Today is the 2nd Sunday of Easter, the end of the Easter Octave, and Divine Mercy Sunday. We celebrate God’s work of salvation in the world and our lives, so let us today give thanks to God for His goodness is the source of all good things.

Happy Easter! Today our Lord has risen and our salvation is secured! Today Christ has defeated sin and death, and they no longer have dominion over us. Today the path to eternal life, to our true homeland in heaven, lies open before us in Christ; therefore, our hearts should rejoice because the fulfillment of our deepest desires is possible in Christ. Life now has a happy ending!

Holy Week is here! Today starts the holiest week of the year, when Our Lord won our salvation. Let us enter into this grace-filled time and encounter Christ anew. Let us meditate upon our salvation in Christ and join our hearts to His. The events we relive this week are the center of human history: the most important actions even taken in the universe, for Christ’s victory on the cross is our victory over sin and death. Evil, sin, and even death itself no longer have the final say in our lives; rather, we take joy in Christ’s having defeated them all and given us a share in His triumph. This week we relive Jesus’ victory: His facing down death on the cross and His triumph at the resurrection. Let us mourn the cost Christ paid this Good Friday, and let us marvel at the victory He achieved this Easter.

This week is our annual parish Lenten mission and Fr. Cajetan Cuddy OP will the preacher. He’ll preach from Monday the 27th through Wednesday the 29th at 7pm each night in the church. The topic is “In Search of Real Spirituality: The Only Three Questions.” We hope that everyone can make it—Fr. Cajetan is a wonderful preacher and it will be a great mission.

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.

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 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 year our annual St. Joseph parish dinner will be on Saturday, March 25th. It’s always on a Saturday near the Solemnity of St. Joseph (March 20th) after the vigil Mass. Tickets will go on sale next Sunday and will be sold thereafter in the parish office (during office hours, 8am-4pm) and at the Sunday Masses until we sell out. Monte’s will be providing the meal again so the food will be great! I hope to see everyone there.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent, a season of penance that prepares us for the celebration of Easter. The point of penances is to open our souls to God so that we can hear His voice in our lives. It’s a form of repentance, meaning sorrow for our sin and turning from sin back towards God. Penance and repentance are thus hopeful acts: that we can be united with God by turning towards His mercy and grace.

Lent is quickly approaching: 2/22 is Ash Wednesday. Start thinking about what penances you would like to take on this Lent. There are many graces to the Lenten season so make sure to take advantage of them; it can be a time of great spiritual growth. Pick penances that will help give you the inner freedom and space to move closer to Christ. For instance, fasting from social media or the internet works well for people today. Also, make sure to increase your daily prayer during Lent—the point isn’t simply to empty ourselves of the things that distract us from God, but also to fill ourselves with the things of God.

Erin O’Kane, our parish secretary for the past four years, is moving on as she completes her master’s degree. We wish her well in her future service to the Church. However, we  need to hire a new parish secretary. If you know anyone who may be interested in the position please refer that person to the parish.

This Thursday is Candlemas, also known as the Presentation of the Lord. It’s called Candlemas because there is a special blessing of candles at the beginning and then a procession. This year we’re re-introducing this special candle blessing and procession. We’ll bless the church candles we’ll use throughout this year, and you can bring your candles that you want blessed. It starts in McGuire Hall at 7pm, and after the opening candle blessing we’ll process into the church for the rest of the mass. I encourage everyone to attend that evening—it’ll be a grace filled night. We’ll still also have our normal 12:10pm daily mass that day too, but without the candle blessing. 

This upcoming Saturday, the 28th, is the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest theologians in Church history and a Dominican saint. His theology is the basis of our Dominican training and much of what you hear in our homilies is rooted in St. Thomas’s thought. The school of theology based on St. Thomas’s writings is called Thomism; if you’d like to learn more about St. Thomas’s theology, check out these short videos from the Thomistic Institute at https://aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org.

Today we celebrate Epiphany, or the revelation of God made Incarnate, made man. It’s an astounding thing when considered: that God, who is the primal cause of everything, who created the cosmos and holds it in existence at every moment, took a human nature to Himself and entered into our history.

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God! We celebrate Mary because she had the unique mission of being the mother of Jesus, the Son of God. It was through her that God became man. She is also the mother of all those joined to Christ in baptism, so she is our spiritual mother.

Merry Christmas! I pray that you have a blessed Christmas, and that Jesus brings you many blessings this Christmas season! As we celebrate the coming of Our Lord, God taking a human nature to Himself in order to save us, let us give thanks for the manifold gifts He gives us. His grace provides us with faith and hope that overcome the sufferings of this world, and his grace strengthens us to love again in this world grown cold. Let us take heart and live those great gifts of faith, hope, and love. Through them we encounter Christ, and by them He leads us to our true homeland in heaven.

Next week is Christmas! It falls on a Sunday this year and the parish schedule for the Christmas Masses is below (and our website).

Your generosity has been a real gift and has helped rebuild St. Joseph’s these past four years. We have restored the church building, built a parish hall, and are about to complete the first perpetual adoration chapel in Manhattan. The Holy Spirit has certainly been active at St. Joseph’s and the parish will continue to flourish because of the work we’ve done together.

I hope that everyone’s Advent is off to a good start! This Thursday we have a Holy Day of Obligation: The Immaculate Conception. We’ll celebrate our usual Holy Day of Obligation schedule—7 pm Vigil Mass (Wednesday), 12:10 daily Mass, and 7 pm evening Mass on the day of (Thursday). We’ll have music at the 7 pm Thursday Mass.

Advent begins! This season is one of watchfulness, vigilance, and prayer, as we await the coming of our Lord on Christmas. Let us spend this special time in spiritual practices—let us be spiritually watchful and vigilant. We won’t notice Christ’s coming if we aren’t paying attention! Just as the three magi of Epiphany knew of Christ’s coming only through diligently watching for signs in the heavens, so we too should keep our eyes on God to discern His coming. Let us be prepared with our lamps alight as Christ comes to call us to Himself—to bring us with Him to our true homeland in heaven.