446 N Seguin Ave, New Braunfels, Texas 78130
Catholic in Tradition, Biblical in Faith, Sacramental in Worship
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We seek to "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness," following the Anglican liturgy found in the Book of Common Prayer (1928) and the Anglican Missal.
Until further notice, due to the pandemic, on Sundays Morning Prayer will be read at 9.00 AM, the Holy Eucharist offered at 9.30, and Evening Prayer will be read at 1.00 PM.
On Wednesdays, Thursday, and Fridays through the Autumn, Morning Prayer will be read at 11.30 AM, with Evening Prayer at 7.00 PM and the Holy Eucharist offered at 7.30 PM
Our Schedule for the other seasons of the year is:
Sundays
7.35 AM Morning Prayer
8.00 AM Holy Eucharist (said)
9.15 Bible Class
10.30 AM Holy Eucharist (sung)
11.45 AM Fun, Food and Fellowship
As much fun, food and fellowship as Anglicans allow themselves to have
1.00 PM - Evening Prayer during the summer
4.00 PM - Evening Prayer rest of the year
4.00 PM - Evensong on the Second Sunday of each month
Wednesdays, Thursdays & Fridays
11:45 AM - Morning Prayer
12:00 noon - Mass
7.00 PM - Evening Prayer
Holy Days as above
For each weeks schedule of Saint's Days and Holy Days, see the schedule on our "About Us" page
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Reading St Augustine’s The City of God V
“…if those Christians who lost all they owned in the devastation of Rome held their possessions in the same esteem which the Apostle Paul, who was poor in purse but rich in spirit, recommends, they would echo Job. Though pressed to the limits of his endurance, his spirit was never broken. As a good servant, he found his abundance in the depths of the will of God. There, he believed, were the riches of his heart. He never despaired to lose during his lifetime those things he would leave behind at the time of his death…” – St Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
After the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in AD 410 – the immediate catalyst for St Augustine’s writing of The City of God – Hippo Regis, the north African Roman city where Augustine served as bishop, was flooded with refugees who’d lost everything in the destruction. They turned to the bishop, who gently reminded them they hadn’t lost their lives. He met with a response, particularly from those Christians who’d lost wealth, position and prestige: “Is life worth living with all we’ve lost and suffered?” Augustine called to mind the Old Testament story of Job, a man of great wealth, influence and family, who lost I all, but clung to God even in the days of darkest doubt. Let him, Augustine exhorted them, be you model. Understand, he said, that God is with you in good and bad. Life isn’t possessions and power.
Augustine’s Christianity isn’t the flimsy, God-loves-you-and-want’s-you-to-be-rich kind. It’s Christianity with a personal Cross for each of us to carry.
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The Bell of St Joseph's and Other Fun & Fascinating Facts
Parish Food Closet
We collect non-perishable food items throughout the year and every two months we caravan the donations to the New Braunfels SOS Food Bank.
During the Coronavirus pandemic, due to severe shortages in town, we're collecting food in boxes on the front porch of David Hall for a weekly trip to the NB Food Bank. Come anytime, day or night, and leave food on the porch. Wile you're there, if you need hand sanitizer, we're making about 20-30 bottles a day and leaving it also on the porch. Help yourself!
Options for Life
Every Lent we raise money for an annual gift to the New Braunfels "Options for Life" Program, supporting young, single mothers struggling to raise their children. We also have an OfL Collection Jar in our parish hall for through-the-year donations.
Veterans' Charities
On Memorial Day and Veterans' Day we take up special collections to help wounded and disabled veterans. At Christmastime, we lay wreaths at the graves of departed veterans.
The Bell of St Joseph's and Other Fun & Fascinating Facts
This Sunday at St Joseph's - September 27, the 16th Sunday after Trinity
The Bell of St Joseph's and Other Fun & Fascinating Facts
When you come by the church, take a look at our "new" old bell, a bronze 100 -year-old beauty with a rich tone that carries all the way down to the river when it rings! The stained glass windows in the church are less than 20 years old, but are closely-patterned after stained glass seen throughout the South from about 1870-1920 (St Joseph's boasts the only Men's Room in central Texas with its own stained-glass window). St Joseph’s chalice and paten were originally given as a gift to the first Episcopal Bishop of Quincy, Illinois, the Rt Rev Thomas Burgess, in 1878. As the hallmark under the base of the chalice shows, it was made by the Gorham Manufacturing Company, the leading silversmiths of 19th century America. How St Joseph’s came into the possession of a chalice & paten owned by a former Yankee chaplain in the War Between the States is a tale worth hearing (but at another time and in another place).
Receiving Holy Communion at St Joseph’s
At St Joseph’s, any baptized person is welcome to receive Holy Communion. We have a kneeler in front of the table we are using for an Altar. At communion-time, form a line and approach after the person in front of you has received the Sacrament. If you cannot kneel (or get up easily), please remain standing and receive. The priest will place the Sacrament in your hands (it is customary to support your right hand with the left): simply lift the Sacrament to your mouth. It is the sacramental Body of Christ. Please do not handle the consecrated Bread with your fingers. If you prefer to have him place the Host directly on your tongue, simply open your mouth as you approach and he will place it there. If you would like to have the Host dipped in the chalice rather than drink from it, continue to hold it in your open hand and the priest will take it, dip it into the chalice and then place it directly in your mouth. Please do not dip the host into the chalice yourself.
If you wish to drink from the chalice, the Chalice-bearer will be standing beside you at the kneeler and will help you drink from it directly.
If you do not wish to receive Holy Communion (or are not eligible to because you are not baptized), but would like a blessing, stand in line until your time comes, approach the kneeler and either kneel or stand and the priest will bless you. To let him know you wish to be blessed, cross your arms over your breast when you approach. He will make the sign of the Cross on your forehead as he blesses you.
Any baptized person is welcome to receive Holy Communion, but not everyone always should. If you are in a state of serious sin, it would be best not to present yourself for Holy Communion, here or elsewhere, until you have confessed your sins, resolved “to live a new life,” and received absolution. Anyone, baptized or not, can always come forward to receive a blessing.
– Fr Gregory Wilcox
This Sunday at St Joseph's - September 27, the 16th Sunday after Trinity
This Sunday at St Joseph's - September 27, the 16th Sunday after Trinity
This Sunday at St Joseph's - September 27, the 16th Sunday after Trinity
Sunday, September 27 - the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity
9.00 AM - Morning Prayer
9.30 AM - the Holy Eucharist
1.00 PM - Evening Prayer
This Sunday…
…after the 9.30 Eucharist, we’ll begin part two of our long-deferred class “Male and Female Created He Them: Gender, Sex and the Image of God.” This is a continuation of the class we began last year, which focused on these questions from the teaching of the Old Testament. This twelve-week class will examine this in the teaching of the New Testament and early Christian Church. Classes will run from 11.00 AM till 11.45, and, as is de rigueur at St Joseph’s, the doors don’t open in the parish hall less’n there’s food on the table…on Sunday we’ll have cards in the narthex for Clare Murray, a long-time friend of the parish whose birthday is Saturday and Ralph Gilmore, our Canadian snowbird whose doctor has just told him no traveling to Texas this winter: he sends his love and prayers so please sign a card to send him ours…we’re continuing “experiments in filming” during our “Liturgy Broadcast from St Joseph’s,” trying to make the camera angles better and the camera setup less intrusive. We’ll get it figured out son – I hope – so I appreciate your patience in our contest with technology…our Facebook broadcast can be found at this link:
https://www.facebook.com/stjosephsnewbraunfels/video
Upcoming…
…Sunday, October 4, is the Feast of St Francis of Assisi, the patron – among other things – of pets! So next Saturday, October 3, at 11.00 AM, we’ll have our annual Blessing of Animals in front of the church. we’ll bless any pet you want to bring, including tarantulas that hop and dogs that bite, (but from a discrete distance). After the blessing, treats for pets will be distributed…we’d planned to resume our regular monthly Vestry meetings, customarily cancelled for the summer, on Sunday, October 18 (our usual Third Sunday o’ the Month), but will have to reschedule the Third Sunday to the Fourth Sunday in October this year, as half the Vestry won’t be in attendance otherwise. We will meet after the 9.30 Eucharist that Sunday: the sermon that day will be cancelled, and a light brunch will be served…
See this week's Liturgical Schedule on our "About Us" page
This Sunday's Saints: SS Adolphus & John, Martyrs of Cordova, AD 853
This Sunday at St Joseph's - September 27, the 16th Sunday after Trinity
This Sunday at St Joseph's - September 27, the 16th Sunday after Trinity
Adolphus and John were brothers, residents of Seville in southern Spain. The boys’ father was a Muslim, their mother, a Christian who, after her husband’s death, had her sons (and their sister, Aurea) baptized and brought them up as Christians. When the young men came of age it was discovered by the Muslim authorities that their father had been a Muslim and charges of apostasy – abandoning the faith of Islam – were brought against the brothers. Charged before the Caliph of Cordova, the two refused to renounce Christ, though tortured repeatedly. On the morning of September 27. AD 822, they were both beheaded outside the caliph’s palace in Seville.
Aurea, sister of the two martyrs, had witnessed their deaths and shortly afterward left Seville. She became a nun and lived quietly for 30 years until, during a fierce persecution of Christians in the region, she was arrested. Under torture she denied Christ and embraced Islam and was released. After a short time, however, Aurea was a received back into the Church. When this was brought to the attention of the Muslim authorities, she was again arrested. This time, though more viciously beaten and tortured than before, she clung to the Faith. She was beheaded near the same spot her brothers had been martyred 30 years before, on July 19, AD 852.
SS Adolphus, John and Aurea are counted among the Martyrs of Cordova, more than sixty Christians beheaded by the caliphs of Cordova between 820-860 (the greatest number between 850-860). St Eulogius of Cordova, a priest who witnessed many of the martyrdoms and wrote accounts of them all, was himself martyred by order of the caliph in AD 860.
Fight the good fight with us!
Your prayers, support and contributions will help us keep a faithful Anglican presence and traditional Anglican worship alive and kickin' here in the Texas Hill Country. We have a lot to do to bring our parish mission to this part of God's world: to be "Catholic in Tradition, Biblical in Faith and Sacramental in Worship." Your generous (and tax-deductable!) donations will help fund that mission and keep us movin'!
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