My name is Father John Henry Hanson, and I am a Norbertine priest of St. Michael's Abbey in Silverado, California,

and I want to welcome you to this retreat on our great and noble Lord and Father St. Joseph.

I use that phrase, especially because St. Jose Maria, I love to call St. Joseph,

his father, and Lord, which is a very beautiful way of honoring not only his spiritual patronage,

but also his guidance in our lives as a type of a master or a lord beautifully how he guided the holy family and how he

can guide us as well on our journey of faith.

I am giving this retreat at St. Michael's Abbey.

I am speaking to you from an office in St. Michael's Abbey in Silverado,

and it's very special that I'm doing that because our monastery, where I am right now,

has just recently been constructed. We have moved from an old monastery, about 10 miles down the road, to a newly constructed one,

and it was constructed from start to finish under the patronage of St. Joseph.

When we first purchased this property of, I think, about 100 acres, we put a little humble shrine up to St. Joseph that he would

look over the whole project, which was a very difficult one with many obstacles and not least

of which was raising the money in order to build a proper monastery.

And St. Joseph has been there at every moment to inspire the generosity of benefactors and

of so many people who have given their time and their abilities and their financial resources and their prayers especially to making this

monastery a reality.

It is still in some parts under construction.

And so if you should hear in the background earth movers or power tools or the voices of

workmen calling to one another, I think that's

appropriate because St. Joseph is the model and the patron of workers, and I don't mind it all

having as some of the background, ambient noise, if you want to call it noise or just ambience, the sounds of work, the sounds of men building up something beautiful for God.

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