month, year after year, each event more striking and signal than the preceding, intensified the love of St. Joseph for the Saviour of the world. We can well conceive, then, the care, reverence, and awe with which St. Joseph ministered to the wants and comforts of Jesus and Mary in their journey homeward.

A prayer of St. Alphonsus Liguori to St. Joseph.

O holy Patriarch, I rejoice with thee at thy exalted dignity, by which thou wert deemed worthy to act as father to Jesus, to give Him orders, and to be obeyed by Him, whom heaven and earth obey. O great Saint! as thou wert served by a God, I too wish to be taken into thy service. I choose thee after Mary, to be my chief advocate and protector. I promise to honour thee every day by some special act of devotion, and by placing myself daily under thy protection. By that sweet company, which Jesus and Mary gave thee in thy lifetime, protect me all the days of my life, so that I may never separate from my God by losing His grace. My dear St. Joseph pray to Jesus for me. Certainly He can never refuse thee any thing as He obeyed all thy orders on earth.

Tell Him to forgive me all the sins by which I have offended Him. Tell Him to detach me from all creatures, and from myself, to inflame me with His holy love, and then to do with me what He pleases. And by the assistance which Jesus and Mary gave thee at thy death, I beg of thee to protect me in a special manner at the hour of my death, so that dying, assisted by thee, in the company of Jesus and Mary, I may go to thank thee in paradise, and in thy company to praise my God for all eternity. Amen."

SECTION XIII.

The hidden Life of St. Joseph. The losing and finding of the Child Jesus in Jerusalem by "his parents," Mary and Joseph,

As our readers have most probably remarked long before now, we have kept most strictly to the Gospel narrative in sketching the Life of our great Saint. After the return from Egypt, few are the facts recorded in the sacred text about our holy Patriarch. The Gospel of St. Luke says of our Lord: "And his parents went every year to Jerusalem at the solemn day of the pasch. And when he was twelve years old, they were going up

into Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. And having fulfilled the days when they returned, the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem and his parents knew it not. And thinking he was in the company, they came a day's journey, and sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And not finding him they returned into Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass that after three days they found Him in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his wisdom and his aswers. 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. And He said to them: How is it that thou sought me? Did you not know that I must be about my father's business. And they understood not the word that he spoke unto them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth: and was subject to them. And his mother kept all these words in her heart" (Luke, ii. 41-51).

The above is the last word in the Gospel narrative on the life of our great Saint. The hidden life of the Holy Family-Jesus, Mary and Joseph,—is a subject of deep

reflection and useful meditation for the devout soul. The pious soul can meditate for ever on the wonders of the Hidden Life of our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ. At the Incarnation, Mary alone paid homage to the WORD MADE FLESH. St. Joseph, St. Elizabeth, and the unborn Baptist next recognised and adored "the desired of the eternal hills.' "The heavenly army" announced the "good tidings of great joy" to the shepherds, who worshipped "the infant lying in the manger." The Wise Men laid their gifts of "gold, frankincense, and myrrh" at the feet of the Divine Babe. At the Presentation in the

Temple, holy Simeon and Anna, the prophetess, by divine inspiration, recognised and adored the Saviour of the world; and for eighteen years, that is, from His twelfth to His thirtieth year, not even one word is mentioned in the Gospel on the Life of our Divine Redeemer. Well might the prophet say: "Verily, thou art a hidden God" (Isai, xlv. 15). The Evangelist writes: "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not" (John i. 10). The Blessed Virgin, by her secret, hidden and exalted virtues, imitated Jesus, her Divine Son and Model.

With such shining lights before before his eyes, with such models as Jesus and Mary ever in his presence, no wonder that the Life of St. Joseph was "hidden with Christ in God" (Col. iii. 3); no wonder that few facts and fewer virtues of our Saint are recorded by the Evangelists; nor are we then to be surprised that, after the losing and finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple by his "parents," a single word is not said in the Gospels on the life and death of our holy Patriarch. With the examples of Jesus, Mary and Joseph before our eyes, let us love to be hidden and unknown; let us do all our acts solely and purely for the greater glory of God, to please God alone; let us shun the esteem and praise of the world; let us keep before our mind the sublime doctrine which our Divine Saviour preached and practised, viz.: "Take heed," said our Blessed Redeemer, "that you do not your justice before men to be seen by them. when thou dost an alms-deed, sound not a trumpet before. . . let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth .... and thy father who seeth in secret will repay thee when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in