3-31-2020 St Joseph Parish update
Sisters and Brothers, Parishioners of St. Joseph in Prescott: I continue to pray for each of you as our isolation continues. Some of my friends in health care are cautiously optimistic this morning that the dreadful loss of lives we are witnessing in New York will not affect Wisconsin. Again, they are cautiously optimistic. I will post another homily for this coming Sunday, Palm/Passion Sunday on Thursday. I’d encourage you to read the readings, read the homily and spend some time in quiet prayer on Sunday. We continue to pay our staff and...
read moreContributions
Here is a link you can use to set up for electronic payments to the parish. An online donation link has been set up and is running. https://diolc.org/st-joseph-parish-prescott/ Parishioners, you will have two options for making a single gift or setting up a reoccurring donation, which you can end at any time.
read moreFIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT
29 March 2020 This weekend we get the great story of Jesus and Lazarus. It is a long story densely packed with many happenings and many meanings. It may be difficult to get at exactly what the whole point is. The best friend of Jesus dies Jesus is away hiding. He arrives late, too late even for the burial, and everyone around him is ready to point an accusing finger. First it is Martha and Mary, who can’t understand all this, their grief gets in the way. They point their fingers at Jesus: “Lord if you had been here. Lord you should have...
read moreFOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT
22 March 2020 I have been very fortunate in my life. Other than the usual childhood ailments I’ve come this far pretty well intact. I still have my tonsils, most of my teeth are still my own, and I’ve kept at least some of my hair, very little but at least some. I grew up in a basic middle class home, went to good schools, have done a fair amount of travelling, and am turning out pretty middle-class: neither rich nor poor. I say all this because by and large I’ve known very little personally, of what can be called...
read moreTHIRD SUNDAY OF LENT
15 March 2020 It’s strange, this interchange between the Samaritan woman and Jesus. In the first place, it should never have happened. Samaritans and Jews don’t have polite conversation. In the second place, Rabbi’s and Samaritan women don’t have theological debates. This woman should have known her place, should have backed off. She doesn’t though. And, in one of the odder moves, taunts Jesus. Who does he think he is to know so much–greater than Jacob? If you’ve a literate ear, it sounds like some other taunting directed at Jesus. Who does...
read moreSEVENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
23 February 2020 One of the mandatory things I used to do when I went back to Hatley was to visit the cemetery. My parent’s home was across the street from the Catholic grade school which is right next to the rectory which is right next to the church which is right next to the cemetery. The summer before I left for college I worked in that cemetery: cutting the lawn, setting tombstones right, clipping by hand around each gravestone–we didn’t have a weed-whacker. Let me tell you, it does strange things to you when...
read moreTWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
6 October 2019 At Newman as most of you know, I used to take a long walk every day. And, usually, I would take a student along with me. I had a set of questions I asked along the way and near the end I would always say, “Ok, so do you have any questions for me?” The most often asked question of me was: “Why did you want to become a priest?’ I’d answer that I never wanted to, I wanted to be an architect. The inevitable follow up question was: Why aren’t you an architect then?...
read moreTWENTY-SIXTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
29 September 2019 I am neither Lazarus nor the rich man in today’s gospel. If I could see myself as Lazarus–I might be comforted. If I could see myself as the rich man–I might feel myself challenged. But, I am somewhere in the middle. I thought I was poor once–when I was in college. Of course every college student thinks he or she is poor. But I was never homeless, I was never destitute. Now, I am certainly part of America’s middle class. But that’s not rich. Rich is owning your own jet. Rich is having houses on both the...
read moreTWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
15 September 2019 There is an old African folk tale about a mighty chief who planned a great feast. He invited everyone in the village. Everyone wanted to come. He placed only one stipulation on each one’s attendance. Each person who came had to bring a jug of wine. Each jug of wine would be poured into a vat at the feast and everyone would drink from the common vat. One villager didn’t have a jug of wine and thought to himself: “With so many people pouring their jugs of wine into the large vat, no one would notice if one of those jugs was...
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