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 for me.

But we continue in these meditations during Advent to seek to insert ourselves into the gospel, kind of like extras

in a movie, a famous movie. You know those people who walk by on the street in the background

of a movie while the famous actors are saying their lines.

The extras, well, they pretend to be normal people in the street,

you know, in the background,

but really they've been choreographed by the director to make you think that this street scene is just like normal life.

The extras generally have no lines to say, they just wear whatever outfit they're given,

and they do their best to be like normal passerbyes or part of a crowd.

Maybe they don't get paid much, but they can say to their friends, well, I was in the Oscar-winning movie.

I was an extra. I was one of the thousands of orcs in Lord of the Rings, where I was just a

blurry figure behind Leonardo DiCaprio or some janitor behind Julia Roberts.

Well, today, the movie is our own reading of the sacred scriptures. We know it's the story of the birth of Christ.

And of all those amazing characters that played their decisive role in this wonderful drama. Of course, the

starring roles are Mary and Joseph, of course, centered around Jesus. But we also have those

poor anonymous shepherds. And then finally we have the Magi who came from the distant

Orient. If each one had their role. So in this series of meditations,

...