1) The home and the family are a Church
It is in Nazareth where we discover that the home and the family are a church and we take account of the priestly responsibility of the head of the family.
In the “Galilee of the gentiles” Jesus receives a Jewish education.
Without going to school, he learns about the scriptures, in the home, where we find the hearth of the Word of God.
2) The roots of the Great Church are hidden in the atmosphere of Nazareth
The meagre hints in the Gospel of Luke are enough to give us an idea of the spirit of responsibility and openness, as well as fervour, and the righteousness, that characterises this community, and that made it a reality of the True Israel.
But we also recognise, before everything, in Jesus’ behaviour, He Who read the scriptures, and knew them with an understanding of a master – in a way that dominates the rabbinical traditions, how much communal life, lived in Nazareth, was fruitful, as a result of this apprenticeship.
And all this should not concern us in anyway, should it? Because we also live in an era where the majority of Christians, are forced to live in a “pagan Galilee.” ?
Our Great Church can neither prosper, nor grow, if we leave it by ignoring its roots that are found hidden in the atmosphere of Nazareth.
3) The Last Place
The real mystery of Nazareth has been discovered in a new way, in its deepest context, without his contemporaries even perceiving it. It was Charles de Fourcauld, who found Nazareth “at the last place”, after searching for it. During his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, it was the place that moved him the most. He somehow did not feel called to follow the footsteps of Jesus, in His public life. It was Nazareth instead that seized his heart most deeply. (M. Carraiges, Charles de Foucauld, mystical explorer. Cerf 1958).
- He wanted to follow the silent, poor, hardworking Jesus.
- He wanted to accomplish to the letter of the Word of Jesus “when thou art invited, go, sit down in the lowest place at the table” Luke 14,10.
- He knew that Jesus Himself had given the explanation of the Word, by first of all, living it.
- He knew that, even before dying on the Cross, naked and without the least good, Jesus chose Nazareth as the last place.
4) The New Covenant begins in the little home of the Virgin
By entering into the experience of Nazareth in the powerful meditation of Jesus, Charles de Foucauld opened a new way for the Church. It was a point of departure, to rediscover its poverty, both in idea, as well as in reality.
Nazareth has a permanent message for the Church. The New Covenant did not begin in the Temple, neither on the Mount, but in the little home of the Virgin, in the house of the worker, in one of the forgotten places of “pagan Galilee,” where no one expected anything good to happen.
It was from there, that the Church could make a fresh start, and to heal. The Church could not ever provide the True answer to the revolt of our century, against the power of wealth, if, even among its members, Nazareth was not a living reality.