sun, so that the people could not bear to gaze on him, what shall we say of Mary who, for thirty long years, basked in the smiles of the Saviour? Again, it means a " sea of bitterness," but, though such was her life on earth, she has since risen above the horizon and become the fair Star of the Ocean. Fair and pure and lovely is Mary — our tainted Nature's solitary boast.
Brethren, the names of Mary and Joseph, like their personalities, have no terrors for us, but we approach with equal awe the person and the name of Jesus. " Without the grace of the Holy Ghost," says St. Paul, "it cannot be even worthily pronounced." When God confers a name it always expresses the mission of the person named. Thus, Adam means the father of the living; Abram was changed to Abraham because his destiny was to be the father of many nations; and Simon became Peter, or the rock whereon Christ built His Church. How full of meaning, then, must the name Jesus be, since it sums up the mission of the Saviour of the world! Three men, before Our Lord, had borne that name. The son of Sirach and the son of Jasedech; the one a seer, a priest the other, prefigured each the wisdom of the father and the priest forever according to the order of Melchisadech. A more striking figure still, is Jesus or Josue Nave — the immortal, as his name implies, but still a figure only of the Christ, the true immortal. Christ's it was, not merely to guide the people to a promised land on earth, but to lead the way to the kingdom of heaven. Not merely the
