Bishop concludes Year of St. Joseph with Mass in Newton church

NEWTON  Stephen Kass, a member of a local Men of St. Joseph group, said he learned more about himself than he did about St. Joseph during this Year of St. Joseph, which Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney closed for the Diocese on Dec. 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, at a noon Mass he celebrated in St. Joseph Church here, which was filled to capacity.

“I was interested in the facts about St. Joseph, but it was more about what I have to work on in my life,” said Kass. “I need to work on being a man for others, like St. Joseph — at work, with my family, and in the group — and acting more as a servant leader,” he said.

The Year of St. Joseph consisted of a series of activities and events on the diocesan, parish, and personal levels that gave local Catholics, like Kass, opportunities to honor, get closer to, and become inspired by the faithful example of St. Joseph, father of Jesus.

The diocesan activities for the Year of St. Joseph were part of celebrations of the saint that took place throughout the Universal Church by decree of Pope Francis, starting Dec. 8 last year and ending Dec. 8 this year. Concelebrating the liturgy at St. Joseph’s were Father ST Sutton, St. Joseph’s pastor, and Father Paul Manning, executive director of St. Paul Inside the Walls: the Diocesan Center for Evangeliza­tion in Madison and diocesan vicar for evangelization, who coordinated St. Joseph observances in the Diocese.

“We have come to the conclusion of a year of grace, the Year of St. Joseph, at St. Joseph Parish,” said Bishop Sweeney, who also marked the Feast of the Immaculate Conception at the Mass, while also announcing the upcoming Year of the Eucharist in the Diocese for 2022. Other parishes in the Diocese also celebrated closing Masses for the Year of St. Joseph. “We thank God for all the blessings that we have received through the intercession of St. Joseph, the protector of Mary and Jesus and the Church, in this holy year that we lived through, thanks to Pope Francis’ invitation last year,” the Bishop said.

Throughout the year, many parishes celebrated the year with a series of activities, including holding novenas, prayer services, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and devoting Masses on Wednesdays to St. Joseph, the day of the week set aside in his honor in the Church. Many parishes and religious groups went through preparation to be consecrated to St. Joseph, which concluded with a consecration service. Some individuals also made preparations on their own. A few men’s faith groups were founded in this special year or had their names changed in honor of St. Joseph.

During the Year of St. Joseph, the Men of St. Joseph, a group of men mainly from the parishes of Our Lady of Consolation in Wayne, Holy Spirit in Pequannock, Our Lady of Good Counsel in Pompton Plains, and St. Anthony in Butler, held preparations for consecration to the saint. They read the book, “Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father” by Marian Father Donald H. Calloway.

Starting in May, the faithful of the Diocese got to walk with St. Joseph physically by completing a pilgrimage to many sites around the Diocese — to parishes, shrines, and other institutions — named in honor of St. Joseph or the Holy Family. They were St. Joseph churches in Newton, West Milford, Lincoln Park, Mendham, Paterson, and Passaic; St. Joseph University Hospital in Paterson; St. Joseph’s Home for the Elderly in Totowa; the Shrine of St. Joseph in Stirling; Holy Family Church in Florham Park; and the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Convent Station.

For the pilgrimages, the faithful were encouraged to visit the diocesan web page dedicated to its Year of St. Joseph activities, www.insidethewalls.org/year-of-st-joseph, to register for Go2StJoe, which had a passport that they could download and fill out as they visit the sites.

At St. Joseph Church in Newton, pilgrims prayed before a shrine to one side of the altar that displays a new statue of St. Joseph the Worker. Murals, stained-glass windows, and an icon in the church also depict the life of St. Joseph, Father Sutton said.

“St. Joseph the Worker is perfect for up here in Sussex County, which is largely blue collar. People here are hard workers,” Father Sutton said.

Members of the Men of St. Joseph group and their wives traveled to several of the pilgrimage sites over two Saturdays. They prayed at each site, said member Carlos Camara.

“I didn’t realize that there are so many places in the Diocese named after St. Joseph. The pilgrimage was beautiful,” said Camara, originally from South Africa, who works as a project manager for a maker of parking decks. He is married with two boys, 5 and 12.

Recently, Sarah Robinson, middle school youth minister at St. Mary Parish in Dover, led three boys on a pilgrimage to St. Joseph’s Shrine. They prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet, Adoration, and Litany of St. Joseph with the faith community there in the main chapel.

“It was great to pray together, bringing the kids in front of Jesus. They were very respectful. It was peaceful,” said Robinson, who added that before the trip, she told them, “The Year of St. Joseph is a time for him to pray for us.”

One of the boys, Stefan McCusker, 12, said he enjoyed “walking around, looking at and learning about the saints [depicted in various shrines on the property]. It was fun.”

Many people who prepared to consecrate themselves to St. Joseph may have used two other books: “Consecration to St. Joseph” by Trinitarian Father Dennis Berry, director of the Shrine of St. Joseph in collaboration with Morning Start Renewal Center in the Archdiocese of Miami, and “A Scriptural Novena to St. Joseph” by Bishop Emeritus Arthur Serratelli.

Some men’s groups either formed in the Year of St. Joseph or changed their names. Kass said his group changed its name from Men of Courage to Men of St. Joseph in the summer of 2020 as a way to look to the saint as “a role model for men to live their faith as workers, husbands, and fathers.” The name change occurred several months before Pope Francis declared the Year of St. Joseph, he said.

Among the several parishes in the Diocese that celebrated closing Masses was St. Mary Help of Christians Parish in Paterson. The faith community held a 40-hour Eucharistic Adoration leading up to the bilingual closing Mass on Dec. 8, Father Brando Ibarra, pastor, said.

“I’m more aware of St. Joseph. The translation for him is not ‘carpenter’ but ‘handyman.’ He is the spiritual handyman, who can help us out with anything and guide us through life,” Father Ibarra said. “We don’t know much about St. Joseph’s life but we see what Jesus did and how St. Joseph must have impacted him,” the pastor said.