The Feast of Saint Joseph takes place on March 19th. March 19 always falls during Lent. It is sometimes a day of abstinence. This explains the custom of St. Joseph tables being covered with meatless dishes. If the feast day falls on a Sunday other than Palm Sunday,  it is observed on the next available day, usually Monday, March 20, unless another solemnity falls on that day. Since 2008, if St Joseph's Day falls during Holy Week, it is moved to closest possible day before 19 March, usually the Saturday before Holy Week.

The first Mass in the English-speaking American colonies was held on Saint Clement's Island in Maryland on March 25, 1634, and was the beginning of the Archdiocese of Washington.

View the video here.

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.

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.

The traditional date of the feast, September 8, falls exactly nine months after the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Perhaps because of its close proximity to the feast of the Assumption of Mary, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not celebrated today with the same solemnity as the Immaculate Conception. It is, nonetheless, a very important feast, because it prepares the way for the birth of Christ. 

The feast of the Precious Blood of our Lord was instituted in 1849 by Pius IX, but the devotion is as old as Christianity. The early Fathers say that the Church was born from the pierced side of Christ, and that the sacraments were brought forth through His Blood.

www.therosary3.com is a beautiful place where you can close your mind to everything around, and simply contemplate Jesus and Mary.  The website is easy to navigate.  It is ideal for individual meditation, family or group prayer.  This is God's work, created with love and it purely seeks to enrich people's faith through what has always been a beautiful prayer 

Easter is the greatest feast in the Christian calendar. On this Sunday, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. For Catholics, Easter Sunday comes at the end of 40 days of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving known as Lent. Through spiritual struggle and self-denial, we have prepared ourselves to die spiritually with Christ on Good Friday, the day of His Crucifixion, so that we can rise again with Him in new life on Easter.

The first name comes from the fact that it commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when the crowd had palm branches (John 12:13). The second name comes from the fact that the narrative of the Passion is read on this Sunday.