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.

There is a first line in a very famous novel,

the novel Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, first published in 1878, an opening line at the very beginning of the novel.

It's a line that has always perplexed me.

It says, all happy families are alike.

Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

And after this opening line, it then goes on to describe the opening kind of confusion in

the Oblonsky household after Steve Abolonski has had an affair with the French governess,

and his wife is just absolutely enraged.

She refuses to speak to him.

The meantime, all the children are running about.

It's this utter confusion.

And as we go on to read this story, this novel,

we see how Stiva just, well, basically, he embodies the notion that life is just meant to be lived

and to be enjoyed, and you shouldn't just, you know, you shouldn't really live any of your duties

if they are in any way difficult. And he's a guy who just lives for the moment. He only

thinks about his responsibilities much later.

Well, he ends up having a number of financial problems and stuff.

And he's quite an immature character whose kind of rather dazed reaction to being chastised for adultery

...