Well, welcome everybody to the Explain in the Faith series.

I'm Father Chris Ehler here at the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy,

and it's an honor to have you with us.

I know I always say I get excited about these talks,

but this is one like none other that I have never done before.

And this is going to look at the hidden life of the holy family what was it like with jesus

mary and joseph what were the first words of jesus what did he first say to st joseph what did he do

in those years that aren't mentioned in the Bible? And for this answer,

I'm not making things up, but we are going to the mystics. Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich,

Bridgeta Sweden, we have, you know, Mary of Agreta. This is the source that we're using.

And I want to be careful, though, because these are all mystical, not historical per the church.

We do not have to believe necessarily that what I'm about to show you is historical undisputed fact. But these stories are

fascinating. They come from the mystics who are saints and blesseds, and they actually really are

congruent with the Gospels. And so we really can engage in these stories an incredible way.

And so we're going to do a two-part series.

This is the first part.

We're going to cover the early years of Jesus.

And then after the death of St. Joseph, then in part two,

next week we will do the public life of Jesus,

even though there were things not in the Bible,

that even the Bible says not everything's in the Bible.

So let us pray.

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