In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here,

that you see me, that you hear me.

I adore you with profound reverence.

I ask your pardon for my sins and the grace to make this time of prayer fruitful.

My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and Lord,

my guardian angel, intercede from me.

It has been said that female novelists of the 19th century

swooned over the strong and silent type of man,

that man of few words and yet decisive action.

We might think of Mr. Dossi from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudiced from 1813.

We think of his integrity, his honor, his steadfastness.

He acts decisively and selflessly, especially in his support of Elizabeth Bennett and her family.

Or we could think of the figure of Constantine Levin in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina,

who also displays moments of quiet, quiet reflective nobility as a landowner, as a thinker.

He's like focused on this authentic living.

Now, he had lots of disappointments, but also really sincere spiritual awakening, spiritual searching.

Yet all these figures, of course they all had their awkward quirks and even great weaknesses.

But the most quiet and most resolute man, he existed thousands of years ago.

Yeah, that was the figure of St. Joseph of Nazareth, the spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the foster father of Jesus

Christ, and the protector of the Holy Family. As we move on now in Advent, we raise in front of our

eyes this marvelous, luminous figure of St. Joseph.

...