As the Diocese of Charlotte and the universal Church celebrates the Year of St. Joseph, parishes commemorated the March 19 Solemnity of St. Joseph with Masses, consecrations and other prayers.
Members of the Fraternus youth ministry at St. Mark Church in Huntersville led people in the Consecration Prayer to St. Joseph and the Litany of St. Joseph during a Vigil Mass March 18. In his homily, parochial vicar Father Melchesideck Yumo preached, “Our world today needs fathers.
It has no use for tyrants who demean others as a means of compensating for their own needs. It rejects those who confuse authority with authoritarianism, service with servility, discussion with oppression, charity with a welfare mentality, and power with destruction.”
During a livestreamed Mass March 19 from Old St. Joseph Church in Mount Holly, one of the oldest Catholic churches still standing in North Carolina, Father Paul Buchanan urged people to follow the example of North Carolina Catholics in ages past: “Ite ad Ioseph – go to Joseph, in any need and in all circumstances.
He was there for Our Lady and Our Lord. He has been there for so many others throughout the millennia. He will be there for you, too.”
— Photo provided by Amy Burger
At www.yearofstjoseph.org: Find educational resources, prayers and devotions, and more to celebrate the “Year of St. Joseph”