The following is an overview of the Nazareth House Apostolate (Order of Jesus of Nazareth) teaching.
THE THOUSAND DAY NAZARETH (2 Peter 3:8)
1. The Three Ideals: Obedience, Conversion and Stability.
2. The Three Paths to God: Prayer, Work and Study.
3. The Seven Precepts
1. I relinquish doubt and embrace faith
2. I relinquish certitude and embrace paradox.
3. I relinquish apathy and embrace fidelity
4. I relinquish power and embrace vulnerability
5. I relinquish prestige and embrace humility
6. I relinquish possessions and embrace poverty
7. I relinquish the old self and embrace the new self
2. I relinquish certitude and embrace paradox.
3. I relinquish apathy and embrace fidelity
4. I relinquish power and embrace vulnerability
5. I relinquish prestige and embrace humility
6. I relinquish possessions and embrace poverty
7. I relinquish the old self and embrace the new self
4. The Four Tenets:
1. In a savorless world may I be salt. -Mt. 5:13
2. In a darkened world may I be light. -Mt. 5:14
3. In a flattened world may I be leaven.- Mt. 13:33
4. In a barren world may I be branch. – Jn. 15:5
2. In a darkened world may I be light. -Mt. 5:14
3. In a flattened world may I be leaven.- Mt. 13:33
4. In a barren world may I be branch. – Jn. 15:5
5. The Prayer Cord (Ecc.4:12; Jn. 14:6):
- In the first cord, I pray the Way of Jesus
- In the second cord, I pray the Name of Jesus
- In the third cord, I pray the Life of Jesus
Walking the path we pray and praying the path we walk
6. The Five Faults of a Receptacle:
In praying the Thousand Day Nazareth, we must avoid the Five Faults of a receptacle.
- If we don’t listen to the teaching, we are like an overturned bowl, nothing can enter in (Isa.28:12; Mk 8:18).
- If we don’t put the teachings into practice, we are like a bowl with a hole in it, everything leaks out (James 1:22; 4:17).
- If we are double minded, this is similar to using an unclean bowl, corrupting what it holds (James 1:8, Mt. 23:25).
- If we are full of ourselves, we are like a bowl -”Inn” – where there is no room for Him (Luke 2:7; Rev. 3:20).
- If we are untrusting then what is placed in our bowl will never be enough (Luke 2:25-32; Mt. 6:33).
We go about receiving what is placed in our day (our bowl), good or bad, this then becomes our offering to God and God’s nourishment to us.
7. The Poorer Means
“Go, sell, give and so become poor. Take up your cross and follow Him into the moment…as leaven into the dough of humanity that it may rise to become bread of Eucharist for the hungry…As leaven, invisible that He might be visible…being flung out to the furthest places by His centrifugal love and at the same time being pulled paradoxically into the centre by His centripetal love…as salt, light, leaven and branch to the edges and to the centre of a savorless, dark, flat and barren world… Establish Houses of Nazareth, reveal Jesus, follow Jesus revealed…poor, as Jesus was poor…Pray always.” Fr. Seraphim OJN
© 2003 Poorer Means, Nazareth House Apostolate
For more information see the NHA website www.nazarethhouseap.org
and remember the needs of those less fortunate than yourself – Give to Nazareth House Apostolate today, give to those in Sierra Leone.
