and his son and kinsfolk. Here are three of these noble watchers for the Star that was to "rise out of Jacob," the "Sceptre" that was to "spring up from Israel." They had counted the years assigned by prophesy for His apparition; and God had rewarded their faith by an extraordinary light in the Heavens, while His Spirit spoke to their hearts. They had formed a holy companionship in faith and good works amid the surrounding unbelief and corruption; and now they are companions on the road to Christ.
The Gospel admirably tells their story up to their arrival in Bethlehem. What joy filled the hearts of Mary and Joseph at the sight of these kingly pilgrims from afar! Not on shepherds alone, then, had the Day-Star of Bethlehem arisen; not alone for the poor and lowly was His Kingdom; nor alone over the minds and hearts of the Israelites was His reign to extend He was to gather all nations to Himself by the irresistible force of Truth and Charity.
Herod, alarmed by the coming of the noble Pilgrims, and the tidings that the King Messiah was born, only waited for their return to Jerusalem and the precise information expected from them, to pay his visit to Mother and Babe. We know what fell purpose he entertained.
The Three First Worshippers from among the Gentiles are gone as they came—in haste; their path lies not toward Jerusalem, where a dark and unsparing State-policy is plotting the destruction of the Prince of Peace, and their own as well; but God's Angel guides them safely towards their own people, whom they are to leaven with faith in the Redeemer.
"And after they were departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in sleep to Joseph, saying. Arise, and take the Child and His Mother, and fly into Egypt; and be there until I shall tell thee . . . who arose, and took the Child and His Mother by night, and retired into Egypt; and he was there until the death of Herod." Instantly, in the dead of the night, without hesitation or murmur, and trusting themselves to the ever-watchful care of Providence, Joseph and Mary betook them to flight. Not a moment too soon. For the spies of Herod had warned him of the departure of the Wise Men, and his minions were already on their way to Bethlehem. The fugitives were yet amid the secret passes of Carmel, when the sword of the first persecutor " killed all the men-children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old, and under."
What route Joseph chose along the southern sea-coast we have no means of ascertaining. Doubtless he avoided the most frequented, because, while firmly relying on the angelic guidance in case of great need, he used all his own sagacity in avoiding every danger to his precious charge Nor do we know with anything like an approach to certainty, in what city or village of Egypt the Holy Family fixed their abode while waiting for the order to return to Palestine. It is likely that Joseph, in his prudence, would shun the cities where he might find large colonies of his countrymen, and with them emissaries of Herod. A quiet country hamlet, where his skill in working wood could provide for the sustenance of the two beings he worshipped, would most naturally fix the choice of Christ's devoted Guardian. As the precise date of Herod's death is unknown, so also is the duration of the Holy Family's stay in Egypt.
If by any chance the Blessed Mother learned, while there, the cruel massacre of the innocents in Bethlehem and its neighborhood, how much more keenly her heart felt the wound made by the first mortal peril that threatened the life of her Babe! Already, even before Holy Simeon prophesied about the sword which was to pierce her on Calvary, she felt its point searching her soul. The Church, m after ages, called her the "Queen of Martyrs." She was in reality such while yet in Egypt. For the babes so inhumanly slain in Bethlehem were only the first glorious band in that great army of Martyrs, who were to bear witness with their blood to the Divinity of the Lamb.
At length, the angelic messenger bade Joseph return to Judaea. "Arise, and take the Child and His Mother, and go into the land of Israel." With the same promptness and unquestioning simplicity Joseph executes the divine command. He is the head of God's family on earth; to him is the divine will intimated; and to him it belongs to see it executed, both the Word Incarnate and His Mother yielding implicit obedience to Joseph. In these last years, as the nineteenth century draws to its close, the Church has solemnly declared S. Joseph to be, under God, her protector and the guardian of all her interests. Why should he, who made of Christ and His interests, in infancy, childhood and youth, the one absorbing care of his life—not continue in Heaven to be the guardian and protector of all those who are dear to Christ?
And so, Joseph "arose and took the Child and His Mother, and came into the land of Israel. But hearing that Archelaus reigned in Judea in the room of Herod his father, he was afraid to go thither; and, being warned in sleep, retired into the quarters of Galilee. And coming, he dwelt in a city called Nazareth."
The death of Herod, and the horror caused by the massacre of the innocents, produced a reaction in the public mind. People were naturally averse to blood and persecution. Moreover, the multitude who did not take pains to inquire minutely into the truth of things, fancied that the Babe mistaken for King Messiah by the Wise Men, must have perished in the wholesale butchery ordered by Herod. Mary, then, once restored with her infant to her obscure and peaceful abode in Nazareth, had no reason to delay the ceremony prescribed by the law, of presenting her Son in the temple of Jerusalem, and making the offering customary on this occasion. Joseph chose the opportune season, and guided the Blessed Mother on her way. They acted throughout in perfect conformity with the divine plan revealed to them, that they shou14 conceal from the outer world the quality and mission of the Child they called their own. They left it to the Spirit of God to enlighten privileged individuals concerning the Messiah.
Mary, in presenting to the Lord in His temple, her own firstborn, offered with Him a pair of turtle-doves. It was the offering of the poor; and she made no apology for it. The priests in attendance performed their function; no thought about the possibility of this child of poor parents being the Messiah, crossed their mind; no light from on high disclosed the Emmanuel . . . Two holy souls were there, however, to whom He revealed Himself— Simeon and Anna; the former, like the Three Wise Men in the East, yearning to look upon the face of his Redeemer before he closed his eyes; the latter, a saintly widow, now in her eighty, fourth year, "who departed not from the temple, by fastings and prayers serving night and day."
Simeon "came by the Spirit into the temple. And when His parents brought in the Child Jesus, ... he also took Him in his arms, and blessed God, and said: Now Thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word in peace. Because my eyes have seen Thy salvation. . . . And His father and mother were wondering at these things which were spoken concerning Him. And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His Mother: Behold this Child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel, for a sign which shall be contradicted. "And thy own soul a sword shall pierce."
Anna also "at the same hour coming in, confessed to the Lord
