March 19, 2023
Fourth Sunday of Lent
by Fr. Boniface Endorf, O.P
Dear St. Joseph Parish Family,
This year our annual St. Joseph parish dinner will be next Saturday, March 25th, after the 5:30pm vigil Mass (so 6:30pm). Tickets are on sale at every Sunday Mass until we sell out. Tickets are $25 per adult (to cover some of the cost of the dinner). Monte’s will be providing the food, as in previous dinners, so the food will be great! We’ll have Catholic trivia again too! I hope to see everyone there.
This Monday, the 20th, is the Solemnity of our parish patron, St. Joseph. We’ll have our usual 12:10pm daily Mass, and a 7pm Mass with music for the Solemnity of St. Joseph.
The Annunciation of the Lord is this upcoming Saturday, the 25th, which will be celebrated at the 12:10pm daily Mass, while that Saturday’s 5:30pm Vigil Mass will be for Laetare Sunday, the 5th Sunday of Lent.
Fr. Cajetan Cuddy OP will the preacher at all next Sundays Masses because he’ll preach our Lenten parish mission next week, from Monday the 27th through Wednesday the 29th. The parish mission will be at 7pm each night in the church. We hope that everyone can make it—Fr. Cajetan is a wonderful preacher and it will be a great mission.
Mass Tidbit:
The preparation of the gifts ends with the priest saying: “Pray, brethren (brothers and sisters), that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.” The priest extends his hands in the priestly prayer posture during the beginning of this call to prayer and then joins them as he prays. This exhortation to prayer sums up the whole preparation of the gifts: we pray that God will accept the sacrifice of the priest as he offers the bread and wine that will become the Body and Blood of Christ to God the Father, and the sacrifice of all the people as they offer themselves to God.
The people then respond: “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his holy Church.” As when the people say “and with your spirit,” they now prayer that the priest’s sacrifice in the Mass will bring about the good of all. They are praying that the graces the priest received through the sacrament of Holy Orders will be effective in this Mass so that he may properly perform his role as God’s instrument of grace in the Mass. From God through the Mass many graces will flow, as the water and blood from Christ’s side, which represent the graces of baptism and the Eucharist, for the good of those at the Mass and for the whole Church. The Eucharist is the fountain of grace that nourishes the whole Church.
God Bless,
Fr. Boniface
