November 12, 2023
Thirty-second sunday of ordinary time
by Fr. Boniface Endorf, OP
Dear St. Joseph Parish Family,
This Wednesday we’re celebrating the NYC Gold Mass at St. Joseph’s for the first time. It celebrates those working in the sciences. The Mass will be at 7pm and will be followed by a talk by Fr. Ambrose Little OP entitled “Demonstration and Certainty in Thomistic Philosophy of Nature.” Please come and invite all those you know in the sciences.
Since our August Adoration Chapel opening, almost 500 people have signed up! God is certainly blessing His chapel!
Now our goal is to start exposition for as much time as possible. In order to have the Eucharist exposed in the monstrance (exposition), there must be someone adoring Him in the chapel. Jesus cannot be left in the monstrance unattended. Currently we don’t have any large segments of time where we can have exposition; thus, our present goal is to try to fill the adoration slots from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, so that we can have exposition during those times.
Currently, out of our 495 adorers, only 116 people have a recurring adoration commitment. To fill those 8am-6pm slots we need more people to make a commitment to adoration.
As a first step, we would like to fill the Monday and Thursday slots from 8am to 6pm. Please consider making a commitment to adoring our Lord during those times and make sure to ask others to join in. We are already only 11 more commitments away from meeting this goal!
God Bless,
Fr. Boniface
Mass Tidbit:
Continuing with the 2nd list of names in the Eucharistic prayer, we have:
Ignatius: St. Ignatius of Antioch, who was martyred in the early 2nd century, around the year 108 AD. Ignatius was a disciple of St. John the Apostle and is a bridge between the Apostles and the early Church. While being transported from Antioch to Rome for execution, he wrote a number of letters that survive today. They are a great witness to the early Church. The Church he describes is clearly Catholic—having bishops, priests, and deacons, celebrating the Eucharist and understanding it to be the Body of Christ, etc. When Ignatius arrived in Rome he was fed to wild beasts in the Coliseum, so he’s also a witness to the persecution of the early Church.
Alexander: An early bishop of Alexandria, the immediate predecessor of St. Athanasius. He fought against the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ. He’s the first non-martyr in this list of saints. He died around 326 AD.
Marcellinus: A priest who was beheaded with our next person on the list, St. Peter, in 302 AD. They were martyred during the persecution of Emperor Diocletian. Marcellinus converted his jailor, Artemius, and his family. In turn Artemius and his wife and children were also martyred by the Roman authorities.
Peter: A friend of Marcellinus who was martyred with him.
