January 21, 2024

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

by Fr. Boniface Endorf, OP

Dear St. Joseph Parish Family,

You’ve likely noticed the new paintings in the Church! Lucy Rahner, a St. Joseph parishioner, has been working on these paintings for the past two years. I’m excited to finally have them completed and in place! Lucy also painted the saints border in McGuire Hall. This Friday, 1/26, at 7pm, Lucy will give a presentation on the paintings in the church. There will be a gathering in the parish hall afterwards. Please join us and learn more about the artwork at St. Joseph’s. 

Our ministries are up and running again so please consider joining any you are interested in. See our webpage for details. 

God bless,
Fr. Boniface

Mass Tidbit:

It’s been awhile since we’ve had a Mass Tidbit, but we had just completed the Eucharistic Prayer and are now moving into the Communion Rite. The priest says “At the Savior’s command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say:” And then we all say or sing the Our Father.

We are both commanded to say and dare to say–a strange combination. God as our creator is not strictly speaking ‘Our Father,’ because we cannot, on that ground, claim a familial relationship. It’s God’s initiative that makes it possible. Jesus has reunited us with God, and through His adoption of our human nature has enabled our adoption into His Divine Nature, making us adopted children of God. God commands what we would otherwise not dare to ask because He has given us what we would have been rash and impudent to request on our own, but what God has deigned to give us. How could we even request something as great as being adopted children of God without God having told us to do so? But He has, and so we pray as He taught us, praying “Our Father…”