assigns to our Saint the employment or trade of a carpenter. St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. Thomas of Aquin, Suarez, are of opinion that St. Joseph and our Blessed Lord Himself worked together at the carpenters' trade.*

Nor was this employment unworthy of the noble and royal lineage of St. Joseph; for in days of primitive simplicity the Hebrew Patriarchs and kings worked at trades, nay, fed their flocks and herds. In the palmiest days of the Roman Empire, the greatest generals, in times of peace, used to cultivate with their own hands their gardens; and history tells us how often the voice of the nation called from the plough Dictators and Consuls to lead the Roman legions to victory.

After the primeval fall, labour, by the decree of God, is the lot of man. God said of Adam: "With labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. . . . In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread" (Gen. iii. 17). The Almighty has therefore given to the world an example in the person of St. Joseph, how the most exalted sanctity can be combined with toil and manual labour.

* A. Lapide in Matt. xiii. 55. Suarez, Tom. ii., Ques. xxix., Dis. viii.

No doubt, whilst his hands were employed in labour, St. Joseph's heart and soul were adoring, praising, and glorifying God.

O God! May we imitate the example of St. Joseph. May we do all things to please Thee alone. O God! Holy the hands that were privileged to work and to minister to the wants and comforts of Jesus and Mary. O God, in imitation of St. Joseph, grant us the grace, that whilst our hands labour, our hearts and souls may be employed in praising, blessing, and glorifying God Almighty. Amen.

SECTION III.

The Espousals of St. Joseph with the Blessed Virgin Mary.

That the marriage of St. Joseph with the Blessed Virgin Mary was a true and valid one is proved from the Sacred Scriptures, and by the constant tradition of the Church. The Gospel of St. Matthew says, “And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ... When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child, of the Holy Ghost. Whereupon Joseph her hus

band being a just man, and not willing publicly to expose her, was minded to put her away privately. But while he thought on those things, behold the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in sleep, saying: Joseph, son of David, fear not to take with thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.. And Joseph, rising up from sleep, did as the Angel of the Lord had commanded him, and took unto him his wife." (Matt. i. 16-24).

In the above passage St. Joseph is twice styled the "husband" of Mary, and Mary is also twice called the "wife " of St. Joseph.

The Holy Family-Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, lived at Nazareth; and in the eyes of men our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ was regarded as the son of Joseph and Mary, and is so styled in the Gospel. "And his parents," says St. Luke, "went every year to Jerusalem, at the solemn day of the Pasch. . . . And seeing him they wondered. And his mother said to him: Son, why hast thou done so to us? Behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing," (ii. 41-4 8). Again, in the next Chapter, the same Evangelist writes: "And Jesus himself was beginning about the age of thirty years, being (as it was supposed)

We read "The

the son of Joseph" (iii. 23). the same in the Gospel of St. John. Jews therefore murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said: Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?" (vi. 42).

The earliest Fathers, such as St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, the constant Tradition of the Church in every age, confirm the same doctrine. Hence it is absolutely certain, and many learned theologians, with Suarez at their head, hold it to be of faith, that the marriage of St. Joseph with the Blessed Virgin Mary was a true and valid one.

The Blessed Virgin, when only three years of age, was presented in the Temple to God by her pious parents, SS Joachim and Anne; and there lived in silence and prayer, absorbed in holy contemplation, communing with her God. Eight years after her Presentation in the Temple, her pious parents were called to their reward, and the holy child was committed to the care and guardianship of the priests of the sanctuary. Having reached the age of fourteen, the Jewish maidens, according to the Hebrew rite, were obliged to leave the Temple; and hence the priests, who were the guardians of

the Blessed Virgin in the place of her deceased father, decided on Mary's future state of life.* When she attained the age of fourteen, according to the Law of Moses, an heiress was obliged to marry one of her own tribe and family, that the property and inheritance may be retained in the same family, and not pass to strange hands. "And all women," says the Law, "shall take husbands of the same tribe, that the inheritance may remain in the families (Num. xxxvi. 8). The Blessed Virgin being an heiress, conformed of course to the above Law, and the choice fell upon St. Joseph of the same house and tribe of David, her kinsman in the second degree of consanguinity or first cousin. The Bollandists tell us that the ring which St. Joseph presented to the Blessed Virgin at

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"Communis tamen probabilor sententia est Virginem fuisse nuptam paulo post inchoatum decimum quartum annum, undecim enim fere annis in templo mansit, et tunc tradita fuit Josepho, et post quatuor menses Angelicum nuncium habuit, agens vero decimum quintum annum filium peperit" (Suares Tom. ii., Ques. xxix, Dis. vii., See. iii.) It is the most probable and received opinion, that the Blessed Virgin, having spent eleven years in the temple, was married to St. Joseph on entering her fourteenth year; the Incarnation took place four months after her marriage; and hence in the fifteenth year of her age she gave birth to the Redeemer of the world."