” (St. John xv, 16).
What a noble object to work for! And while a soul is so precious, its salvation is to be effected in a short time. We may at times achieve this wonderful success in a single hour.
POINT II. Consider the example set us by the Son of God to accomplish this purpose: 1. He left His Blessed Mother, and we do not read that He ever returned to her home. This ought to encourage us to make similar sacrifices. 2. He so humbled Himself as to be baptized among sinners; and, to call down the blessings of Heaven upon His sacred ministry, He spent forty days in fasting and prayer. By all this He taught us that the supernatural work of saving souls is to be accomplished by the supernatural means of humiliations and penance and prayer; mere eloquence and logic are not sufficient. 3. He endured many privations. For during those three years He and His Apostles had not the comforts of a home: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head” (St. Matth. viii, 20). They often spent the night in the open air, for instance in the Garden of Olives. They had no regular supply of food, and must often have endured bitter hunger. St. Matthew narrates an instance: “At that time Jesus went through the corn on the Sabbath; and His disciples being hungry began to pluck the ears and to eat them” (xii, 1). He travelled and taught the people all day and received visitors during the night, like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arithmathea, who were His disciples secretly for fear of the Jews.