disciples, He takes His Mother with Him to Caphamaum, then the most important city of Galilee, and the centre of a thriving commerce, favorably situated on the Lake of Gennesareth. This city was to be the chief centre of our Lord's public labors in Galilee during the three ensuing years. He did not then, however, fix His abode there and that of His Mother. He intended to return and to preach in Nazareth the truth concerning Himself and His mission — only, when His own townsfolk had rejected Him, would He seek a second home for His widowed Parent and Himself Meanwhile, the celebration of the Pasch calls both Him and His Mother to Jerusalem. Hitherto, with the sole exception of His disputation with the doctors in His twelfth year, nothing had been done, or is recorded of Him as having been done, in Jerusalem, to assert His divine mission as the Messiah. On this memorable visit to the capital. He openly asserted His authority. He startled priests and people, indeed, the entire multitude of Jews from Palestine and other countries come to the Passover, by casting the traders out of the temple. To those who challenged His right to do such acts. He replied only by affirming that were the temple itself destroyed, He could rebuild it in three days. This, of course, was an obscure prophesy of His own return to life, three days after His death on the cross. His hearers did not understand Him, and only resolved to punish His temerity. He, however, must have pointed to His own body, the very Reality figured by the temple; for His disciples present on the occasion so understood His meaning, and remembered it three years afterward. But although He refused to perform a miracle to satisfy His enemies, S. John assures us that at this same Pasch in Jerusalem, " many believed in His name, seeing the signs which He did. But Jesus did not trust Himself unto them, for that He knew all men." Then also took place the secret interview with Nicodemus, as well as the discourse in which our Lord so emphatically asserted His mission and His divinity.
His Mother, who closely watched His every movement while in the capital, and who hung upon every word of His, could not help hearing the murmurs and threats of the Pharisees, as well as the praise of such as were drawn to Christ by His miracles and teaching. She returned with Him to Galilee as she had come, in the company of His disciples. He at once began, while yet in northern Judaea, near the Jordan, with them the work of teaching and baptizing (S. John iii. 22). At that very time John the Baptist was pursuing his holy labors on the banks of the Jordan, at Ennon (or AEnon), not far from the southern border of Galilee. The fame of Christ's teaching in the neighborhood, of His wondrous works, and of the many whom His disciples were baptizing, soon reached the ears of John. John's followers questioned him with regard to the authority which the Christ had for so doing. The answer of the Precursor contains the most solemn testimony in all the Gospel to the Mission of Christ and to His Divinity. "You yourselves do bear me witness, that I said I am not Christ, but that I am sent before Him. He that hath the Bride, is the Bridegroom but the friend of the Bridegroom, who standeth and heareth Him, rejoiceth with joy because of the Bridegroom's voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease. He that cometh from above, is above all. He that is of earth, of the earth he is, and of the earth he speaketh. He that cometh from Heaven is above all. And what He hath seen and heard, that He testifieth; and no man receiveth His testimony. He that hath received His testimony, hath set to his seal that God is true. For He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God doth not give the Spirit by measure [to Him]. The Father loveth the Son; and He hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth in the Son hath life everlasting; but he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth in him."
How consistent is the conduct of the holy son of Elizabeth with the prediction of the Archangel Gabriel, when he foretold his birth and his mission toward Christ! And how the echo of this glorious testimony, reaching the Blessed Virgin, who had not yet parted from Christ and His disciples, must have filled her soul with joy! " I am not [the] Christ. ... I am sent before Him. . . . He must increase,but I must decrease. ' ' The small band of believers who now follow the Messiah must go on increasing, till the society they form fills Judaea and Galilee, till it spreads beyond Palestine and Asia, and fills the whole earth. " I must decrease; " my disciples are only prepared for the teaching of the Divine Master. He is the Heavenly Bridegroom to whom belongs the Bride, the Church to be redeemed by His blood and born anew of the baptism which typifies it. How can I, His friend and Precursor, not rejoice, when He is so near me, when the voice of His teaching and the fame of His miracles reach my ears? What am I, what are all the preceding prophets, compared to Him who " cometh from above," and " is above all?" " He that is of the earth, of the earth he is, and of the earth he speaketh." I am earth-born, a poor child of human parentage, like you all, with the feelings of human nature, and its limited knowledge and still more limited power. " But He that cometh from Heaven," the Word co-eternal with the Father, born of Him before the earth was, who testifieth among us only to what He hath seen in His Father's bosom and what He hath heard from Him who is the Essential Truth and Holiness, who sets the seal of divinity to His teaching by the miracles we behold— how is it that "no man receiveth His testimony?"
It is a tremendous condemnation of Jewish chicanery and incredulity.
From the neighborhood of Ennon our Lord with His company "returned in the power of the Spirit, into Galilee, and the fame of Him went out through the whole country. And He taught in their synagogues, and was magnified by all." So writes S. Luke. But S. Matthew, who was himself a Galilean, adds further particulars. " And coming into His own country. He taught them in their synagogues, so that they wondered and said: How came this man by this wisdom and [these] miracles?" The miracles were the credentials, the seal of His mission, the attestation that His "wisdom" was not of earth but of Heaven. They were too earthly and grovelling to rise above their own low ideas and prejudices. But the Messiah wished to preach to the city in which He had spent childhood and youth, before He began the circuit of all Galilee. It is a great event in the History of His blessed Mother, as it seems to have severed her connection with her native place.
And He came to Nazareth, where He was brought up; and He went into the synagogue according to His custom, on the Sabbath day. And He rose up to read; and the book of Isaias the prophet was delivered unto Him. And as He unfolded the book. He found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; wherefore He hath anointed Me; to preach the Gospel to the poor He hath sent Me, to heal the contrite (broken) of heart; to preach deliverance to the captives, and sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of reward. And when He had folded the book. He restored it to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them: This day is fulfilled this Scripture in your ears. And all gave testimony to Him; and they wondered at the words of grace that proceeded
