Dear friends in Christ,
 
In the midst of the Lenten season we have a special Solemnity on March 19th, which is the Solemnity of St. Joseph. It’s one of those rare moments when the Church encourages us to break the Lenten fast and celebrate this holy man of God.
 
Not long after Pope Francis was elected to the office of St. Peter, he added the name of St. Joseph to the Eucharistic Prayer, after we commemorate the Blessed Virgin Mary:
 
“Have mercy on us all, we pray, that with the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, with blessed Joseph, her Spouse, with the blessed Apostles, and all the Saints who have pleased you throughout the ages, we may merit to be coheirs to eternal life, and may praise and glorify you through your Son, Jesus Christ.”
 
As we pray the Novena to St. Joseph I am drawn to reflect on the men of God in my life and the men of our parish, and to pray for them in a special way.  It seems in many ways that manhood is under attack in our society. Hollywood gives us the image of man as rebel, angry, sex fiend, drunkard and party animal. The politically correct blame men for many of the problems in our present culture.  Where do men discover their true identity?
 
Saint John Paul wrote an Apostolic Exhortation on Joseph, the Guardian of the Redeemer. Saint John Paul writes:
“Joseph was a man of faith and courage. Along with loving his betrothed, he loved His God courageously. He had a close, intimate personal relationship with the God of His Fathers. In fact, this just man was, in a sense, the last Patriarch, completing the lineage. Through his response of faith, He would receive the great gift promised for all men and women and hold in His arms the One that His fathers had only longed to see. God's messenger, an angel, visited Joseph in a dream. He was ready to receive. He was disposed not only to the encounter but to the invitation it presented to pour himself out in love and for Love. He heard the message and, without hesitation, did what the Lord commanded! This is, in a real sense, Joseph's Fiat, his Yes, his exercise of human freedom to advance God's eternal plan. How refreshing such manly faith and courage are in an age filled with cowardice and rebellion.”
 
“Joseph was a humble man. There was not an ounce of false bravado or machismo in this servant of God. Named after the great Patriarch who was sold into slavery in Egypt; he bore the name with similar humility. As the Old Testament Joseph embraced his lot, rejecting the temptation to bitterness or victim-hood and actually came to rule Egypt, forgiving the very brothers who had sold him into slavery; so too this son of the Covenant embraced the One who would establish the New Covenant on the altar of Calvary.”
 
“In so doing, Joseph is a model to all men who choose to walk the way of the cross. Joseph emptied himself of self - and became filled with the love and life of God. He gave himself fully to God through accepting his unique and specific vocation as a guardian of the Redeemer. The child Jesus, God in the flesh, was given to Joseph. A Carpenter, Joseph taught this child how to work with wood. That was, after all, what he had to give. During these so-called hidden years" Jesus was with Joseph and Joseph was with Jesus.”
 
Jesus learned to work and received from his foster father, Joseph, a work ethic, that we can follow throughout Jesus’ life and ministry. He learned perseverance, hard work, selflessness and humility. In an age that has lost its way, given over to the selfish pursuit of illusory pleasure, Joseph should again be lifted up as a model, particularly to men who desire to follow Jesus Christ. 
 
Jesus has entrusted the work of that mission to all men who accept the invitation to empty themselves in order to be filled with the very life and love of God and then be used in His redemptive mission for the world. Through the Fount of living water called Baptism, he invites each one of us into His new family, the Body of His Son, the Church. He still gives His message to men who, like Joseph, hear and then choose to exercise authentic manly virtue and act out of courage. He still invites men to turn the ordinary into extraordinary through cooperation and participation. He is truly looking for a few good men like Joseph who will work in the workshop of the world that he created in order to recreate it anew in His Son. In this age so desperately in need of men of courage, we need to turn to this man's man named Joseph. We need to follow his example by courageously, humbly and faithfully loving Jesus Christ. 
 
Joseph is our teacher and shows us the way, a true Man's Man, calling all men to follow Jesus. Teaching us that actions speak louder than words 
 
"His is a silence permeated by contemplation of the mystery of God, in an attitude of total availability to his divine wishes. Let us allow ourselves to be "infected" by the silence of St Joseph! We have much need of it in a world which is often too noisy, which does not encourage reflection and listening to the voice of God."                                             ~~Pope Benedict XVI, December 18, 2005
 
I thank God for the godly men in my life who encouraged and prayed for me, but most of all, gave me an example of Christian manhood. Please join me as I pray the Novena to St. Joseph, for all the men of our parish that they would be godly, humble and courageous witnesses of the Gospel.
 
God bless, 
Fr. Dennis
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As I wrote about at the beginning of the year, in order to focus more on music as prayer and helping students encounter God and build a relationship with him, I restructured children’s choir rehearsals. Now the 2nd-4th grade and 5th-8th grade rehearse separately and I bring them together once a month of a time of music and Eucharistic Adoration.

I’ve been someone who hates doing something just for the sake of doing it, but I realized over the past summer that this was exactly what I’d been doing with children’s choir.  Throughout my involvement in music ministry in high school and college, the thing that impacted me the most was that I felt ministered to. It wasn’t just a show up, practice, and perform routine. Music ministry helped me to grow spiritually and come to know my gifts more; I discovered that music was a primary way I expressed prayer and connected with the Lord. At that point, the structure of preparing music for Mass facilitated that growth. However, over the course of the last 2 years, the structure of preparing a Mass once a month with the children’s choir didn’t seem to be having the same effect. I was still trying to implement prayer and talking about the meaning of the music, but time was limited and there were immense challenges working with a large group and vast age range.

The number one priority of any aspect of parish and liturgical life has to be glorifying God and connecting people to Him. Forcing 40-50 students through the mold of regular rehearsals and essentially cranking out more performances wasn’t achieving that goal. So now that we’ve had about 5 months of the new structure, I’d like to share some of the fruits of the students’ experiences.

For October-December, we focused on a different person of the Trinity each month. The goal was to help them encounter each Person specifically and to learn how to pray to each. It was truly amazing to have conversations with the students throughout this process. During our unit on the Father, I asked them to give me words or phrases that come to mind when they think of a father. A lot of them were good things, like “there for me,” “encouraging,” or “funny,” while some phrases like “strict,” or “gets mad at me” were reminders that no matter how good our earthly fathers are, they are not perfect. We talked about how sometimes we think that God the Father is just like our dads; he loves us but maybe he’s always watching to see when we do something wrong and to punish us for it. But God is a loving Father who guides us with love and mercy. After learning music for this unit, we had adoration where there were prayer teams available. These prayer teams prayed a short blessing over each student who wanted to receive prayer. The blessing was just simply thanking God for the student by name and praying that He would show them His love for them.

After each time of Eucharistic adoration, we talk about what we experienced. Nearly all of the students have received prayer from a team, and their feedback has been so encouraging: “I don’t feel so scared of God anymore,” “I really felt God’s love for me,” and “I felt peaceful” were just a few of their responses.

The music we sing has been the catalysts for these discussions. I’ve spent planning time praying about what the Lord wants to say to the students, and select songs that support those words. In February, I felt like the Lord was saying that He wanted to share the truth about who He is, and who we are because of that. We know we’re made in God’s image, but in order to know and love ourselves better, we’ve got to have the right image of God in mind. So at rehearsals, we went through each song and I asked them to point out words or phrases and tell me what they said about God. We made a big list together, and after working on the music, I picked a few and asked them to close their eyes and raise their hands if they had a hard time believing specific ones.

All of us fall into certain pitfalls of lies about who God is and who we are. Common ones are that we don’t believe God has our best interests in mind, that he’ll take care of us, that we’re truly good enough or that God loves us as much as He loves others who seem more blessed. In these situations, it’s important to declare the truth in prayer. So I led the students in declarations formatted like this "In the name of Jesus I believe and I declare that [God loves me, I am smart and capable, etc.]"

Questions about who God is and doubts about His love for us start a lot earlier than we like to admit, but God is just waiting to shower his love and truth over us. We just have to provide the space for Him to do it. I know that most of you reading this are not affiliated with music ministry in any way, but I do believe that these fundamental concepts of understanding God’s fundamental love for us and expressing our doubt, questioning, thanksgiving and love to Him are universally important. In whichever way you best receive and express communication with God, He wants to meet you where you are and tell you the truth about Himself. I am excited to watch the children’s choir, and really the parish as a whole, continue to journey toward that truth.

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