In Egypt they venerate the places where the Holy Family lived during their quiet sojourn there. Joseph and Mary and the baby Jesus left their homeland and went to the country where their ancestors had been slaves.
Of old, in Egypt, God had shown His mighty power, working great prodigies to bring about the liberation of His beloved people. Now God came in the flesh to Egypt, an infant fugitive. And He spent time there in a state of perfect quiet, nursing at the breast, listening to His foster father and mother sing to Him the very songs that He Himself had taught King David to sing a thousand years earlier.
Christ, of course, could have obliterated King Herod with the slightest movement of His divine will. But He did not. Instead, the heavenly Father sent an angel to His Son’s foster-father, telling him to take flight into Egypt. God dealt with the threat to His life the way that any human being would deal with it: He ran away to a safe place.
St. John Vianney, patron of priestsThis is one of the countless examples of Christ’s solidarity with us. Part of being human is living in a world marked by evil, disorder, and sin. Christ, of course, never sinned. But He accepted every aspect of the reality of living in the sinful world. He is with us in everything we have to deal with.
