125th Anniversary of the Erection of Saint Joseph Parish
125th Anniversary of the Erection of Saint Joseph Parish at Stratford, Wisconsin
19th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Saint Joseph Church
Stratford, Wisconsin August 10, 2024
Wis 18, 6-9
Ps 33, 1. 12. 18-19. 20-22
Heb 11, 1-2. 8-19
Lk 12, 32-48
Homily
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It is the source of deepest joy for me to offer the solemn Mass of Thanksgiving on the historic occasion of the 125th anniversary of the erection of Saint Joseph Parish here. I thank Father Eric Mashak, your parish priest, for the invitation to offer the Holy Mass, and I congratulate Father Mashak and all the parishioners in his priestly care. A son of the Parish since 1958, I share fully your sentiments of gratitude. I am offering the Holy Mass for all who have been or are parish priests and parishioners.
A parish is erected when the Bishop assigns a parish priest to a community of the faithful.[1] Since Bishop James Schwebach, Third Bishop of La Crosse, first named a pastor of Saint Joseph Parish at Stratford, the Bishops of La Crosse have faithfully provided priests to act in the person of Christ Head and Shepherd in the Catholic community here, above all, by offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and by absolving sins in the Sacrament of Penance, but also by providing for the teaching of the doctrine of the faith and of sound morals, and by directing the faithful in following Our Lord by a good and holy life. Highlights in the 125 years of the Church’s history have been the dedication of the lay faithful to the life of the parish, especially in its service to families through the Catholic school, the apostolate of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in the conduct of the Catholic school, the building of the new Saint Joseph Church and School in 1939 and 1940, the building of the present priest’s house in 1949, the building of the addition to the School in 1953 and 1954, and the building of the new Convent in 1959. In the first seventy-five years of the history of the Parish, there were also numerous young men and women who responded to the vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life. Innumerable are the graces which have come and continue to come to individuals and families through the community of faith here under the care and direction of the parish priest. For all these many graces, we give thanks to almighty God Who has ceaselessly poured forth the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit into the hearts of clergy, consecrated religious, and lay faithful of the Parish from the glorious-pierced Heart of His only-begotten Son, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Our Lord reminds us today that our daily Christian life is fundamentally an act of hope, the hope founded securely upon what the faith teaches us and upon the love poured forth upon the Church, into our hearts as living members of the Church, from the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus. In the Gospel, Our Lord exhorts us, as He exhorted the disciples: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s pleasure to give you the kingdom.”[2]
Surely, the challenges and the temptations encountered in following Christ, in taking up daily, with Him, the Cross of pure and selfless love are many and formidable. Being a Christian and creating a Christian home is not for the faint-hearted, but for those who “[l]et [their] loins be girded and [their] lamps burning,” those who are vigilant, especially as the day wears on and the temptations to discouragement or to carelessness are more frequent and more fierce.[3] But indeed God the Father has given the Kingdom into our care as His “faithful and wise steward[s],” who are always ready to give an account of our stewardship.[4] Recognizing the confidence which Our Lord has placed in us, how can we give way to discouragement, how can we doubt that Our Lord will bring forth good fruits from our daily efforts to live in Him and to carry out His work?
What is more, we exercise our stewardship of the Kingdom in an unbroken line of faithful sons and daughters of Our Lord, beginning with Abraham, our father in the faith.[5] Those who have gone before us give us assurance that, with with the help of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, we can accomplish all that God the Father is asking of us. Abraham and those who are his descendants in the faith teach us to work with all our strength to transform our world, while keeping our eyes focused on “a better country,” our lasting home in Heaven.[6] The people of Israel, at the time of the Exodus, for example, needed extraordinary hope founded on faith in God’s promises and the gift of His love given to them. The Book of Wisdom tells us: “The deliverance of the righteous and the destruction of their enemies were expected by your people.”[7] God’s holy people placed all their hope in His promises enunciated in the covenant which He had established with them. So, too, must we and our homes be filled with the hope which has its foundation in God’s promise of eternal salvation. As we recall those who have gone before us in making Saint Joseph Parish a strong Catholic community over its 125-year history, let us resolve to follow their example and to dedicate ourselves to the Parish, confident that God, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and our holy patron Saint Joseph, True Spouse of the Virgin Mary and Virginal Father of Jesus, will never fail to bless our labors.
Saint Joseph Parish here and the families or households who constitute the parish have been and are stewards of the Kingdom, stewards of the great Mystery of Faith. It is in the Christian home, assisted and directed by the parish priest, that the faith is first taught, that its highest expression in prayer and worship is instilled, and that the faith is lived by a good and holy life. Given the completely secularized culture in which we live, parents and others forming a Christian household face many challenges and must work harder than ever to establish and maintain a Christian home. They are understandably tempted to doubt and fear regarding the fruitfulness of their stewardship of divine grace. But Our Lord bids us to put aside idle fears.
In fact, participation in Sunday Mass and daily Mass, when possible, and the discipline of prayer and devotion in the home draw us, every day, nearer to Our Lord, most especially in the Sacrament of His Real Presence, the Holy Eucharist, and in the Sacrament of Penance. Drawing near to Our Lord, we contact directly the foundation of our hope, the source of the pure and selfless love which forms marriage and family life, which forms every Christian home. Your communion with the Lord, praying before Him in the Most Blessed Sacrament and receiving Him into your souls in Holy Communion, and your encounter with Him in the Sacrament of Penance dispel your doubts and fears, and are the principal font of your unfailing hope.
Coming to celebrate joyfully 125 years of Christian living in Saint Joseph Parish, I encourage you, if you have not already done so, to consecrate your home to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the help of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the Purest Heart of Saint Joseph. Our Lord is seated in glory at the right hand of God the Father, and His Heart, pierced by the spear of the Roman centurion after He had died on the Cross for our eternal salvation, is ever open to pour out upon the Church and upon us, the Church’s members, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the abundant gifts of God’s mercy and love toward all men. The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the Church’s favored devotion, for it helps us to live each day in the presence of the Lord Whom we know and receive in the Most Holy Eucharist. The Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the home unites the home to the parish church in which Our Lord makes sacramentally new His Sacrifice on Calvary and remains in the tabernacle for our worship and to assist us in time of grave illness or in the journey home to God the Father at our death. Devotion to the Sacred Heart helps us renew throughout each day our sacramental communion with the Lord. Through devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we draw ever more upon the grace of Baptism and Confirmation, which is nourished by the Heavenly Food of the Body of Christ, so that we know profoundly, love ardently, and serve faithfully Christ, Our Lord and Savior, and attract others to do the same.
Closely linked to the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the devotion to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary, under which God the Son took a human heart.[8] The Blessed Virgin Mary was God’s chosen instrument through which Our Lord Jesus Christ took our human nature and came to dwell among us to save us from sin and eternal death, and she is, therefore, also the instrument by which Our Lord continues to come to all men. She is the Mother of God, the chosen instrument of the Incarnation, and she is also God’s chosen instrument by which all grace comes to us from her Divine Son in the Church. It is she, whom Christ gave to us as our Mother as He was dying on the cross.[9] As our Mother, she constantly intercedes for us, her beloved sons and daughters, and spiritually accompanies us all along the way of our earthly pilgrimage home to God the Father. As our Mother, she lovingly takes us in her arms, under her mantle, to protect us and to guide us to her Divine Son. In our needs, at times of trial, she takes us to her Divine Son, as she took the wine stewards at the Wedding Feast of Cana to Him, with the maternal instruction: “Do whatever he tells you.”[10]
The Blessed Virgin Mary teaches us the hope which marked every moment of her life, and she intercedes for us, that we may always fill our homes with hope by knowing and embracing our Catholic faith. Of her, Saint Elizabeth declared: “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”[11] In our homes, may we imitate the Blessed Virgin Mary by teaching the faith with the firm conviction that what we are teaching is fulfilled in our lives. The Family Rosary is a most efficacious way to meditate on the many mysteries which are all part of the great Mystery of the Redemptive Incarnation, and to be led to call upon the help of God’s saving grace, filled with confidence in the divine assistance which comes to us through this most powerful prayer.
Let us not forget the heavenly patron of the Parish. In God’s all-loving plan for our salvation, he chose Saint Joseph to be the protector and provider for Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer, so that she would not be subjected to shame and so that her Son, the Incarnate Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, would have a foster-father, a guardian, and, therefore, a true home in the family of Joseph and Mary. Saint Joseph, in the words of the Letter to the Romans, shared in the faith of the Patriarch Abraham and followed in Abraham’s way of righteousness, responding with obedience, with purity of heart, to every word which came to him from God.[12]
Through his obedient acceptance of the word of God, given to him by the “angel of the Lord,” Saint Joseph, in fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham and made anew to David, became “the father of many nations.”[13] Throughout the Christian centuries and in our own day, Saint Joseph is invoked as our provident spiritual father who intercedes for us in all our needs, especially in the hour of our death. The Patriarch Joseph, son of Jacob, prefigured the fatherly care which Saint Joseph has for all Christians, especially in times of grief and affliction, because he is the True Spouse of the Virgin Mother of God and the Virginal Father of Jesus. In classical iconography, the words spoken by the Pharoah to the distressed people of Egypt in time of famine regarding the Patriarch Joseph, are applied to Saint Joseph: “Ite ad Ioseph” (“Go to Joseph; what he says to you, do”[14]).
Saint Joseph as our fatherly intercessor is also our model of faith and justice in responding to the word of God to us, especially God’s call, our divine vocation. Saint Joseph teaches us the purity of heart which disposes us to hear God’s call and the justice which gives us humility and courage to do whatever it is that God asks of us. Saint Joseph, with his most pure heart, unites us with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, his spouse, who, in turn, brings our hearts to the glorious-pierced Heart of her Divine Son, in which our hearts find their true home, an unceasing fountain of Divine Mercy and Love. Let us go to Joseph. Let us imitate his humility, faith, and justice, uniting our hearts, one with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. May Saint Joseph intercede for us, that we may always trust in God’s promise of eternal life, doing whatever He asks of us during the passing days of our earthly pilgrimage.
May the celebration of 125 years of Saint Joseph Parish lead parishioners to respond with new enthusiasm and new energy to the grace of life in the Church. I urge you to give attention to three fundamental aspects of parish life, which guide and strengthen the whole life of the parish: the safeguarding and fostering of family life, the rejuvenating of the parish school as an incomparable help to families with the growth of their children in the life of Christ, and the promotion of vocations to the priesthood and religious life, especially in families and through the parish school. Having been a member of Saint Joseph Parish since 1958, when I was in the fifth grade of elementary school, I owe a great debt of gratitude to the parish and the parish school, especially in hearing the call to the priesthood, which I have been following for over fifty years.
I have mentioned that Saint Joseph Parish gave many sons and daughters to the priesthood and consecrated life over the first 75 years of her history. But, since 1975, the year of my ordination to the Holy Priesthood, there has not been another priestly vocation from the Parish. In fostering strong family life and in rejuvenating the Parish School, dedicate yourselves especially to assisting the children and young people to know their vocation in life, their way to eternal salvation. Surely, God is calling young people from Saint Joseph Parish to the priesthood and consecrated life today, even as he did in the past. Let us not fail to help those whom he is calling to respond to the call, even as Saint Joseph Parish was so instrumental in my response to the priestly vocation.
Let us now give our hearts totally into the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, from which He will sustain us with the Heavenly Bread which is His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity on our earthly pilgrimage and in the life of Saint Joseph Parish. One in heart with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, let us pray for the eternal rest of the souls of all who have gone before us in the Parish and for abundant gifts of divine grace for the parishioners today, that they may be filled with hope, filled with trust that God’s promises will indeed be fulfilled in their lives.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
[1] Cf. Code of Canon Law, can. 515 §1.
[2] Lk 12, 32.
[3] Lk 12, 35.
[4] Lk12, 42.
[5] Cf. Rom 4, 16-17.
[6] Heb 11, 16.
[7] Wis 18, 7.
[8] Cf. “Angelus Domini: La giustizia si rivela come amore infinito,” 14 luglio 1985, Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, Vol. VIII, 2 (1985) (Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1985), p. 125.
[9] Cf. Jn 19, 26-27.
[10] Jn 2, 5.
[11] Lk 1, 45.
[12] Cf. Rom 4, 16-18.
[13] Rom 4, 17. Cf. Gen 17, 5.
[14] Gen 41, 55.