Eleventh Day
The angel of the Lord again came to Joseph, and bade him take the Child and its Mother and return to the land of Israel, for those who had sought after His life were dead. Nobody took much notice of their departure; the Holy Family were too insignificant from a human point of view to trouble any one. They made the journey back again through the desert with the same difficulties besetting the way, until at length their eyes fell on the hills of their own country: that land which God had chosen for His people. They would gladly have entered Jerusalem on their way to Nazareth, but Archelaus, the son of Herod, was reigning there, and Joseph considered it prudent to avoid that city. No doubt he had recourse to prayer for enlightenment what to do, and had received a response from heaven that he should continue without delay his journey to Galilee; then their journeyings were to be at an end, and they could live peaceably and without fear in Nazareth, a home chosen by God for the sojourn of His divine Son for nearly thirty years.
Prayer.
O Heart of Mary, I offer, etc., etc.