St. Joseph

Sundays  
Relgious Education Classes 
10:45AM in the Parish Hall

OCIA Classes:10:45AM Old Youth Room in the Parish Hall

10:45AM Bible Study with Deacon John Hale in the Parish Hall 

Mondays
ESL Classes 
7PM in the Small Dining Room in the Parish Hall

Wednesdays
Spanish First Communion Classes
5:30PM in the Parish Hall
Youth Group Classes 
7PM in the Parish Hall

7PM Spanish Mass

January 19, 2025 

2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

A friend invited me to an invitation-only wine-tasting event. There were over two hundred varieties of wine. Having no idea how to approach such a massive selection, I wandered aimlessly among the tables, sipping this and that. At the end of the evening my friend asked if I had tried some of the exceptionally expensive wines. I hadn’t. “The really good stuff disappears first,” he said. “My man, you missed out on some amazing vino.” I was so disappointed. I wasted my chance for amazing once-in-a-lifetime wine. The wine I tasted was, well, blah.

Don’t we often feel a similar disappointment in life? I missed this or that opportunity. If only I had known. Optimism sputters and fades. The glory days are gone. The chances, it seems, for the really great things in life come and go so quickly. Then they are gone forever. The good stuff goes first. Then life is just blah.

Not so with the Lord Jesus. In Jesus’ miracle at the wedding at Cana, the steward of the feast says, “Everyone serves good wine first, and then…an inferior one” (John 2:10). That’s the natural downward progression of life. The good stuff disappears quickly. But he says of the groom (who symbolizes Jesus), “But you have kept the good wine until now.” This is the ever-improving trajectory of the realm of God’s grace. With Jesus, the “good wine” of divine love, hope and peace gets better as our journey of faith progresses. Where are your greatest disappointments? Don’t give in to the lie that the really good stuff is gone. Tell Jesus you’ve run out. Then learn how to taste that amazingly good wine, because he saves the best until now.                    — Father John Muir ©LPi

19 de Enero de 2025

Segundo Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario

Estemos listos o no lo estemos, hemos llegado al Tiempo Ordinario. Se ha terminado la Navidad. Ahora, el Evangelio de cada domingo nos va ir presentando la imagen de Jesús en su vida pública. Jesús nos presenta el Reino de Dios con una fiesta, una boda. Y con esto cambia el sentido de lo puritano y se rompen algunos protocolos de la Ley. Las tinajas llenas de agua esperaban, sin saberlo, convertirse en el primer milagro de Jesús de transformar el agua en vino. La nota de alegría, de festejar y disfrutar es una noticia alegre. Jesús, nos muestra que, a pesar de lo duro de la vida, del sufrimiento y los fracasos, existe una esperanza. ¿Cómo podemos ponerle una chispa de alegría a nuestra fe? ¿Se te ocurre algo para disfrutar con Jesús en la fiesta de su Reino?

Asimismo, existe la otra enseñanza, la de María, la Madre de Jesús, que estuvo atenta en aquella fiesta y se dio cuenta que no había vino. Ella supo poner el problema en manos de Aquel que lo resolvería. Y dio la siguiente instrucción: “Hagan lo que él les diga” (Juan 2:5); e inmediatamente, desapareció totalmente de la escena, dejando en Jesús todo el protagonismo. ¿Qué debo aprender de María? Que ella nos lleva a Jesús y que cada vez que haga una buena acción, las personas le reconozcan a Él y yo desaparezca.

©LPi