About the author- litigation lawyer in telecoms, taxation, criminal, labor, appellate, family law and corporate; a radio broadcaster, speaker, author a husband, a father, advocate for consumers, for justice www.angkapatiran.org and a sinner who wants to
be a saint. hilman1108@yahoo.com
NATURALNESS AND SIMPLICITY
The Messiah came to the temple in his Mother’s arms. No one would have paid much attention to the young couple who were taking a little child to present him to the Lord.
The mothers had to wait for the priest at the East gate. Mary went there with the other women and waited for her turn when the priest would take her Son in his arms. Joseph was by her side, ready to pay the ransom. The ceremony of Mary’s purification and the ransom of the Child from service to the Temple was no different in appearance from what normally happened on those occasions.
The whole of Mary’s life is permeated with a deep simplicity. She always carries out her vocation as Mother of the Redeemer naturally. She appears in her cousin Elizabeth’s house to help and look after her during those three months. She prepares the swaddling clothes and everything for her Son. She lives for thirty years with Jesus, never tiring of looking at Him, treating Him with great love, but with complete simplicity. When she obtains his first miracle from her Son in Cana she does it so naturally that not even the bride and groom realize what a wonderful event has taken place. She never makes show of her special privileges. Mary, the most holy Mother of God, passes unnoticed as just one more among the women of her town. Learn from her how to live with naturalness. Our Lady’s simplicity and naturalness made her humanly very specially welcoming and attractive. Jesus, her Son, during the thirty years of His hidden life, is always the model of perfect simplicity. When He begins to preach the Good News He does not carry out a noisy, spectacular activity. Jesus is simplicity itself in His birth, in the presentation in the Temple, or when He manifests His Divinity through the miracles which God alone can work.
Our Savior shuns all show and vain-glory and false, theatrical gestures. He makes Himself accessible to all: to the incurably sick and the most abandoned, who come to him trustingly to beg the remedy for their infirmities; to the Apostles, who ask him the meaning of the parables, to the little children, who embrace him confidently.
Simplicity is a sign of humility. It is radically opposed to anything false, artificial or deceitful. It is also a very necessary virtue for our dealings with God, for spiritual guidance and for our daily life with those around us. Naturalness. Let your lives as Christians men, as Christian women – your salt and your light – flow spontaneously, without anything odd or absurd; always carry with you our spirit of simplicity.
Excerpts from IN CONVERSATION WITH GOD by Francis Fernandez.
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