babe. Joseph too, if not in very deed a Nazarite like John, received a portion above his brethren: Christ, during His helpless infancy and boyhood, was to be his sole care and portion. Christ and His Mother were to look up to him, under God's providence, as their head, guide and support. He could not but understand, once the Angel of the Lord had revealed to him Mary's secret, that of all just men whom Heaven had most favored till then, none were so privileged as himself. For beneath his lowly roof he now held the new Parents of restored humanity foreshown to Adam and Eve in the Garden. On his head were accumulated the blessings prophesied by Jacob to the first Joseph (Gen. xlix. 25, 26): 'the blessings of Heaven above, with the blessings of the deep that lieth beneath, until the desire of the everlasting hills shall come.' He has come; ere long Joseph shall look upon His face, and hold Him in his arms, and hear His voice uttering words of filial love and gratitude." — (Heroic Women of the Bible and the Church.)
III.
The glory of our Second Eve is, that her life, from this period lo the Ascension of her Son, will be identified with His; and that from His Ascension till her death at Ephesus, her sole care was to sustain and comfort the infant Church, so sorely tried in Palestine.
In Bethlehem Joseph was born, and to Bethlehem a mere accident compels Joseph and Mary to go, just as she is about to give birth to her child. They went thither in obedience to an Imperial Decree enjoining on all persons within the Roman empire to be registered in their native places. S. John the Evangelist, a near relative of the Blessed Virgin, and the disciple so dearly loved by her Son, says of the Incarnate Word, the Light of the World: " 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." Whatever may have been the circumstances that explain the fact — the fact is recorded by the Gospel, that in Bethlehem, the city of David, where Booz bestowed on Ruth, the Moabite, such kindly countenance and courteous hospitality, no one house was opened, at the hour of her sorest need, to the greatest of David's daughters, the gentle Mother of the Messiah. . . . They arrived, sore-footed and weary, at its gates, when night had already fallen. The town was full. " There was no room for them in the Inn." They sought, on the outskirts of the town, one of those natural caves, the shelter for the shepherd in stormy weather, the refuge of the poor way-farer at all times. " And she brought forth her first-born Son and wrapped Him up in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger."
We do not deplore that it so befell both mother and Babe. It was meet that He who came to "make all things new" in the world of morality, should have elected to be born in the most abject destitution. He had come to condemn the ill-uses of wealth, and to inculcate the blessedness of that spirit which despises riches in themselves, and sets store solely on the Eternal Kingdom and the supernatural virtues that lead to it. . . . So, she looks, first of all human beings, at that midnight hour, on the face of her Babe and her Saviour. What ecstacy filled her soul as the light of that countenance, that so many generations had vainly wished to behold, made all bright for her and for her saintly guardian, Joseph, in that hillside cavern! These two were the first worshippers, as they were to be the two inseparable companions and faithful Disciples of the Divine Master — the great Teacher of the Manger and the Cross. They were called " His Parents." And as such they are unspeakably dear to the Christian world. Who are those who are first summoned to the presence of the new-born King, the Day-Star of Israel, the Hope of the world? Shepherds guarding their flocks by night. " And behold, an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the brightness of God shone round about them, and they feared with a great fear. And the Angel said to them: Fear not. For behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people. For this day is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger."
To these poor folk, the first called to the knowledge of Christ and to the everlasting glories of His Kingdom, a foretaste is there given of the society which Christians are to share here and hereafter. " Suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God and saying. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will." These first courtiers of the Saviour-King, as well as all His followers to the end of time, must accustom themselves to behold with the eyes of faith the splendors of that unseen world, in which Christ reigns, ministered to by myriads of these bright angelic spirits.
There is one sentence recorded of Mary, in the passage, which recounts the visit of the Shepherds to the new-born Babe. They had found " Mary and Joseph, and the Infant lying in the manger." And, seeing, they understood of the word that had been spoken to them concerning the Child. And all that heard wondered . . . But Mary kept all these words, pondering in her heart." The sole study of this Mother of the incarnate God, was to know Him and His mysteries. Knowing Him, therefore, better than all others, she walked more closely in His footsteps, treading, not in the paths where honor and applause might reach her on His account, but in the ways of obscurity, deep enlightened love and heroic suffering.
The eighth day came, and the parents, following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, took the Child to the Priest to have Him circumcised, in conformity with the Law. In every particular both He and they wished to give an example of perfect obedience. He had taken to Himself the flesh of Adam, in order so to hallow it by the union, that it might be our ransom on the cross. In circumcision the redeeming blood begins to flow, and the divine humility that was to shine forth in His Passion, already manifests itself in Bethlehem. Then was He given the name of Jesus, by Joseph, in compliance with the injunction of the Angel.
Mary and Joseph were soon afterward gladdened by the coming of the Magi— the "Three Wise Men," or "Three Kings" from the East. It was a memorable event. Jerusalem, where the standards and eagles of Imperial Rome were displayed on the Antonia Tower, overlooking the temple, and where the Idumean Herod was acknowledged as king, knew that the "sceptre had passed out of Juda," and, therefore, that the promised Saviour must be nigh. He had already come, and Jerusalem and Judaea knew it not. They expected a mighty Prince, manifesting himself with more than the warlike genius of David and the far-reaching wisdom of Solomon. And lo! He lay hidden in a wayside cavern , at Bethlehem, swathed with the clothes of infancy, and laid in a manger! This was not the Messiah who could challenge the acceptance and worship of the worldly-minded Jews.
But in the depths of the mysterious East, through which the Israelites had been scattered, God had ever had among the idolatrous nations men who cherished the universal belief in a future Redeemer and Restorer, and looked anxiously forward to His coming. This faith of the Patriarchs, preserved, though obscured, among the Gentiles, was confirmed by contact with the dispersed Israelites, and by the holy lives of such men as the elder Tobias
