March 12, 2023
Third 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.
The week after our St. Joseph dinner, the week of the 26th, will be our parish mission this year. Our former vicar at St. Joseph’s, Fr. Cajetan Cuddy OP, will be the preacher this year. He’s excited to come back to St. Joe’s! He’ll preach all the Sunday Masses the weekend before, and the parish mission will be Monday through Wednesday, 3/27-29, at 7pm in the church.
This Friday, 3/27, is the feast day of St. Patrick. St. Patrick is the patron saint of the Archdiocese of New York, and so the feast is celebrated as a solemnity within the Archdiocese. That means that you can eat meat on St. Patrick’s Day even though it is on a Friday of Lent.
The day before St. Patrick’s Day, 3/16, is the 190th anniversary of the Dedication of the Church of St. Joseph. Our parish was founded in 1829 and rented space until the church was built in 1833.
Mass Tidbit:
Next in the preparation of the gifts comes the ‘lavabo,’ where the priest ritually washes his hands before we enter more deeply into the liturgy of the Eucharist. The server walks to the priest with a cruet of water, a bowl to catch the water, and a purificator to serve as a towel. The server pours water over the priest’s hands to ritually wash them. The priest quietly prayers “Wash me, O Lord, from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin” as he washes his hands. The washing of the hands points to the need for the spiritual purification of the priest before he offers the sacrifice of the mass to God. It always best to be spiritually prepared when one is to stand in the presence of the living God (e.g: Leviticus 10:1-5)!
God Bless,
Fr. Boniface
