Our Lady’s Juggler

Introduction

Our Lady’s Juggler is a story written by the French Author, Anatole

France. It was first printed on newspapers during 1890 and later
published in a short story collection in 1892. It tells the story of a
boy named Barnabas who is struggling to make a living out of his
profession as a Juggler. One day he met a monk whom explained to
him the monastic life is mean to devote oneself to praise and to
serve the Lord and Our Lady. Barnabas later found himself
forsaking his juggling career for the life of devoting. While he was
on field, he felt insecurity on his self as he feels that he had very
little to offer compared to the other monks. They had abundance of
gifts and sacrifices to offer and to glorify God. Barnabas tried doing
in where he is good at, Juggling. He performed his act on juggling
in front of Our Lady’s Statue. And the monks later found him on
the chapel doing a mediocrity act but was shocked on what they
witnessed. They saw Our Lady’s Juggler statue come to life and
wipe the sweat from Barnabas’ brow. The monks at once recognized
that the simple-hearted were blessed with a unique gift, allowing
them to come close to God.

Body

The story focuses on the values that it shown such as Devotion,

Sincerity, Simplicity, etc. The authors purpose on writing this piece
is to show that all people have its own unique talent but doesn’t
have the confidence to showcase it because of factors that
intercepts it ex. Insecurity. To show prove its purpose he used a
holy place which is the Church as a setting and a Juggler as its main
character. A life of a Juggler was observed when the main
character’s background is a tragedy. It was hard for him to make a
living out of his profession. And it also showed the convent life and
how monks live where they always pray, meditate, sacrifice, offer,
etc. While others say that the poor are unprivileged the story
opposes to this idea because of how it shown and used the counter-
agreement that the poor and the simple-hearted people. The poor
is known for its sincerity because of how they are living, they do not
live with the thinking of taking advantage of anything. No
generalization was intended for the privileged though we can all
agree that majority of them is insincere. To stand this argument the
simple definition of being Rich means abundance of possession,
power, money all these things that was mentioned is the root of
greediness and greediness is the opposite of sincerity and devotion.
The Lord Almighty is glad to receive any kind of offers and sacrifice
as long as it is with love, faith, sincerity. The action that was
presented on the story where the statue of Our Lady came to life
and wiped the sweat of Barnabas symbolizes that anything that is
offered with or without value as long as its recipe is love and
devotion it is gladly accepted and cherished by the Almighty. One
of the common stereotypes of the society is that gifts or handouts
are valued on how biggest its size and how hefty of the money was
spent to obtain one. Thought the reality of giving gifts is how
sincere the purpose or connection of the parties that are involved
because gift is defined as a thing given willingly to someone without
payment; a present.

Conclusion

The main objective of the story was portrayed and relayed perfectly
with its simplicity that makes all readers with different age range
to be able to understand the story and adopt the lesson given. Given
that the story was written in unprofessional way or childish was for
the main target, the children. The story is a must-read factor; page-
turner. It is worth recommending to others both children and
adults because of the values that it gives. Given that sincerity is
absent in the present times, it results to major negative outcomes
to the lives of the people. For example, the upcoming elections. To
all the aspiring candidates that filed their candidacy do you really
think that all of them is the main objective is to really lead the
people? People are blinded by the sweet words and the figurative
speeches that sounds like it makes sense or smart but in reality, it
lacks and is unnecessary that most people don’t understand given
the literature and educational background. Most candidates
purpose to run is so far from leading and serving the citizens and
only god knows what these things are. Also, one of the message
addressed in the story is one of the major cancer of our society, the
insecurities of a human. People tend to compare their selves with
other people that makes them hit the thinking of not being enough.
One of the roots of insecurity is the stereotypes for example, In
Filipino mindset, pursuing arts and crafts ends in dump or what
the elders say “walang pera dyan” which is never true. Overall, just
like it says, the greatest enemy of humans is their selves.

Hanie Abduraheem Refaie A. Mamalo

Grade 10
JIYUU

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Only and only from the mind of Refaie Mamalo etc. etc.