Children in the faith formation program, along with the support of their parents, have been raising money to donate a new stove to the Hope House. So far, the classes have collected $445. The stove costs $690 and the church is going to host a teen/parent volleyball tournament Feb. 24 to raise the rest of the money. Through these efforts, the children of St. Joseph Key West are participating in serving the needs of the homeless in the area.

Annual Fall Festival

Sunday, October 21, 2012

It’s the BIGGEST parish event of the year and the BEST way to spend time with your family and neighbors. Join the fun and have a BLAST all day on Sunday, October 21st.

The KEY to SUCCESS is YOU! Volunteer with your family, friends, & neighbors. Sign up today! Your help is needed to make this a successful event! Parish Festival sign-up sheets are posted in the church entry.

• Polka Mass - 10:00 am featuring ANZ,s Band
• Daryl Biechler's Roast Pork & Kalmes Chicken (with all the trimmings)
• Dinner Served 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
  Adults $10 / Children 6-10 $4 / 5 and under free
• Pedal Tractor Pull
  11:30 a.m. registration, Pulling Starts at 11:45
• Adult and Children's Games
  Including Bingo from 11:30 until 3:30 p.m.
  Cake Walk starting at 2:00 p.m.
• Country Store/Crafts/Silent Auction
  Open 9 until 4 p.m.
• Raffle Prizes Raffle Tickets $1 each
  $500 cash / $300 cash / $200 cash / (7) $100 cash

How We Worship

by Kevin Mullen, Chair of the Pastoral Council

You may recognize the words Work, Worship, Fellowship, and Charity as the four tenants of our parish mission statement. Each newsletter will reflect one of these themes, and this publication will focus on worship. The theme fits well at this particular time as we have been dealing with many changes lately.

Father Bakewell has now retired, and we are welcoming Father Podhajsky and Father Blake into our parish community. Many of us will miss Father Don, and it certainly is human nature to resist changes and stay in the comfort of our routines. When we look at our form of worship, perhaps we will realize that really not much changes at all. The blessing we have as Catholics is that we can attend a mass anywhere in the world, and feel quite at home in the comfort of a familiar routine.

The Who that we worship will hopefully be obvious, but maybe the how we worship question gets taken for granted at times. One of the greatest gifts that our Lord Jesus has given to us is the gift of Himself in the Eucharist. The council of Vatican II throws the gauntlet down clearly as the document of Sancrosanctum Concilium states that the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” Many of us would probably nonchalantly say we agree and not give it much more thought, but this truly is a difficult statement which requires faith to accept. We are not alone, however, finding difficulty with the real presence—body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus—within the consecrated forms of bread and wine.

Share Fellowship

by Jeff Theis, Chair of the Pastoral Council

“SHARE FELLOWSHIP. We see our parish as a nurturing community where our children learn and grow in faith, young families are supported, and our elderly are honored and cherished.”

Do you recognize these words? Perhaps you should. This is an excerpt from the St. Joseph Key West Vision Statement which is posted in the entrance to the church. This statement was developed over many months of reflection, discernment and prayer. The result is a Christ centered approach to the role and responsibilities of our parish to the members and the greater community.

As you all know, each issue of our quarterly newsletter focuses on one of the four tenants espoused in our vision statement. So far, we have focused on “work”, “worship” and “charity” and this quarter we focus on the fourth and last theme: “Fellowship”. The purpose of a vision statement is to challenge us to assess where we are, look toward the future and to imagine what our ideal state would be. The idea then, is from time to time to look and see how we are doing. Such a review will ultimately challenge ourselves to be better than what we are and to aspire to loftier goals. Such goals should be lofty enough that they probably are never fully achieved or that when they are, new even loftier goals are set. So, then, how are we doing?