[Meditationes seu Contemplationes devotissimae]

...Why, therefore, do you swell, man, with rotting skin? Whither are you tending? O stinking decay, why are you inflated? Your Prince is humble, you are proud. The head is humble, and the member is proud? Far be it.

About the flight of Joseph

with Mary and the child

into Egypt

Joseph, what are you doing? A thing,
perfectly, of an operation which keeps
me in the most profound admiration
in suspense. Fearing Herod, lest he destroy
the child, you flee into Egypt with the child
and his mother. O wondrous thing! Is not
this child that little one who was born for us
only a few days ago, whose command, as the
holy prophet says, is upon his shoulder,
the strong God, the Father of the world to come,
the Prince of Peace? You have, perfectly,
measured the power of Herod too much,
fearing lest he destroy the little child, to whom
is infinite power, infinite majesty,
and insuperable strength. O you, God,
omnipotent and most clement Father, what
necessity was there that your only-begotten
should flee in this way? Could you not have
kept him unharmed from Herod's fury by
your power, you who have at your command
innumerable legions of angels? Listen, faithful
soul, and if this seems wonderful to you,
because the judgments of God are an
inscrutable abyss, not, however, are they
without reason. For what Joseph was ordered
to journey into Egypt with the child and mother,

it was not because of the impotence of the child, who is of insuperable power, but it was done by a providential dispensation. First, indeed, because it was fitting that that little child should conserve the rule of human nature which he assumed, even in this part. But it is common for human nature, when constituted in childish age, to flee the power of hands. Secondly, so that he might offer us an example of humility; for it was surely profound and greatest humility not to wish to return evil for evil, but to give place to the fury of his sinner, whom, however, he could have destroyed and annihilated in one moment. Thirdly, this was done by the disposition of divine counsel as an exceptional example of patience. Is it not a singular example of patience to suffer oneself, the most innocent, to be excluded from one's own fatherland and to be relegated to an unknown province? Fourthly, that little child deigned to act in this way so that he might leave an example of fleeing to other Christians when the necessity of persecution should threaten. For it would seem reprehensible among the saints if they fled and their Master himself had not fled first. For what he showed first by example, he later taught by words. For he says: "If they persecute you in one city, flee into another." That he fled into Egypt, do not suspect it to be separated from reason, because this was done by divine dispensation for a triple reason.