Hi Folks and Happy New Year to all of you. Well now, the Christmas Octave has been one wild, week long journey, has  it not? We left  the depot wrapped with the peace, joy and love of Christmas Day, and our first stop was at the stoning execution of the first martyr, St. Stephen. We got a day off and then stopped at the massacre of the Holy Innocents, moved on to the murder of St. Thomas Becket, celebrated the Holy Family, and finished our trip today,  with the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Paradoxical or what?

We have adorned our Blessed Mother with many titles (47 different ones I believe), and she is the greatest of all saints. She has been spared from original sin, and was taken into heaven body and soul, never having to die in this world. But, before she left here she lived here, as a woman, a mom, and a housewife.  I think we do not pay enough attention to the earthly life of our heavenly Mom.

Don’t forget, this woman had survived the possibility of execution by stoning  because she was pregnant prior to her marriage. You can’t tell me that she did not think about the potential consequences of her pregnancy. (Even her Son, the God Man, broke into a sweat in the Garden of Eden thinking about what was coming. Why wouldn’t  Mary be worried?) She knew she was pregnant, she knew this was an extreme violation of Jewish law, and she knew the penalty.  Her life was out of her hands, and her fate thrust into  the hands of another, a man named Joseph, her betrothed. Fortunately, he was the best fiancé ever, married her, took her in and accepted her child as his.

Then, at full term in her pregnancy,  she has to travel with her husband over 80 miles on a donkey to be counted in a census.  She survives the four or five day journey (no rest-rooms between Nazareth and Bethlehem) and the countless contractions she must have had along the way, to discover that her frantic husband cannot find a place for them to stay.  She winds up giving  birth in a stable with smelly animals,  lots of straw, no running water, and who knows how clean those swaddling clothes were. She was probably all of 14 years old.

Let’s not forget that after awhile word comes to them that Herod wants to kill her baby. Hey all you moms and dads, how would you like to know the head of the government has authorized your child’s execution? Can you imagine? So, this poor young mom  is forced to make a 300+ mile journey to Egypt, hiding her child as best she can, while all the time hoping her carpenter husband can elude the soldiers searching for them. Talk about anxiety. Talk about fear. Talk about having Faith and praying like you never prayed before.

It probably was a year or two before the family made it back to Nazareth. Here they probably lived in a typical baked clay and straw brick house. Each day Mary would have to sweep the beaten clay floor, go to the cistern for water, travel outside the town walls for daily necessities such as spices and grain which she would have to grind  into flour to bake fresh bread (no preservatives in those days). Of course, there was the laundry.  Trust me, there were no laundromats and there were no detergents. There were also no diapers or Pampers or band-aids or cough syrups or baby powder or microwave chicken nuggets or McDonald’s either.  Her husband would be in his shop doing his carpentry chores and her boy, Jesus, would be with His dad or maybe helping His mom. And life would go on, day after day after day and and ultimately transpose into the Greatest Story Ever Told. You have to LOVE IT, from Beginning to Never-Ending.

 

 

Larry is a Catholic/Christian author and blogger and posts weekly commentary. His work has appeared in such publications as Zenit from Rome, Aleteia, New Evangelists, Top Catholic Blogs, Big Pulpit, Catholic365.com and others. His first children's picture book, "Slippery Willie's Stupid, Ugly Shoes" was published in 2011. In 2012, his full-length novel, "The Priest and the Peaches" was released. His second novel, "The Demons of Abadon", was released in the spring of 2016. Larry’s latest novel, “Horizon Homeless” was released in ebook format in May of 2017 and the paperback followed on July 27, 2017. Larry belongs to the Catholic Writer’s Guild, The Catholic Writer’s Society, The Knights of Columbus, and the St. Vincent de Paul Society. He has been an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion for over twenty years bringing communion to the homebound and hospitalized. He lives in Pinellas Park, Florida and his kids and six grandchildren all live within three miles of each other. His first wife died of cancer in 2003. He remarried four years later and became the primary caregiver for his wife, Martha who came down with Non-Hodgins Lymphoma in 2011. The cancer was in remission when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in October of 2014. Sadly and unexpectedly, Martha passed away on March 27, 2017. The writer says, "God has me where he needs me and I try my best to make Him proud. Larry’s blog site is http://www.slipperywillie.blogspot.com You can find more at www.larrypeterson-author.com

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