from twelve years of age upward, were obliged,
according to the Old Law, to go up to Jerusalem and offer sacrifice on
the great feasts. On one of these feasts the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph,
and Our Lord went to Jerusalem. When His parents and their friends were
returning home Our Lord was missing. He had not accompanied them from
the city. Then the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph went back to Jerusalem
and sought Him with great sorrow for three days. At the end of that time
they found Him in the temple sitting with the doctors of the law asking
them questions. Our Lord obediently returned with His parents to
Nazareth. At thirty years of age He was baptized by John the Baptist in
the River Jordan. The baptism of John was not a Sacrament, did not give
grace of itself; but, like a sacramental, it disposed those who received
it to be sorry for their sins and to receive the gift of faith and
Baptism of Christ. The eighteen years from the time Our Lord went down
to Nazareth after being found in the temple till His baptism is called
His hidden life, while all that follows His baptism is called His public
life. It is very strange that not a single word should be given in the
Holy Scriptures about Our Lord during His youth--the very time young men
are most anxious to be seen and heard. Our Lord knew all things and
could do all things when a young man, and yet for the sake of example He
remained silent, living quietly with His parents and doing His daily
work for them. Thus you understand what is meant by the five Joyful
Mysteries of the Rosary: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity
of Our Lord, the Presentation of the child Jesus in the temple, and the
finding of the child Jesus in the temple. You meditate on one of these
before each decade (ten) of the beads.

Next in order in the life of Our Lord come the five events called the
Sorrowful Mysteries, namely: (1) The agony in the garden, when Our Lord
went there to pray on Holy Thursday night, before He was taken prisoner.
There the blood came out through His body as perspiration does through
ours, and He was in dreadful anguish. The reason of His sorrow and
anguish has already been given in the explanation of the Passion. (2)
The scourging of Our Lord at the pillar. This also has been explained.
What terrible cruelty existed in the world before Christianity! In our
times the brute beasts have more protection from cruel treatment than
the pagan slaves had then. The Church