July
Year of the Eucharist
Month of the Precious Blood

WE NEED ADVERTISERS for our bulletin. Ads cost $300 per year. Parish Publications is losing money on our bulletin for lack of advertisers and is considering dropping our business. Ads can be commercial or personal. If you know of businesses who might be good candidates to place ads in our bulletin please notify the bulletin editor, Patrick Degens at 586 463-6178 or call the business office 313-831-6659 and give the information to our secretary, Chris Hubbard. Many thanks!

WE STILL NEED USHERS!
Mike Singelyn is the interim captain of the ushers' club. Men and women who are able to usher at our regular Sunday Masses and the monthly German Mass are asked to call Mike at 313-885-5333 to volunteer their services.

Choral Mass schedule

The St. Joseph Cappella and the Schola Sancti Josephi are on their annual summer hiatus, but please keep an eye on the News and the Music Schedule pages for information on the coming musical season.

New choir members -- trained or not -- are very welcome!

News: July 31, 2005
EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

FINAL NOTICE !!!!!
Our annual Bavarian Picnic is next Sunday, August 7 from 1-4 pm. Join Father Mark in making our picnic a FUNd raising success. Reminder! He will donate and cook enough sauerkraut and German Potato Salad for 200 people. We still need commitment from more people who will be volunteers. Volunteers who come to set up the food line at 10:00 am on the picnic day can attend the 4:00 pm vigil Mass at Sweetest Heart of Mary on Saturday or the noon Mass here on Sunday. Your picnic chairman is our parish bulletin editor, Patrick Degens (586) 463-6178. He is passing out sign-up sheets for volunteers after the Masses today.
INVITE YOUR FRIENDS!

Patrick has compiled some quotes on the Eucharist for the Meditations page.

News: July 24, 2005
SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Invite your friends and relatives to our picnic!
The menu will include grilled bratwurst, hamburgers, and hot dogs; German potato salad, sauerkraut, baked beans, chips, pop, water, beer, wine, and ice cream. Live music and singing will complete the day. Take flyers and posters to pass out to friends and businesses to promote our picnic.

Restoration Update
Our roof repairs are well underway. More damage has been discovered that has brought the cost above $60,000. See the poster in the rear of the church. Our Repair & Restoration fund contains $53,000, not enough to cover these costs. Our savings account has approximately the same amount as our R&R fund. The shortage in our R&R fund will come from our savings. The importance of our monthly Repair and Restoration fund cannot be stressed enough.

Our window repair fund has enough money left to restore two large leaded glass windows. Six large leaded glass windows have been restored. There are 14 more large windows that have not had any attention. The window restoration fund may now have to be directed to our storm windows which are seriously deteriorating. Storm windows need proper venting in order to avoid serious problems in the leaded glass windows that they are supposed to protect. Check the outside of the storms facing Orleans Street to view the problems. The repairs to our storm windows could possibly use up the remaining funds in our window restoration account.

We had an estimate last year of $135,000 for washing the interior of the church, repairing all of the plaster damage and repainting. There are no funds for this interior work. An annual fund-raising Picnic that expands over the years, with parishioners volunteering to help, may one day accomplish this task. We Can Do It !

News: July 17, 2005
SIXTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Our annual Bavarian Picnic is Sunday, August 7 from 1-4 pm. Father Mark will donate and cook enough German Potato salad and sauerkraut for 200 people as he did last year. This means he will have to get up extra early on the picnic day to cook and deliver his food before he celebrates Masses in our cluster. Father asks us to join him in making our picnic a FUNd raising success. If enough people volunteer to help, no one will be overburdened and everyone will have a rousing good time. We will set up the grounds on Saturday, August 6th at 10:00 am. In about 3 hours 4-6 people can handle this easily. Lunch will be provided. On Sunday, August 7th we hope to begin grilling at 10:00 am and keep all the prepared food hot in roasters until serving time. It will only take a few volunteers for this part of the picnic. Volunteers should plan on attending the 4:00 p.m. vigil Mass at Sweetest Heart of Mary on Saturday. Starting at 11:30 Sunday, we will need people to set up and manage the food line. Sign up sheets are in the vestibule of the church. Your chairman is our parish bulletin editor, Patrick Degens (586) 463-6178.

Invite your friends and relatives to our picnic! The menu will include grilled bratwurst, hamburgers, and hot dogs; German potato salad, sauerkraut, baked beans, chips, pop, water, beer, wine, and ice cream. Live music and singing will complete the day. Don’t be left out of our parish family picnic!

After the attack of 9-11, our late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, asked the entire world to pray the Rosary, daily if possible, for peace. He announced a year of the Rosary just for that purpose. When our Lady appeared at Fatima, Portugal in 1917 in the midst of the First World War she asked people to pray the Rosary daily to obtain peace for the world. The recent events in London, should leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that we are now engaged in a global war on terrorism. Our Lord has given the world the means to find peace. Will the world use it?

News: July 10, 2005
FIFTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

The Parish Council will meet tomorrow (Monday July 11) at 7:00 p.m. in the Social Hall. This is probably the most important meeting of the year because we will be finalizing plans for our annual picnic. Our picnic is scheduled for Sunday, August 7. We will need an army of volunteers in order to make it a success. It is our only fund raising activity at Saint Joseph Church. Be a part of keeping this parish alive. Join the picnic committee!

Dear Parishioners of St. Joseph Church,

On behalf of the Columban Sisters working in our many missions, I wish to thank you most sincerely for the warm welcome you gave me on my recent visit to your church and your own spirit of joy. The interest you showed in hearing of our missionary endeavors was most encouraging and the help you so willingly gave conveyed to me your awareness of how we can mutually support one another in carrying the command of Christ: “Go, and proclaim the Good News….” My prayer is that, in return for your generosity, God may reward you and your families with the richest of blessings.

Gratefully yours in Christ for the Columban Sisters,

Sister Patricia Quigley

So far $815.00 has been collected for the Columban Sisters. Donations can still be made through next Sunday both for this collection and for Peter’s Pence.

St. Joseph's Oil
We have received a shipment of St. Joseph’s Oil from St. Joseph Oratory in Montreal. It is available from the altar servers or from Patrick Degens. A $3.00 per bottle donation will recover the cost of having it bottled and shipped from Montreal. The tradition of anointing with sacred oil is very old both in the Sacraments and also as a devotional practice. Blessed André Bessette, the founder of St. Joseph Oratory, used to invite some of the sick people who came to him to apply the oil on the part of their body they wanted healed, but as they did so, he always told people to pray to St. Joseph. He insisted on the fact that the oil itself did not have any miraculous power, that it is God who has the power to heal. He taught that prayer and a gesture of faith, like applying oil, are important ways to express our faith in God’s power. As has been done since Brother André’s time, the Oratory places oil in lamps before the Statue of Saint Joseph and it burns for some time before it is offered to pilgrims. Fr. Claude Grou, c.s.c. of the Oratory says that they receive letters from people who say they have been healed after using the oil and praying to St. Joseph and Brother André.

News: July 3, 2005
FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Last Chance to get your picture into the album/directory for our cluster. A photographer will be at Sweetest Heart of Mary rectory on Wednesday, July 13 from 2:40 until 8:45 pm. Call the rectory for your appointment. 313 831-6659. You may also submit your own photograph.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

“It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and to humbly implore His protection and favor.” -- George Washington

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here." -- Patrick Henry

"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth; that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. I there fore beg leave to move—that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one of more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service." -- Benjamin Franklin

In the charity of your prayers, remember the sick

New stories in Patrick's History Corner.

More thoughts posted on the Meditations page.

News Archive