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 which "are done to be seen of men" "have their reward," that is, the sort of reward they seek, human approval; they have no value in the realm of the spirit. But the life that is lived as sacrifice, as a thing perfectly offered to God, is a life growing up in God day by day. It is our Lord's life, summed up from this point of view in the "I come to do thy will, O God." Its most perfect reflection is caught by blessed Mary with her acceptance of God's will: "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord." But it is the life expression of all sanctity; for the saint is such chiefly by virtue of his sacrificial attitude. It is the completest account of the life of sanctity that it "leaves all" to follow a divine call. It is the response of the Apostles who, as James and John, leave their father Zebedee and the boats and the nets and the hired servants, to follow Jesus. It is the answer of Matthew who rises from the receipt of custom at the Master's word. It is the answer of all saints in all times. Sanctity means the abandonment of all for Christ: it means the embracing of the poverty of Jesus and Mary.