YOU CAME TO MASS TO RECEIVE THE WORD OF GOD TURN THE PHONES OFF.....NO E-MAILS, NO TEXTING AND NO GAME PLAYING

Catholic Bytes is a new Catholic podcast that offers short (5-10 minute), dynamic talks about the faith. Episodes offer listeners a variety of themes: faith fundamentals, Scripture, dogma, morals, liturgy, spirituality, saints, Church history, and personal testimonies. It is a perfect way to get your day started with a “faith-booster” on your morning commute.

The Season of Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas (December 2, 2018) and ends after the mid-afternoon prayer on Christmas Eve (December 24, 2018). The Christmas Season begins with Evening Prayer on Christmas Eve (December 24, 2018) and ends with Evening Prayer on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (January 13, 2019).  Read more here.

The Archdiocese of Washington produces a weekly Sunday TV Mass filmed in the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It is a wonderful ministry for those members of our Catholic family who are unable to be physically present with a local worshipping community for the Sunday Eucharistic Liturgy.

St Joseph Memorial Wall Candles are available for subscription in the Church Business Office. Candles stay lit for one year and cost $300 per candle. That's less than $.85 cents a day! Candles may be lit for non-members and can be renewed yearly. Light a candle on a birthday, an anniversary, at Christmas or during a wedding or funeral mass. Light one for yourself as a Special Intention. Location and at which mass to dedicate and light your candle are your choice and your year starts at the time of lighting.

Landings2 is a resource for anyone wishing to deepen their spiritual life and develop as mature disciples of Christ. Landings 2 meets every other Saturday, at 1:00 p.m. If you are a graduate of the Landings program or completed RCIA, or if you are seeking spiritual growth, I urge you to consider our new program and explore the possibilities. Contact Freddie Poole for more information at: 3013350048.

Letters of Good Standing are available to REGISTERED, ACTIVELY ATTENDING/PARTICIPATING parishioners. Please bring your school form letters to the business office, once validated you will be able to pick them up in the office.  Only letters issued by the schools will be accepted.

PLEASE, do not take large gulps from the chalice, one small sip is all that is necessary. IF,  you encounter a small bit of the Host while taking the chalice, CONSUME IT!   During the consecration, a small piece of the Host is placed in the chalice.  The Body & Blood of Christ.

Sodality's Marian Tweens & Teens Group is hosting a Get-Together on Saturday, April 27, 2019 from 12:30 to 2:30p.m. in Rosemont A. All are invited, especially middle school girls and boys, to come out and explore with Sodality's Marian Tweens & Teens Group on TBA from 12:30 to 2:30p.m.  A light lunch will be provided.

Would you like to honor a deceased member of your family? St. Joseph Bereavement Support Ministry is taking applications for the deceased members of St. Joseph's Parish to be added to the garden Memorial Wall this Spring. For applications and more information, call Sandra James (301) 773-3196, or Etoile de Hawkins (301)-336-0284. You may also call Karen Marshall at the Front Office (301)-773-4838 ext.10.

Plantation owner, Michael Morris Healy, and his bi-racial slave, Mary Eliza, had ten children during the1830s. The Healy family lived in Georgia where the law prohibited the education of slave and mixed-race children. The Healy children were sent north by their wealthy father to be free, white and to receive a Catholic education. The children were fair-skinned enough to be identified as white Irish-American and their mixed race ancestry was not widely known.  

Although African American Catholics are among the smaller constituencies of the Catholic Church in the United States we had over recent years some several hundred black priests from which these aforesaid bishops were chosen. Most of the ordinations of black priests in this country took place in the 1970s and 1980s; vocation numbers tapering off thereafter. Right now priestly numbers in the African American community across the country hover around two-hundred.

Did you know that in 1886, Augustus Tolton became the first publicly known black Roman Catholic priest in the United States? A former slave who was baptized and reared Catholic, Tolton studied formally in Rome, because he was rejected from every American seminary. Later assigned to Chicago, Tolton led the development and construction of St. Monica’s Catholic Church in 1893.

The Our Mother of Africa Chapel is located in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. It was dedicated on August 30, 1998 during the National Black Congress VIII. The Chapel was presented by the African American community as a gift to the national shrine and to the Catholic community. The Chapel expresses the values, hopes, dreams, aspirations, and history of African American Catholic people. The completion of the chapel provides the shrine with 60 chapels, and six oratories reflecting the ethnic and cultural diversity of the United States church.

SERVANT OF GOD MARY LANGE: Cardinal Keeler of Baltimore opened a formal investigation into Mother Lange's life  and works of charity in 1991, and the cause of her sainthood was approved in 2004. If the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints approves the positio being written, Mother Lange, currently considered a “Servant of God,” would be given the title “Venerable.” A confirmed miracle attributed to her would then be necessary for her beatification, and a second miracle for her canonization.

The month of October each year is dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary. This is primarily due to the fact that the liturgical feast of Our Lady of the Rosary is celebrated annually on October 7th. It was instituted to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary in gratitude for the protection that she gives the Church in answer to the praying of the Rosary by the faithful.

The one thing we truly know about St. Nicholas is that he was the bishop of Myra, a city that existed during the fourth century in present-day Turkey. So many stories have grown up around him that by the middle ages he had become one of the most popular saints. In England alone there were more than four hundred churches in his honor! Nicholas is the patron of seafarers because he was said to have safely seen a ship he was sailing in to shore when he took the tiller in the midst of a great storm.

The song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is an English Christmas carol. From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics. It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of the Church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember. To fit the number scheme, when you reach number 9, representing the Fruits of the Holy Ghost, the originator combined 6 to make 3, taking the 6 fruits that were similar: the fruit in each parenthesis is the that was not named separately. There are actually Twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost.

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception celebrates the solemn belief in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is universally celebrated on December 8, nine months before the feast of the Nativity of Mary, which is celebrated on September 8.

Advent comes from the Latin word meaning "coming." Jesus is coming, and Advent is intended to be a season of preparation for His arrival. While we typically regard Advent as a joyous season, it is also intended to be a period of preparation, much like Lent. Prayer, penance and fasting are appropriate during this season.