Dear Saint Joseph,
at the beginning of this month of February I came to look for you in Jerusalem. I knew that you would come to the temple for the presentation of Jesus. And there I waited for you together with the old Simeon and the prophetess Anna. Tomorrow forty days will have passed since the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem and the law obliges you to present your offering to the temple as a sign of gratitude for the paternity, but also to pay homage to God by recognizing him as the absolute master of life. In your case, God's mastery over his creature is double: he is his son, he is a fragment of eternity made human flesh.
During your wait, dear Saint Joseph, I listened to the feelings of old Simeon; he as a man of faith awaited the event of the birth of the Messiah for the people of Israel. The prolonged and centuries-old night of evil and darkness had sharpened the desire for the coming of the messiah. It is true that traces of light appeared every now and then like meteors, but then everything fell into disappointment. I felt in Simeon's words the dismay of the chosen people at seeing themselves governed for over fifty years by a foreign nation. The discomfort and bitterness of the political and social condition became pressing invocations to God to finally send the messiah to free from the chains of the dominion of the Roman empire those people whom God had chosen and favored in history and to be the sentinel of the presence of goodness of the merciful God on all humanity in need of light.

Listen!