Friends, welcome to Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. Word on Fire is an apostolate dedicated

to the mission of evangelization, using media both old and new to share the faith on every continent and to facilitate an

encounter with Christ and his church.

The efforts of Word on Fire engage the culture and bring the transformative power of God's word where it is most needed.

Today we invite you to join Bishop Robert Barron as he preaches the gospel and shares the warmth and light of Christ with each one of us.

Peace be with you.

Friends, we come to Holy Family Sunday today, wonderful feast day.

And you know, over the years I've certainly preached on the dynamics of the Holy

Family, I've preached on Mary, I've talked a lot about the Lord of course,

but it occurred to me, I don't think ever in my 38

years as a priest did I really focus on St Joseph on this feast of the

Holy Family. Well that ends today I'm going to talk about this great saint. Something

that Jose Maria Escriva said has always stayed my mind. He said that the

greatest male saint in the history of the church was not a

Pope, not a bishop, not a priest, not a deacon, not a hermit, not a monk. The greatest male saint in the history of the church was a

husband and layman and a simple worker. So, St Joseph. And I think that helps to explain the universality of his appeal.

So he should appeal to, I mean, the 99% of Catholic laity. He's one of your own. Now what makes him besides his

universality so important? First we should note we know almost nothing about him. We have a few references, a handful of references in the gospel,

mostly concentrated in the gospel of Matthew, and a very interesting thing, a curious thing.

Joseph never speaks in the Gospels.

There's no account of Joseph ever saying anything.

Now think of the great talkers in the Bible, you know, Abraham and Jacob and Moses and

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