The Divine Story: A Short Life of Our Blessed Lord Written Especially For Young People (en Inglés)
Reseña del libro "The Divine Story: A Short Life of Our Blessed Lord Written Especially For Young People (en Inglés)"
We begin: "ALTHOUGH our Blessed Lord came down on earth as a little Child, He had no earthly father, as other children have; for God, in heaven, was His Father. But He had an earthly Mother; and her name was Mary; and she was the daughter of Jewish parents of a little city in Galilee, called Nazareth. Mary was a real woman, like any other woman, with this exception, - she never, in all her life, had a sin upon her soul; not even original sin. For, out of regard for her great dignity, she had been created Immaculate; that is, free from every sin, for that is what immaculate means. And she was very beautiful." Let us consider the beautiful story of the Magi: "Well, on the first night of what has come to be regarded as the year one, as three of these Magi were studying the heavens, they suddenly beheld a new and brilliant star. And, recalling the ancient prophecy, they exclaimed, "Behold the promised sign! To-night, in Judea, the great Expected King is born." Then, inspired from heaven, they added, "Since all the world must serve Him, let us go, in the name of all the Gentiles, and adore Him." And straightway they made the necessary preparations and started off." After we consider Jesus' hidden life: "As He was approaching His thirtieth birthday, the whole land was set in commotion by a man named John the Baptist. Bareheaded and barefooted, with hair and beard long and unkempt, with features drawn and haggard, with deep-set eyes, strangely shining, and wearing on1y a garment of camel's hair, this man had suddenly appeared at the Jordan River; and, walking up and down its banks, he called on all who passed that way, to do penance and be baptized, saying that the coming of the Christ was near at hand." Letus consider this description of a Synagogue where Jesus preached: "The synagogue stood on the side of a peculiarly shaped hill which ended abruptly at the top in a very steep precipice. It was a plain building, made of whitish stone, with a flat roof and three front entrances. Within, at the farther end, there was a kind of raised platform or sanctuary. This sanctuary was without an altar, for there was only one altar in all the land, and that was in the Temple of Jerusalem; but instead, it had a kind of pulpit or reading desk, which stood about in the middle. Just to the left, and slightly behind the pulpit, hung a long curtain with a lighted lamp before it. This lamp was there to remind the people that behind the curtain, there was a precious chest or ark, containing the Bible, - to their hearts, the dearest of all the sacred objects outside the Temple of Jerusalem. The Bible was written by hand, on different rolls of parchment, (for that was hundreds and hundreds of years before the art of printing was invented) and some portion of it was read at every service. The body of the synagogue was divided into a front and rear section by means of a railing which ran across it. It was filled with benches, those in front sections being reserved for the men, while the women occupied those in the rear." Before the Ascension we read: "By thus allowing the light of His resurrection to shine for forty days on the wondrous truths of His mortal life, our Lord made the Apostles understand, as, otherwise, they never would have understood, that He had come to make known the truth about God and holiness, to die for sin, and to establish a Church by which His teachings might be made known to all the world."
