St. Joachim News

News

Vatican Corner 12-22-2019

On the first day of Advent on Dec. 1, 2019, Pope Francis traveled to the Italian town of Greccio – where St. Francis of Assisi in the year 1223 created the first nativity scene. Pope Francis issued an apostolic letter on the meaning and importance of nativity scenes,...

read more

Pastor’s Desk 12-22-2019

Jewish marriage started with an engagement arranged by parents, often between children. Just prior to marriage, couples began a year-long betrothal very much like marriage except for sexual rights. Betrothal was binding and could be terminated only by death or...

read more

Vatican Corner 12-15-2019

Telling about when he was a young Jesuit, Pope Francis In the book “El Jesuita”, published in 2010, said that “over time, I felt the desire to go as a missionary to Japan, where the Jesuits have always carried out a very important work.” In 1549 Jesuit missionary St....

read more

Pastor’s Desk 12-15-2019

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American writer. When he died in 1864 he had on his desk the outline of a play he never got a chance to finish. The play centered around a person who never appeared on stage. Everyone talked about him. Everyone dreamed about him. Everyone...

read more

Pastor’s Desk 10-11-2019

Perhaps the most grateful person I've ever heard of was an old woman in an extended care hospital. She had some kind of wasting disease, her different powers fading away over the march of months. A student of mine happened to meet her on a coincidental visit. The...

read more

Vatican Corner 09-29-2019

The Amazonian synod entitled “New paths for the Church and for an integral ecology”, is the name of the upcoming meeting of bishops that is to be held at the Vatican from October 6th through 27th, 2019. The gigantic 2,700,000 square miles Amazon rainforest contains...

read more

Pastor’s Desk 09-29-2019

What parable would make a man with three doctoral degrees (one in medicine, one in theology, one in philosophy), leave civilization with all its culture and amenities and depart for the jungles of darkest Africa to serve as a missionary doctor for 47 years? What...

read more

Vatican Corner 09-22-2019

The 140th anniversary of the Apparition at Knock, Ireland was on August 21, 2019. That is where the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, St. John the Baptist and Christ (as the Lamb of God) appeared to 15 local townspeople on the parish church’s gable wall. The shrine...

read more

Pastor’s Desk 09-22-2019

One stormy night many years ago an elderly couple entered the lobby of a small hotel and asked for a room. The clerk explained that because there were three conventions in town, the hotel was filled. He added, "But I can't send a nice couple like you out in the rain...

read more

Vatican Corner 09-15-2019

Pope Francis had said that when he became Pope he didn’t want to travel very much because it was not in his nature. But a'er his first trip, a refugee camp, he realized the importance of his fatherly encounters where he can meet the people, hear their testimonies and...

read more

Pastor’s Desk 09-15-2019

On February 3rd of 1998, the State of Texas executed Miss Karla Faye Tucker Brown for her part in two extremely brutal murders committed in 1983. Karla was the first woman executed by Texas since the 1860’s and she was a born-again Christian. She had a childhood full...

read more

Pastor’s Desk 09-01-2019

By this time all of you must have seen the new statue of Mother Mary in our grotto at our rose garden. Unfortunately the old statue of Mother Mary was stolen in the month of January 2019 by a robber at midnight. The CC cameras around our church had captured his...

read more

Vatican Corner 08-25-2019

In 2013 when Pope Francis was in Rio de Janeiro for World Youth Day, he visited a hospital run by the Fraternity of Saint Francis of Assisi in the Providence of God. He asked the Fraternity if they had members in the Amazon. The reply was “no” and Francis simply...

read more