_POINT I._ Consider the words: “_He went down with them and came to Nazareth._” He might have moved in the midst of the world, as He had done for three days when lost in Jerusalem, but He wished to give an example which people generally could imitate. Nearly all persons must lead a private life during the greater portion, if not the whole of their career. Restlessness to be abroad is very injurious to virtue. But the inner life, needed to attain perfection, is favored by retirement from the world. Hence all founders of religious orders require a retired novitiate, and the Church strictly prescribes enclosure, which law has not been relaxed except where charity to the neighbor demands it. It is not the spirit of God that makes some priests aspire to conspicuous offices and functions. Nazareth was good enough for Christ, though it was so obscure a town that Nathanael asked, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (St. John i, 46). It is a bad sign when a religious is displeased because applied to obscure duties. _POINT II._ Consider the words, “_And He was subject to them_”; that is, Jesus was subject to Mary and Joseph. This is the chief lesson Christ chose to teach the world during the first thirty years of His life. It must then be of the utmost importance. St. Gregory says of it: “Obedience is a virtue which, by itself alone, plants all other virtues in the mind and preserves them after they are once planted” (L. 35 Mor. c. 10). St. Ignatius, in his “Epistle on Obedience,” quoted these words with emphatic approbation; and he has made this the characteristic virtue of his Society. In fact the vow of obedience belongs to the essence of the religious life, and some orders comprise all the obligation of their members under the one vow of “obedience according to their rule.” My perfection as a religious depends chiefly on the perfection of my obedience. Consider besides, in meditating on Christ’s private life, who was the Person that obeyed; namely God Himself in His human nature. Whom did He obey? His own creatures infinitely beneath Him in every respect. In what did He obey? In all the details of His life; in working for instance, under the direction of Joseph, after the unskilful manner of that time. How perfectly do I obey my superiors? I must make myself like unto Christ, not in working miracles, but in submitting to my superiors.