SAINT JOSE’S VOCABULARY TO TEACH THE CHILD JESS
In Fantasyland, where science understands nothing and where children are happy, they have just found an old manuscript. The connoisseurs who have analyzed it consider it to be authentic, so we communicate it to the press for the world’s knowledge. To read it, they say, you have to become like children. Those who think they are great will perhaps understand little. We hope that you can at least feel, deep inside, the need to become a little like children today.
The manuscript, it seems, was a vocabulary prepared by Saint Joseph to teach the Child Jesus and is reproduced below:
rejoice: what Mara and I feel when we see you.
Dude: It is the one who does not think of himself, but of the other. He is the one who gives his life for the one he loves. So, Jess, there are few real friends. Or, better, there is one: you on the cross…
Love: what you are and what you want all the men and women of the planet to be.
Feast: a party for something big. In heaven there is a banquet whenever a sinner is converted. How do you get wine for such a party?
tares: what an enemy sows to spoil the harvest. They say there’s a lot of weed out there, but I only see wheat when I look at your fresh, sweet, serene, clean eyes.
Lamb: a good, tame animal, always ready for sacrifice. Some say a little silly, but it can’t be silly: fools are impoverished and selfish intelligent beings, and the lamb is generous by nature.
Harvest: That moment in which we men collect what your Father gave us. It can become a moment of joy and solidarity or of selfishness and quarrels.
Cross: I don’t want to explain it to you. I cry every time I find out that a bandit has been crucified.
Divorce: a bad habit that allows destroying God’s project regarding human love.
selfishness: a mistaken love that leads to nothing. I think you will never understand what it is because you are the opposite.
Star: for scientists, something that perhaps no longer exists. For you and for me, a nod from your Father who greets the men and women of the planet.
Lily: a flower that dresses better than Solomon. A smile to heaven, a moment of peace and tenderness, a sign from your Father who takes care of everything. Tell him from me to grow trees too so he doesn’t lose his job as a carpenter…
Rain: what your Father commands about good and bad and fills our house with leaks.
Mara: the most beautiful name after yours. With her I live and work, dream and suffer. She has revealed to me a little of your
mystery, and he told me that you are unique.
Marriage: a wonderful vocation since the creation of the world that makes man and woman one flesh and help your Father to give birth to new children.
Mercy: I didn’t know what it was until you were born. She is compassion, she is close, she washes the wounded, she cleanses the sinner, she welcomes the fugitive, she forgives the traitor. It is something that begins on earth with your coming and that can make us happy forever.
Currency: what you will have to use to pay taxes. It is very useful if it is used to treasure in heaven based on alms. It is useless if selfishness and greed reign in our hearts, and we keep it in a bank to increase interest and decrease the joy of giving.
Death: that mystery that ends our lives. That pain that separates the mother from one of her children. That pain that will make Marta and María cry. That experience you will go through one day. But… can love die? One day you will rise, and we with you. Death, then, be defeated.
Woman: It is something wonderful, like your Mother. It is that jewel of creation that serves as a sanctuary of life and as the warmth of home. It is hope, beauty and tenderness. It’s… Jess, I’m shut up: I always fall short when I think of your mother.
Nazareth: is the town where you were conceived. Now it is your house, but it seems to me that it has become too small. Your house is the world, your scepter is the earth, your crown is the stars, and your bed… a bit of straw. I still don’t understand how the greatest can be satisfied with a little bread from the poor.
children: those who can enter the Kingdom of heaven. Those who welcome your coming. The ones that are not complicated. Those who trust in their parents like you in the Father.
Cloud: a sign of that blessed rain with which your Father prepares the fields for planting.
Sheep: It is worth a lot whether it is in the herd or if it escapes there. I know you will go looking for the lost, Jesus, but don’t forget to also take care of the 99 who remain in the fold (I don’t know if you will listen to me, because I see that you love your Father very much).
bird: an animal that flies and always has something to eat. He doesn’t work like your mother and I so that everything is always ready at home. Why does your Father love birds so much? Perhaps to teach us to fly, to think about the sky, in the midst of the thousand adventures of life that always have our eyes on the ground.
Bread: what you eat every day and what you will become in your Body before Easter and throughout the centuries.
Sin: That thing that hurts us men so much but that God can erase since you came into the world.
Poverty: for some, a curse, a failure. For your Mother and for me, there can be no poverty since you are at home…
Temple: it was the place where we met God. Now you have become something much more important than the Temple…
temptation: that test that all men go through and that invites us to build life without God.
Worked: what I do and what you will do when you can take the saw and the hammer. What brings bread to the house and dignity to the family. What becomes our collaboration to the infinite generosity of your Father who gives food to sparrows and hoes to men.
Life: what runs through your veins, what works in your cells, what drives your heart and what allows you to love in a human way. Life is a sigh from your Father, a poem from your Mother, your crying on Christmas night and your victory (which is our victory) coming out of the grave on Easter Sunday.
Wind: that which blows and we don’t know if it comes from the East or the West. For you, I know, it is like the Spirit, who leads us to be good and to live your Gospel.
Came: what we drink on holidays and what you will turn into your Blood.
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