Author: Fr. Mahoney (Page 50 of 71)

Happy Advent!  As I mentioned at Masses last weekend, many individuals have been inquiring about providing gifts for children and/or about adopting a family this Christmas.  This year, the St. Joseph Parish Outreach Committee is partnering with the Rotary’s Community Chest Program to help meet this need.  “The Giving Tree” is once again engracing the narthex of our church, adorned with ornaments designating wish-list items such as clothing, footwear, toys, books, arts and crafts, and other hoped-for items for children in the Lincoln, Woodstock, and Thornton area.  Please stop by the tree to see how you can help meet the needs of these children during this Advent/Christmas Season.  (Shopping-free options are available for those who wish to avoid crowded stores.)  To adopt and provide gifts and dinner for an entire family at Christmas, please contact Stuart Anderson (sanderson@albaarchitects.com), a member of both the Rotary and the St. Joseph Parish Outreach Committee, to make arrangements for delivery of gifts, clothing, and Christmas dinner.  In additions to being a very spiritual and compassionate way of celebrating Advent, loving one’s neighbor reflects the love of God in the community.

God bless you always, but especially during the Advent and Christmas Seasons!

With prayerful best wishes,

Fr. John Mahoney 

O Key of David, open our hearts to the grace of God working in us and among us.  May our lives reflect to others the joy of saying yes to your limitless love and                                              mercy.

As you leave the church building today, please take with you a copy of “Waiting in Joyful Hope 2021-2022: Daily Reflections for Advent & Christmas” to help you prepare spiritually for the coming of Christ.  In this busy time of year, moments of inner preparation are important.  It’s simple – read a reflection, close your eyes, breathe deeply, and see how the Holy Spirit speaks to your heart.

With prayerful best wishes for a blessed Advent,

Fr. John Mahoney

Dear Parishioners and Visitors,

As you sit down to your Thanksgiving meal on Thursday, be sure to give thanks to President Abraham Lincoln, and even more so to Sarah Josepha Hale.  A prominent 19th-century journalist, Hale campaigned tirelessly for a national Thanksgiving holiday.  In the midst of the Civil War and prompted by Hale’s editorials and letters, Lincoln called the nation to pause in thanksgiving in 1863. His proclamation read in part:

“The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.  Many other blessings have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.”

In that same spirit of thanksgiving – and thanks to the generosity of St. Joseph’s parishioners and visitors – the members of our Parish Outreach Committee agreed at their November 12 meeting to donate a portion of the proceeds from the church’s poor box to the Lincoln-Woodstock Community Chest.  The Community Chest will help provide area residents with Thanksgiving meals in two ways:  1) by providing food baskets to families in Lincoln, Woodstock, and Thornton, packaged with turkeys and dinner ingredients, and 2) by providing individually-prepared hot turkey dinners on Thursday morning to residents of the same area who otherwise would not have Thanksgiving dinner.

God bless you for thinking of the needs of others!

Happy Thanksgiving,

Fr. John Mahoney

Dear Parishioners and Visitors, 

Thank you for your many compliments about the reconstruction of the rectory front porch!  We are ever grateful to Mike Iarocci and Gene Duquette for the thorough job they did of reinforcing the entire infrastructure, replacing many of the water-damaged and insect-eaten boards, cementing the support columns, and restoring the spindles and railings to their original architectural design.  We are grateful, too, for their significant generosity of time and talent that brought the project to completion way, way under budget.  God bless you both!

With prayerful best wishes,

Fr. John Mahoney