Ave Maria Meditations
(As we approach Christmas) whom shall we ask to go with us on our journey? Who shall be to us the doctor of the Sacred Infancy? Surely Saint Joseph, so near to the infant Jesus, so dear His sinless Mother! If ever a saint was penetrated with the spirit of Bethlehem, doubtless it was he. Before the toil of the public ministry began, before the shadows of the passion had begun to thicken palpably on the horizon, Saint Joseph had finished his vocation. He belonged to Bethlehem and Nazareth; and God took him when Nazareth was ending.
The spirit of the Sacred Infancy is as it were his whole sanctification. No one can tell us more than he of the young Mother’s heart and of the Heart of the Divine Child. So we must entreat him to go with us and to help our prayers for light and to surround us with the atmosphere of his own meek and meditative spirit; and we too must remember his presence even when we do not mention him, so that our very thoughts and words may unawares be impregnated with his fragrant soul.
(We see) Saint Joseph kneeling by the Child in the cave of Bethlehem. Let us draw near and kneel there with him.
Fr. Frederick Faber from the book “Bethlehem”
