There are few extraordinary events in the exterior life of Mary. At least it is not to these that Holy Scripture calls our attention. Her exterior life is represented as very simple, very ordinary. She did and suffered as did others of her condition. She goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth: the other relatives go also. She retires to a stable: it is a consequence of her poverty. She returns to Nazareth: the persecution of Herod had driven her forth. Jesus and Joseph lived there with her, by the labor of their hands. Behold the daily bread of the holy family! But with what bread was the faith of Mary and Joseph nourished? What was the sacrament of all their sacred moments? What did they discover under the ordinary appearance of the events which filled their lives? Exteriorly, nothing more than was happening to the rest of mankind; interiorly, faith discovers and develops nothing less than God working great things. O bread of angels! Heavenly manna! Pearl of the Gospel! Sacrament of the present moment! Thou givest God under appearances as poor and mean as the manger, the hay, and the straw! But to whom dost thou give Him? _Esurientes reples bonis._ God reveals Himself to the humble in little things; and the proud, regarding only the exterior, find Him not even in great things. _CHAPTER III._ How much Easier Sanctity becomes when studied from this Point of View. If the work of our salvation offers obstacles apparently so insurmountable, it is because we have not a just idea of it. In truth, sanctity consists in but one thing--fidelity to the order of God; and this fidelity is equally within the reach of all, whether in its active or in its passive part. The active part of fidelity consists in fulfilling the duties imposed upon us either by the general commands of God and the Church, or by the particular state we have embraced. Its passive part consists in lovingly accepting all that God sends us each moment. Which of these two parts of sanctity is above our strength? Not the active part, since the duties it enjoins cease to be duties for us the moment our strength is really unequal to them. Will not the state of your health permit you to hear Mass? You are no longer obliged to do so. And so it is with all positive obligations which prescribe duties to be fulfilled. Only those precepts which forbid things evil in themselves admit of no exception, for it is never permitted to do evil. Is there anything easier or more reasonable? What excuse can be urged against it? Yet this is all the co-operation God requires of the soul in the work of its sanctification. He requires it of great and small, of strong and weak; in a word, of all, at all times, in all places. Therefore He only requires of us what is easy, since to attain eminent sanctity requires but a simple good-will.