Happy Halloween.........

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Watch this Halloween treat: it's a THRILLER


hahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahhaahhaahahahaha
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above: street light


above: ceramic mosaic along riverwalk


above: watrefall along riverwalk, provides clean and flowing water


above: boat rides throughout San Antonio River

above: San Franano Cathedral, San Antonio


above: planter along riverwalk



above: interior of St. Mary Church

"Curosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigerous mind."

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You can be preparing NOW to vote.

Know your candidate and which side of the issues the candidate is on.

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Monday, October 25

"Smile. Have you ever noticed how easily puppies make human friends? Yet all they do is wag their tails and fall over."

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Thursday, October21

"Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions."

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Wednesday, October 20

"Let us learn upon earth the knowledge that will continue with us in heaven."
St. Jerome
Monk, 4th century

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Tuesday, October 19: the Feast day of St.John de Brebeuf and St. Isaac Jogues, martyrs

"So often we don't give from our abundance. We give from what we have no use for. I have learned that God not only looks at what we give but also at what we keep."
Kathy Troccoli
American performer

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Monday, October 18 ... today is also the Feast of Saint Luke

"God cannot bless us until He has us. When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death. Therefore, in love,He claims all. There's no bargaining with Him."

The 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Things I Really Don’t Understand.” Here’s my list of questions for which there seems to be no clear-cut answer:

• Why do doctors and lawyers call what they do practice?
• Why is abbreviation such a long word?
• Why is it that when you’re driving and looking for an address, you turn down the volume on your radio?
• Why is a boxing ring square?
• What was the best thing before sliced bread?
• How do they get the deer to cross the highway at those yellow signs?
• How did a fool and his money get together in the first place?

These questions represent a lighthearted humorous reminder that there are indeed a lot of things in this life that we just really don’t understand.




There are so many things in this life that we just don’t understand… that we just can’t comprehend. For example, we don’t really understand disease. Why is a youngster perfectly healthy for 13 years of his life… and then suddenly just happens to be in a place where he suddenly encounters some germ or bacteria that invades his body and destroys it?



And we don’t understand accidents. They are so random and indiscriminate. You start out a day that is like any other day… and then something happens in a matter of seconds… and life is forever different. You can never go back beyond that accident.


On and on we could go with our list… of things we don’t really understand.

- Why is there so much pain in our world?
- Why do good people suffer?
- Why do we hurt one another?
- Why can’t people get along?
- And why do some of the best prayers seem to go unanswered?

Now, all of these difficult questions prompt us to raise yet another crucial question: What can we count on from God? When we face the troubles of the world, the heartaches of life, the tough challenges of this existence… what can we count on from God?


Our parable for this Sunday in Luke 18 points us toward an answer. At first glance this parable is confusing to a lot of people. It does sound pretty strange when we first hear it. The parable involves two people: an unjust arrogant judge and a humble but persistent woman. The judge ignores her at first, but finally grants her justice because she is so persistent. She won’t give up and she won’t go away… so eventually he gives in and comes through for her.

Now, let me hurry to point out that Jesus was not suggesting that God is like the judge… not that at all! Jesus was pointing out that God is as different from the judge as day is from night. He is not likening them; he is contrasting them. This is what I call a “How Much More” parable. Jesus was saying: If a selfish arrogant, unfeeling, unjust judge can help you if you ask, then how much more can God who loves you intensely help you when you ask Him.

We are not just talking to ourselves. No, we are visiting with God… and He is leaning forward to listen. Jesus is saying to us: be patient, don’t lose heart, don’t give up, keep on trusting, because you can count on God… and God will come through for you.



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Today is World Food Day

To be healthy and active, we must have food in adequate quantity, quality and variety to meet our energy and nutrient requirements. Without adequate nutrition, children cannot develop their potential to the fullest, and adults will experience difficulty in maintaining or expanding theirs.
Not everyone has adequate access to the food they need, and this has led to large-scale hunger and malnutrition in the world. More than 850 million people today are chronically undernourished and unable to obtain sufficient food to meet even minimum energy needs. Approximately 200 million children under five years of age suffer from acute or chronic symptoms of malnutrition; during seasonal food shortages, and in times of famine and social unrest, this number increases. According to some estimates, malnutrition is an important factor among the nearly 13 million children under five who die every year from preventable diseases and infections, such as measles, diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia, or from some combination of these.


Even mild forms of these deficiencies can limit a child’s development and learning capacity early in life, which can lead to cumulative deficits in school performance, resulting in higher school drop-out rates and a high burden of illiteracy in our future populations. Many of the most severe health consequences of these three leading micronutrient deficiencies could be greatly alleviated by ensuring adequate food supplies and varied diets that provide essential vitamins and minerals.

Putting an end to hunger necessarily starts with ensuring that enough food is produced and available for everyone. However, simply growing enough food does not guarantee the elimination of hunger. Access by all people at all times to enough nutritionally adequate and safe food for an active and healthy life – food security – must be guaranteed. Worldwide, increased efforts to ensure food security are needed in order to eliminate hunger and malnutrition, and their devastating consequences, among current generations and those to come. The contribution of each and every one of us – through information sharing, caring and participating in activities – is imperative to ensuring the fundamental right of all human beings to be free from hunger.

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We at St. Joseph's are proud of our Catholic heritage to reach and serve the poor and the hungry. As a parish we offer two cooked meals a week and foods from our pantry. MAny people in our parish are engaged in this process of offering nutrition to our local hungry.

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Words form our Holy Father, Benedict XVI in celebration of this World Day of Food:
"The theme of this year's World Food Day, 'United against Hunger'", is a timely reminder that everyone needs to make a commitment to give the agricultural sector its proper importance. Everyone - from individuals to the organisations of civil society, States and international institutions - needs to give priority to one of the most urgent goals for the human family: freedom from hunger. In order to achieve freedom from hunger it is necessary to ensure not only that enough food is available, but also that everyone has daily access to it: this means promoting whatever resources and infrastructures are necessary in order to sustain production and distribution on a scale sufficient to guarantee fully the right to food.

"If the international community is to be truly 'united' against hunger, then poverty must be overcome through authentic human development, based on the idea of the person as a unity of body, soul and spirit. Today, though, there is a tendency to limit the vision of development to one that satisfies the material needs of the person, especially through access to technology; yet authentic development is not simply a function of what a person 'has', it must also embrace higher values of fraternity, solidarity and the common good".


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Saturday, October 16

"There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October."
Nathaniel Hawthorne
American writer, 19th century

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Friday, October 15

The Feast of St.Teresa of Jesus

"To know ourselves has always been the greatest of all lessons. For, if we know ourselves, we will know God. And, in knowing God, we will become like God."
St. Clement of Alexandria
Greek theologian, 3rd century

Thursday, October 14

"It is no longer good enough to cry peace. We must act peace, live peace, and live in peace."
Native American Proverb

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Wednesday, October 13

"In wilderness people can find ... an experienmce of the eternal mystery ... a sense of the sacredness of all creation."

Tuesday, October 12

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"It doesn't have to be somber to be sacred."
David J. Volpe
American Rabbi
(in: The Healer of Shattered Hearts)

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Monday, October 11

"Every child come with the message that God is not yet discouraged of us."
Rabindranath Tagore
Bengali polymath

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Sunday, October 10

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"Since most of us spend our lives doing ordinary tasks, the most important thing is to carry them out extraordinarily well."
Henry David Thoreau
American writer

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The 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

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What gifts do you accept regularly?
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What gifts have you refused?
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Would anyone looking from the outside consider you a person who is thankful for the gifts you have been given?
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Oh yes, the right track! The grateful track.

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live them."
President John F. Kennedy

When have you felt most grateful for the gifts you have received?
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Saturday, October 9

"Some of the secret joys of living are not found by rushing from point A to point B, but by inventing some imaginary letters along the way."
Douglas Pagels
American author

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Friday, October 8

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. "
Dale Carnegie
American writer, lecturer

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Thursday, October 7

"The Rosary purifies your heart, mind, and your soul. I encourgae you to make the Rosary a part of your life. See for yourself what amazing things our heavenly mother will do in your life."
Eduardo Verastegui
Mexican actor

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Wednesday, October 6

"Believe in yourself, your neighbors, your work, your ultimate attianment of more complete happiness. It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring who reaps a harvest in Autum."
B.C. Forbes
Scottish founder of Forbes magazine

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Tuesday, October 5

"You will have completely found your mission on Earth the moment you say to God, like Isaiah, 'Here I am, Lord; send me.'"

Emmanuel D'Alzon
French founder of the Assumptionnists
19th century


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Monday, October 4

Today is the feast of St. Francis.



Listen to him speak:

"First do what is necessary, then do what is possible, and before long you will find yourself doing the impossible"

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The altar of the burial site of St. Francis in Assisi where I had the privilege of celebrating Mass for a group from a former parish visitng Italy.



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Sunday, October 3

"A life spent worthily should be measured by deeds not years."

Richard Sheridan
Irish writer, 18th century


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Saturday, October 2: Feast of the Guardian Angels

"Delightful it is to stand ... gazing on the face of the sea. I hear the heaving waves chanting a tune to God in heaven; I see their glittering surf ... I hear the joyous shrieks of the swooping gulls ... Let me bless almighty God, whose power extends over sea and land, whose angels watch over all."

St. Columba: Irish monk and missionary of the 6th century

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See, I am sending an angel before you, to guard you on the way and bring you to the place I have prepared. Be attentive to him and heed his voice. Do not rebel against him, for he will not forgive your sin. My authority resides in him. If you heed his voice and carry out all I tell you, I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes. (Ex 23:20-22).

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Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits me here, ever this day, be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.

October 1: the Feast of St. Teresa of Lisieux: the Little Flower

Terese Martin died on Sept 30, 1897 of tuberculosis in the Carmel of Lisieux at the age of 24. She is the patron saint of missions, florists and of the country of France.

To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul. It is Jesus alone who can give such value to our actions. Let us then love Him with all our heart. (St. Terese of Lisieux)

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