March 5, 2023

Second Sunday of Lent

by Fr. Boniface Endorf, O.P

Dear St. Joseph Parish Family,

This year our annual St. Joseph parish dinner will be on 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 Sunday is our Cardinal’s Appeal commitment weekend. Our parish goal is $66,100. The Cardinal’s Appeal supports the Archdiocese of New York in its work. Specifically, it supports charitable outreaches, financially vulnerable parishes, the training of diocesan priests (but not the Dominican friars here at St. Joseph’s—that’s why we’ll have a Friar’s Appeal this Spring), Catholic education, evangelization and communications, and the many other works of the Archdiocese. Please consider supporting the Cardinal’s Appeal, and make sure to list “St. Joseph in Greenwich Village” as your parish. 

Mass Tidbit:

After the priest has quietly prayed that the sacrifice of the mass be pleasing to God, he incenses the gifts on the altar (the bread and wine) and the altar itself. The incense represents our prayers rising to heaven, as well as the presence of God, as God showed His presence in the Old Testament Temple through a cloud of presence. The incense is a sign of the holiness of the altar and the holiness of the sacrifice that is about to take place upon the altar, when the gifts are transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Christ.

After incensing the altar, the priest hands the thurible to the server who then incenses the priest celebrating the Mass. Then the server incenses any concelebrating priests, and then the server incenses the people joining in the Mass. All are taking part in the sacrifice of the Mass and thus have a role in the sacred event about to unfold, and so are marked by the incense as holy to the Lord. 

You may have noticed that in many churches the priest, when incensing, swings the thurible such that the bowl clinks on the chain of the thurible. However, the Dominican tradition is to swing or lift the thurible silently. This silent incensing is a more contemplative way of celebrating the Mass.

God Bless,
Fr. Boniface