The Catholic bulletin., 1916-01-15
THE SACRED HEART IN THE
FAMILY.

Holy Family, and the reason for both
one and the other was simply this,
that Nazareth was the home of the
Sacred Heart. Evil stopped at the
door of the little white house where
Jesus and Mary and Joseph lived;
from it all unkindness and bitterness
we're banished; over its Intel was
written, invisibly but Enthusiastically, a
welcome to all that was good. Not
wealth, nor influence, nor even friends
we're its treasure; yet it was rich be-
yond compare, because it sheltered
the Heart of the Divinely human Son
OF Man. God not only crossed its por-
tails. He lived within its lowly walls;
Satan and his wiles were forbidden an
entrance; angel wings fluttered about
it: the Lily of Israel, the Foster-father
of Christ, the Boy Jesus dwelt there
in peace; and the blessing of the Most
High was on it.
The Holy Family was the first
shrine of the Sacred Heart, it is the
type of all holy families. Those who
would form their domestic life on a
sure model, should make the mysti-
cal pilgrimage that wends its way
during the hours of prayer over the
waters of the Mediterranean and up
through the valleys of Gahlee to the
obscure village that clings to the
rocky slope of the northernmost of
Nazareth's many hills. But they must
not look for the home of the Sacred
Heart among the wealthy dwellings,;
for it is humble, and unpretentious,
and it shelters humble folk; q labor
ing man, still in the prime of life but
worn by toiling for a daily wage; a
woman, scarcely yet in the full matur-
ity of her growth, poorly clad, but fair
beyond the power of words to de-
scribe; and Boy, the most winsome
that ever knelt by mothers side.
Here were passed the wondrous
years when Jesus was growing from
boyhood to youth, and from youth to
manhood; here was given that mar
velus example of obedience and oi
labor that has been the strength ot
the poor, and the consolation of the
subject; here were wrought out in de
tail those lessons of domestic conduct
that have been the constant direction
of fathers and mothers, and the un
failing inspiration of sons and daugh
tiers; here was shown the pattern Of
the ideal life.
All of us have bowed in sorrow as
we knelt before the Pieta and watched
the Blessed Mother gazing in speech
less anguish on the blood-stained
mangIed, murdered body of her Son
we have fixed our thoughts upon her
as the teardrops glistened on her palli(
cheeks and she looked upon the dying
Christ upon the cross; we have won
dered at the mystery of the manger
and have marvelled at the faith and
tenderness of the young Madonna, lost
in alteration of the Babe upon the
niggard straw. These scenes the
artists and the preachers and the
poets have kept before us. And they
do we'll. For on Calvary and at Beth
lehem there are lessons to be learned
of which we shall all sometime have
dire need But for most of us the
place of more homely, though not less
necessary, instruction, the scene Of
what should be the subject of oul
more frequent contemplation, is no
the hill of skulls nor the wind-swept
cave, but the worshipful and ever
memorable cottage in the least of al
cities of forgotten Galilee, spot from
which even the guileless Nathanae
doubted that good could come.
The trial of faith now and agar
sears the soul of every Christian
sometimes in their life all men fine
themselves near the cross; but there
is never a child so lowly and never {
man so great, that does not have tt
spend a large portion, if not the en-
tirety, of his days in that sacred place
to which we have given the name o1
home. All of us are what our homes
have made us. The chief formative
influence in the shaping of character
is that first fashioning of manners
and of thought that is given near the
hearthstone when the child is increas
ing, as all must do, in age, and, as al
ought to do, in wisdom and grace will
God and man. 1t was in His home
that Jesus garnered the strength tC
face the public ministry and to crown
it by climbing the hill of crucifixion
it was at Nazareth that He sehooleC
His heart to its all-forgiving love fo
man: it was in the Holy House o
Loretto that He waxed strong, full o
wisdom and the grace of God. So
is with us all. Happy the man, AM
happy the woman whose childhood ha
been passed in home like that whert
for so many years dwelt the Sacre'
Heart of our Lord
In the first Holy Family-and al
other families are holy only so far a
they approximate to it-there was in
sight into things supernatural. Tn
Holy Family did not regard itself a
an isolated thing set in the midst of ;
heartless world, with no higher ambi
tion than the qualification of self, NJ
loftier pleasure, than the tingling o
sense or the thrill of power or tn
exultation of pride. The Holy FamiI.
recognized that naught on earth is o
value if it leads not to God. Mary an,
Joseph, and of course, our Lor,
pierced the veil that blinded their fel
lows, their minds went soaring up t,
the Creator of all, from Whom ha
come down all that we have, and t
Whom must be brought all that we d
and all that we are. And the pity o
1t is that more homes are not like II