Saint Joseph is the most mysterious character from the Advent story. He doesn’t say anything and we know pretty much nothing about him, yet there are few figures more central to the story of our faith community. So host Mike Jordan Laskey asked his friend, Sister Colleen Gibson, SSJ, if she could help shed some light on this shadowy member of the Holy Family.

Sr. Colleen is a Sister of Saint Joseph of Philadelphia and has spent a lot of time praying and reflecting on her community’s patron. Unsurprisingly, given Sr. Colleen’s intelligence and creative gifts, she brought multiple perspectives on St. Joseph you might have never considered before.

Sr. Colleen also talks about her own vocation story of becoming a millennial religious sister, plus a bit of the history of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, which were founded in France by a Jesuit in 1650.

Sr. Colleen also tells us about her own new podcast project, which she’s co-hosting with another sister of Saint Joseph. It’s called Beyond the Habit and they’ve just released their first few episodes.

If you’d like some more Advent content from us here at the Jesuit Conference, you can sign up for daily email reflections on faith heroes formed in the Ignatian tradition at Jesuits.org/advent22 and register for a free evening of reflection on Zoom at Jesuits.org/adventprayer, which is being hosted by iconographer Kelly Latimore and writer Cameron Bellm (Wednesday, December 14, 7:30pm ET).

Listen to Beyond the Habit on Spotify or wherever you get podcasts: https://open.spotify.com/show/3dcsfiK6IQJvWFvgAbZUuR

Follow Sr. Colleen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yoitssistercoll/

AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.