ght in "to do for him after
the custom of the law." The actual ceremony of the purification was soon
over, the demands of the law satisfied. Neither Jesus nor Mary had any
inner need of these observances; their value in their case was that by
submission to them they associated themselves closely with their
brethren, our Lord thus continuing that divine self-emptying which he
had begun at the Incarnation. We are impressed with the completeness of
this stooping of God when we see the offering that Mary brings, "A pair
of turtle doves," the offering of the very poor. Our Lord has accepted
life on its lowest economic terms in order that nothing in His mission
shall flow from adventitious aids. He must owe all in the accomplishment
of His work to the Father Who gave it Him to do. It will be the essence
of the temptation that He must soon undergo that He shall consent to
call to His aid earthly and material supports and base His hopes of
success on something other than God.

Accidentally, there is this further demonstration contained in the
poverty of the Holy Family, that, namely, the completest spiritual
privilege, the fullest spiritual development, is independent of
"possessions." It is no doubt true that "great possessions" do not of
necessity create a bar in all cases to spiritual accomplishment; but to
many of us it is a consolation to know that the completest sanctity
humanity has known has been wrought out in utter poverty of life. We
shall have occasion to speak more of this later; we now only note the
fact that those whom we meet in the pages of the New Testament as
waiting hopefully for the redemption of Israel are waiting in poverty
and hard work.

What we find in S. Mary as she passes through the ceremony of her
purification from a child-bearing which had in no circumstance of it
anything impure, is the spirit of sacrifice which submission to the law
implies. She has caught the spirit of her Son, the spirit of selfless
offering to the will of God. It is the central accomplishment of the
life of sanctity. The life of sanctity must be wrought out from the
centre, from our contact with God. No one becomes holy by works,
whatever may be the nature of the works. Works, the external life, are
the expression of what we are, they are the externalization of our
character. If they be not the expression of a life hid with Christ in
God they can have no spiritual value, whatever may be their social
value. The kind of works