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Dear Parishioners, With elections this coming Tuesday, I encourage everybody to please go out and vote. Please see the joint statement below from our Nebraska Bishops on the gambling initiatives 440 and 441. Please see the Nebraska Right to Life voter guide as well. https://nebraskarighttolife.org/political-action/voter-guides/ As Election Day draws nearer, Nebraska's Catholic Bishops - Archbishop Michael G. McGovern, Bishop James D. Conley, and Bishop Joseph G. Hanefeldt -

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” — Matthew 28:19–20 Dear Parishioners, As I mentioned last week, we will hold new parish council elections this coming November. Before we begin this process, I want to reflect on where our parishes have been, where we are now, and where the Holy Spirit may be calling us. Over the past eigh

Dear Parishioners, I hope you are all well with the change of weather and the harvest season well underway. A few notes of upcoming events at the parish All Saints Day falls on a Sunday this year and is not transferred to another day. Because it falls on a Sunday, it is already part of the normal Sunday obligation to attend Mass. All Souls Day Masses are on Monday, November 2nd. We will have morning Mass at 7:00am at St. Joseph and 5:30pm Mass at St. Mary for the Po

Dear Parishioners, First, thank you to everyone who helped make our parish dinner so successful last weekend! It was a joy to encounter so many individuals returning to St. Joseph for a great meal and conversation! Thank you for the donations, food, and other items given to the dinner. A special thank you to our head couples Karl and Laura Weist, Joe and Sophie Meduna, and Bob and Amy Rezac for their leadership in making this meal what it is! Last weekend I had the joy of

Dear Parishioners, Firstly, a special welcome to all those visiting St. Joseph Parish, and thank you to everyone generously helping with our annual Roast Beef Dinner! We are blessed by your presence and grateful for the time, talent, and effort that make this event possible. This dinner is more than a meal; it is an opportunity to build fellowship, strengthen our parish community, and, especially, serve Christ in our neighbor. May God bless all who join us today and all who

Dear Parishioners, Praise God it is happening! On Thursday this last week Venerable Fulton Sheen was officially declared a Blessed of the Church! That is the second to last step before canonization as a Saint! In September 2010, Bonnie Engstrom delivered her son James at home near Peoria, Illinois. He was born without a pulse and was not breathing. Emergency responders rushed him to OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, the same city where Sheen had been ordained al

When St. Francis of Assisi was praying before the crucifix in the little church of San Damiano, he heard Christ say to him, “Francis, go and repair my house, which, as you see, is falling into ruin.” Francis initially understood those words in a very practical way. San Damiano was in poor condition, so he began repairing the physical church with his own hands. But eventually Francis came to understand that Christ was asking something much greater of him: to help rebuild the C

Dear parishioners, This week our Confraternity of Christian Mothers will be having their annual induction for new members this Sunday. The Confraternity of Christian Mothers is a pious association intended for mothers, which has for its special object the promotion of the good Christian and Catholic education of their children. The members join their hearts in love with the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of Sorrows, and unite under her patronage in m

Dear Parishioners, I recently wrote to you about St. Mary’s goal of raising $9,000 for our new HVAC system. I am humbled and overjoyed to announce that we have reached our goal! Thank you to everyone who generously helped make this possible. We are currently discussing the interior work that still needs to be completed, so please stay tuned for additional updates. We are also looking for photographs of the interior of St. Mary’s Church before the 1960s renovation. If you or a

Dear Parishioners, Over this summer, the St. Mary building committee has been working with Davis Design, an architectural firm based out of Lincoln, to master plan our vision for remodeling St. Mary's Church. This is a very exciting time, as we finish out our 2nd phase of refurbishing our Stained Glass and progress on the 3rd phase of consulting. Speaking of our windows, here is a brief update. Windows are continued to be worked on by Architectural GlassArts in Roca, NE

“Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet!” This infamous prayer of the young Augustine of Hippo (354-430) reflects the inner conflict of any soul who recognizes the virtuous thing to do yet fears the demanding struggle against human urges and passions. In his Confessions, St Augustine was not afraid to admit his utter powerlessness in the face of sexual temptation. As a young man, he had given in to the attraction of sexual pleasure and took a lover whom he would n

Dear Parishioners, With the start of the school year, I wanted to share the Church's approach toward education. The Catholic Church teaches that the duty of educating children rests primarily with the parents. “Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children in the faith, prayer and all the virtues. They have the duty to provide as far as possible for the physical and spiritual needs of their children.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2252) In h

Dear Parishioners, Latha math! Good day to you all! I just returned from Scotland and was surrounded by Gaelic and thought to add a proper Gaelic greeting to you all. I hope the Lord has blessed you these last two weeks. Over the last 10 days, Fathers Allder, Lyons, and I hiked as much as we could. A few highlights were visiting the Isle of Skye, Glencoe, Largs, and Fr. Augusta on the southern tip of Loch Ness. Of these, Bidean nam Bian or the Peak of the Mountains, located

Dear Parishioners, "To foster Sacrament-nurtured disciples of Christ who live a bold and extraordinary faith, first in the family, then flowing out into our community." Over the last six months our parish has been discerning what the Lord is asking of us as a parish family. This began as an earnest desire to surrender the good of Christ's parish of St. Joseph and St. Mary back to him. What ultimately came out of these sessions before the Blessed Sacrament was a strong d

Dear Parishioners, This weekend, we have our missionary appeal and welcome to our parishes Fr. Augustine Kipkemei, a missionary priest from the Diocese of Nakuru in Kenya -East Africa. The missionary efforts of the Church are a response to Jesus' great commission to, "Go and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This spirit of mission has propelled Her members to bring the Faith to the far reaches of Africa and Asia as well as at home he

Dear Parishioners, I am so grateful to be back with you all after my 8-day Ignatian Retreat at Broom Tree in South Dakota. Truly, the Lord wants to meet us in the silence where His voice can be heard. I was deeply moved by experience and would like to invite anyone to consider doing a retreat there or at our local retreat center! One touching moment in prayer was an invitation from Mary to renew my devotion to her through the Brown Scapular. There are many devotions tha

Dear Parishioners, We are celebrating our nation's 250th anniversary as a country. This is a tremendous accomplishment for a nation to survive the test of time. Through this great struggle emerged a new nation that no longer made distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders. As Patrick Henry noted, "I am not a Virginian, but an American!." We continue to live in that unity of purpose and identity. As a nation founded under God and di

Dear Parishioners, Summer is moving quickly! I wanted to share some good news with you all. Our parishes have continued to grow since coming to the parishes two years ago with over 25 baptisms! With the increased growth in our parish numbers, our parish came to the point of needing a part-time secretary to help manage the weekly affairs for the parishes. This had been on the mind of the previous two pastors as they balanced school and parish work. Noticing the growing ne

The Irish Catholic Martyrs were the 24 Irish men and women who have been beatified or canonized for both a life of heroic virtue and for dying for their Catholic faith between the reign of King Henry VIII and the Catholic Emancipation in 1829. But the full number of those who died for the faith is far greater. In 1992, a representative group of 17 Irish martyrs, chosen from a list of almost 300 who died for their faith in the 16th and 17th centuries, were beatified by Pope

Dear Parishioners, I will be gone the week of the 24th from Monday to Friday, to be with our Bishop Neumann students in our yearly mission work in Gallup, New Mexico. Last year, we worked on two houses: the retreat center, the Missionaries of Charity, and the little sisters of the Poor. Honestly, the work with the sisters of Gallup for the poor was deeply humbling. Not to mention the holy sites and adoration with the Blessed Sacrament in the evening helped to bring everyth