Christian Cliparts

Our Lady Teaches Her Son

God became Man, to remake his world; he became a little child, and I suppose he used to play games; I don't think the Sacred Humanity would have been quite human if our Lord had never played games. And the best playmate he had, if so, was his Blessed Mother, such a short distance away from girlhood herself, who was so good at sympathizing, at seeing other people's points of view. At any rate, she was the Wisdom which accompanied him through all those steps of early childhood. Our Lord had, if he cared to use it, all the knowledge which is enjoyed by the blessed Saints in heaven. But, in order to be perfectly Man, he preferred to acquire knowledge by experience and by hearsay, just as you and I do. He went to school in the carpenter's shop; but his education had begun long before that. He had been learning all the time, "increasing in wisdom," the gospel tells us. And the person who taught him that wisdom was his mother -- who else should it be? ...



You have to think of a mother and her little son, who is just learning to talk in words of one syllable. They are looking out, from some point a bit west of Nazareth, at the great mass of Mount Carmel dominating the plain. And the boy asks,"Ma zeh?" (What's that?) And his mother answers,"That's ha-har (the mountain); say 'Har,' Jesus." Or they are a bit east of Nazareth, and suddenly through a gap in the hills they are looking down, across precipitous miles, at the Lake of Galilee where it forms a blue floor at the bottom of the plain. And this time she says,"Ha-yam(the sea); say 'Yam', Jesus." Or she takes him with her in the cool of the evening when she carries a jug to draw water at the spring called the Fountain of the Virgin, after her. And this time she says,"Ha-'em(the spring); say 'Em' Jesus." So the mind-pictures of the Incarnate were formed; and when he preached, years later, about a city set on a hill, or fishermen casting their nets into the sea, or a spring of water welling up to eternal life, he was utilizing the wisdom he had learned from that wise playmate of his, long ago.

By Monsignor Ronald Knox