Chapter IX. A mode of effectually honouring the Incarnate Word, the Blessed Virgin, and St. Joseph

The most effectual devotion we can practise in hone of the Incarnate Word, the Blessed Virgin, and Si J seph, is :

1. To take as our model of self-contempt the Wc in His annihilation, wherein He abased Himself to o miseries by the incomprehensible mystery of the Ina nation.

2. To take as our model of purity the Blessed V gin, who was so pure in mind and body that she merit that the Son of God, being pleased to become nu should take her for His Mother.

3. To place ourselves under the guidance of i Joseph, who having been entrusted by God the Fath with the direction and control of the exterior actio of His Son, as also of the Blessed Virgin, fulfilled here an office infinitely more exalted than if he had had i government of all the angels, and the direction of tl interior of all the Saints.

We ought, then, to address ourselves to him in oi functions and employments, and earnestly entreat I guidance, not only in the interior, but also in the ezt rior life; for it is certain that this great Saint has peculiar power to aid souls in the interior ways^ and that we receive mucli assistance from him in the matter of exterior direction.

Eyerj soul which desires to advance in the interior ways must endeavour to excel in devotion to our Lord and the Holy Spirit, imiting therewith devotion to the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, with the hope of attaining humility by the merit of the self-annihilation of the Incarnate Word ; purity, by the favour of the Blessed Virgin, the purest of all pure creatures ; and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, by the intercession of St. Joseph : for this holy patriarch having discharged, under the Holy Spirit, the office of governing the Son of God and His holy Mother, by the merit of this charge has acquired, as it were, a kind of right to direct interiorly faithful souls. And, in fact, we have sensible proof that they who take him as their director make wonderful progress under his guidance.