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

My Lord, and to 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 emigate mother, St. Joseph, my Father and Lord,

by guardian angel, intercede for me.

We can ask the Lord now to stir up the fire of our faith.

As we do with any fire, we start small, we start to put little twigs on the fire, things that are easy to burn,

little branches, light things, and all these little twigs that we put in very carefully, one after the other, they get the fire going.

Our faith will be raging. And one of the most effective twigs that we can put into the fire

of our faith is our devotion to our mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our devotion to her.

Those glances, those aspirations, those short little prayers, or repeated, Hail Mary's repeated memoraries.

They, those little things awaken something in us. In particular, they awaken within us

our devotion to the Blessed Mary as mother.

That's what we want to do during this time of prayer, to stir up our faith or awaken within us

the fire of our faith that will rage into a burning fire.

That's why our Father would say,

stir up that fire of faith.

Christ is not a figure that is past.

He is not a memory that is lost in history.

It's not an old fire we're stirring up.

And Mary, the Blessed Mother, seems to stir up

devotion within us.

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