"How charming it will be in heaven to know everything that took place in the Holy Family! When little Jesus began to grow up, perhaps when He saw the Blessed Virgin fasting, He said to her: 'I would really like to fast, too.' And the Blessed Virgin answered: 'No, little Jesus, You are still too little, You haven't the strength.' Or else perhaps she didn't dare hinder Him from doing this.
And good St. Joseph! Oh, how I love him! He wan't able to fast because of his work. I can see him planing, then drying his forehead from time to time. Oh, how I pity him! It seems to me that their life was simple...What does me a lot of good when I think of the Holy Family is to imagine a life that was very ordinary. For example, [the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas, 3 says] that the Child Jesus, after having formed some birds out of clay, breathed upon them and gave them life. Ah, no! little Jesus didn't perform useless miracles like that, even to please His Mother. Why weren't they transported into Egypt by a miracle which would have been necessary and so easy for God. In the twinkling of an eye, they could have been brought there. No, everything in their life was done just as in our own.
How many troubles, disappointments! How many times did others make complaints to good St. Joseph! How many times did they refuse to pay him for his work! Oh, how astonished we would be if we only knew ho much they had to suffer!"
(Taken from St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Her Last Conversations, ICS Publications, 1977, page 159)
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