Saint Joachim News

There is an old and funny little anecdote that goes something like this. An elderly man who was quite ill said to his wife, "You know, Sarah, you’ve always been with me – through the good and the bad. Like the time I lost my job – you were right there by my side. And...

Soon after Al Smith was elected to his first term as governor of New York, he made an inspection tour of the state prison, "Sing Sing." After Smith had toured the plant, the warden explained that prison morale was low and he asked the governor to speak some...

On last Saturday early morning (January 16th) I was informed that Mrs. Maria Silva wife of Fernando Silva had passed away. The immediate thought that came to my mind was, ‘What a great loss to our parish.’ Yes, indeed, she was one of the great pillars of our church....

One day Francis of Assisi invited one of the young friars to join him on a trip into town to preach. The young friar was so honored at receiving such an invitation from St. Francis that he quickly accepted. They paused beneath a tree and Francis stooped to return a...

Origin of baptism: Neither John nor Jesus invented baptism. It had been practiced for centuries among the Jews as a ritual equivalent to our Confession. Until the fall of the Temple in 70 A.D., it was common for Jewish people to use a special pool called a Mikveh --...

Little Amy was looking through the family album and found a picture of a man sitting behind a cow. All that was visible was the man’s legs and feet. When her photographer uncle who owned a photo studio came to visit her mother Amy told him, “This is the only picture...

On what basis the Church began to celebrate Christmas on 25th December. It is based on the assumption that the annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist to Zachariah occurred during the feast of Yom Kippur, around September 25th, placing the birth of John after...

Years ago a psychologist named Thomas Holmes developed a scale for measuring stress. He assigned numerical values to events that cause stress such as the loss of job, moving to a new city, a new relationship. Dr. Holmes even included Christmas on his stress list. He...