art I.

THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS.

THE LIFE OF ST. JOSEPH.

SAINT JOSEPH:

HIS LIFE, EMINENT VIRTUES, AND POPULAR DEVOTIONS IN HIS HONOUR.

CHAPTER I.

JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH.
SECTION I.
Jesus.

O SWEETEST, and dearest Jesus! To think
on Thee makes the devout soul happy; to
love Thee is a foretaste of heaven; but to
possess Thee is heaven itself. To labour
solely for Thy greater glory, O Jesus; to
touch and win the sinner's heart; to bring
back the strayed sheep to Thy fold; to dif-
fuse among men a greater knowledge and
love of Thee, O Saviour of the world, is the
most noble occupation of the mind of man;
and imparts to the pious soul the most su-
preme happiness that can be tasted here
below. Jesus is our all; for Jesus is God:
"In the beginning," says the Evangelist,
"was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God" (John, i. 1).
Jesus is the Incarnate Son of God.
"And
the Word was made flesh and dwelt among

us (and we saw his glory, the glory, as it were, of the only-begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth" (John, i. 14). Jesus is not only our glory, and the glory of paradise, but the glory of his eternal Father. "Every tongue," says St. Paul, "shall confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father" (Phil. ii. 11). He is "the brightness of his glory and the figure of his substance" (Heb. i. 3).

Jesus was the ray of hope that shone upon Adam, cast out from paradise upon a cold, bleak world. Jesus was the Messiah; the "Just One;" "the desired of the eternal hills." Jesus was the long-expected Redeemer, for whose coming the Patriarchs and Prophets sighed and prayed. The Prophet Isaias, in touching accents, thus prayed: "Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a Saviour" (xlv. 8). Send

forth, O Lord, the lamb, the ruler of the earth" (xvi. 1). Having petitioned the earth and the heavens for mercy, the Prophet appeals to the Messiah himself: "O that thou wouldst rend the heavens, and wouldst come down; the mountains would melt away at thy presence. They would melt as at the burning of fire, the waters would burn with

fire, that thy name might be made known to thy enemies that the nations might tremble at thy presence” (lxiv. 1).

Jesus, as God, is power and glory; but far dearer and sweeter to us is Jesus as merciful Saviour; "with him," sings the Psalmist, "is plentiful redemption" (Ps. cxxix. 7). The name Jesus, or Saviour, is the most noble and the most exalted of all the titles of our Blessed Redeemer. "God," says St. Paul, also, hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father" (Phil. ii. 9).

The sweet and all-holy name of Jesus was brought from heaven, and pronounced for the first time on earth, by the lips of the Archangel Gabriel. At the Annunciation, the Archangel delivered his heavenly message to the Blessed Virgin: "Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus' (Luke, i. 31). Another "Angel of the Lord" appeared to St. Joseph, and said: "Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her,