446 N Seguin Ave, New Braunfels, Texas 78130
About Us
Anglican, Catholic or Protestant??
“What’s the difference between your Church and the Catholic Church? Are you Catholics or Protestants?"
In our everyday speech here in America, when most of us say the word “Catholic," we mean by it Roman Catholic . The use is more sociological than religious; it comes from a time when we used to divide people up into categories such as Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. A little investigation reveals to us, though, that the word “Catholic" is much more than a sociological term. It comes from two Greek words: kath holon, which means “according to the whole." In other words, Catholic means “complete" or “full." The Catholic Faith, then, is the whole Faith, undiminished, unaltered, undiluted. The Catholic Church is the whole Church, teaching and practicing the whole Faith. In the Creeds of the ancient Church, she defines herself as One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.
Through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance more and more ecclesiastical power came to be centered in Rome; with the centralization of power, as often happens, abuses arose. While these abuses are often exaggerated, some were quite real and they provoked a crisis. People began to lose faith in the Church as an institution, and the result was the convulsion we know as the Reformation. The Reformers, men like Martin Luther and John Calvin, protested against abuses in the Church. Each of them soon developed a vision of his own of what the Church should be, and soon the Reformers could find little unity among themselves except that they disagreed with the Church in Rome. Individually they came to be called after their founders, Lutherans, or Calvinists, or after their more particular doctrines, Anabaptists, Adventists and so on. Collectively they came to be called Protestants, that is, those protesting against Rome.
The Reformation affected all Europe in the 16th century, and England was no exception. King Henry VIII, a lecherous and ambitious man, severed the ties that bound the Church of England to Rome. But for all his self-centeredness, Henry was a conservative. He didn’t like unnecessary change. As a result, aside from breaking the connections between the English Church and the Roman Church, he insisted that the Faith and practice of the Church of England remain what it had been before. Henry got his way. He burned up those who disagreed with him, loyal Romans on the one side, dedicated Protestants on the other.
Not long after King Henry died and went to whatever awaits him eternally, his daughter Elizabeth succeeded to the English throne. Under Elizabeth, the Church of England understood itself as both Catholic and Protestant: Catholic in holding the fullness of the ancient Faith, Protestant in rejecting the abuses and growing power (worldly and religious) of the Renaissance Popes. Elizabeth referred to the religion of the English Church as “Reformed Catholicism."
As we’ve seen, the main notion “Protestants" have in common is their rejection of Roman Catholicism. This is hardly a good way to define anything; it’s like a farmer giving his vocation as “not a banker." Anglicans don’t refer to themselves as Protestants because our understanding of Catholicism is not sociological but religious.
Anglicans hold the Holy Bible, the unbroken succession of Bishops from the Apostles till now (called Apostolic Succession), the Sacraments, and the Creeds as essential signs of the Catholic Faith. We disagree with our Roman Catholic friends who are supposed to believe, according to the official teaching of the Roman Church, that “it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff,” but we are glad to share with them the essentials of the Catholic Faith. We differ with our Protestant friends in that we believe Jesus Himself founded the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, with its Scriptures, Sacraments, Creeds and Succession as essential to the salvation of mankind. The Church is not a human institution. We didn’t make it. Jesus Christ Himself founded it and we believe His Holy Spirit lives within it. As it belongs to Him, we are not free to change it in any essential way. We receive it as a precious gift and as such, God willing, we pass it on to others. For this reason Tradition (which comes from the Latin word meaning “to hand over") is very important to us. The Holy Spirit works through the Church’s Tradition to ensure that the Faith is passed on it all its power, the power to make men and women fresh and new and alive in Christ. We want to be sure we hand on that same Faith to those who come after us in all its fullness, all its Catholicity.
The Creed teaches us the Lord Jesus founded One Church. That Church is not the Anglican Church or the Roman Catholic Church or any of the Protestant bodies coming out of the Reformation. The Creed teaches us that the Church is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church. The Book of Common Prayer (echoing Scripture and Tradition) teaches us that the Church is “the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head, and all baptized people are members." Sadly these baptized people have fragmented themselves into all sorts of groups with all sorts of names. But, thank God, we cannot destroy what God has created. The Church is one, as our Lord Himself said, because God is One. We must continue to pray that the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost will hasten the day that the visible unity of His Church will be restored: the day there will be no more Protestants, or Roman Catholics, or Anglicans, but only Catholics united in unbreakable bonds of faith and charity.
by the Rev Canon Gregory Lee Wilcox
What Is St Joseph's?
"Who is St Joseph's" is probably a better question.
We're Larry , the parish treasurer, head usher and New Braunfels' most prominent Democrat. We're Middy , a retired nurse who's always there to help anybody with anything...we’re Robert with his wry smile and Angie, his wife with her gentle smile, trying to corral their younger daughters in the pews and teach them how to pray...we're Jack sporting his American flag shirt with the NRA patch carrying the flag in procession on national days ...we're Mary Catherine making sure the priest does what he's supposed to and Toya whose goodness keeps the heart of our parish charities beating and we're Carole and Harry and Sylvia and Bill and Kay and all the others who kneel together at the Altar of God and receive the Blessed Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood, "that He may dwell in us, and we in Him."
St Joseph's Church isn’t merely a building. We’re Christ's people at this building, just as Christ’s people exist in thousands of other churches in thousands other places. Here, like there, we come together to pray and support each other; we eat and drink and laugh and sometimes we cry. We’re learning how to love God by learning how to love each other. And what has come out of all of this is a people who are friendly and open, inviting and loving and, speaking as a priest who’s old enough to appreciate it – just plain sweet – the kinda folks I’m delighted to share my life with and to go with, Sunday after Sunday, to the Altar of God. - Fr Gregory Lee Wilcox
Archbishop Fisher on Anglican Doctrine
“Anglicanism has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in Holy Scripture and the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ’s Church from the beginning.” – The Most Rev Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1952
Liturgy
This Week's Service Schedule
On Sundays and Holy Days, 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.
Our Sunday morning Liturgy (Morning Prayer followed by the Holy Eucharist) is live streamed on our parish Facebook page beginning at 9.00 AM each Sunday morning. www.facebook.com/stjosephsnewbraunfels
May 28 - Sunday: Whitsunday
9.00 AM - Morning Prayer
9.30 AM - the Holy Eucharist (sung): Bp Ng'ang'a, preacher, Fr Wilcox, celebrant
10.45 AM - Memorial Day Tribute
11.00 AM - Blessing & Release of the Whitsun Ladybugs
4.00 PM - Evening Prayer
May 31 – Wednesday: Ember Wednesday in Whitsun Week
11.45 AM – Morning Prayer & the Holy Eucharist
1.00 PM – Lunch & Parish Staff Meeting
7.00 PM – Evening Prayer
June 1 – Thursday: Thursday in Whitsun Week
11.45 AM – Morning Prayer & the Holy Eucharist
7.00 PM – Evening Prayer & Holy Eucharist
June 2 – Friday: Ember Friday in Whitsun Week
11.45 AM – Morning Prayer & the Holy Eucharist
7.00 PM – Evening Prayer
There are no days of fasting or abstinence this week.
On Wednesdays, Thursday, and Fridays, Morning Prayer is read at 11.45 AM, the Holy Eucharist is offered at noon, and Evening Prayer is at 7.00 PM
Epistoller's Schedule
Epistoller’s Schedule for May 2023
May 7 – The Fourth Sunday after Easter
St James 1.17-21: Jan Baertl
May 14 – The Fifth Sunday after Easter
commonly called Rogation Sunday
St James 1.22-27: Bill Hull
May 21 – The Sunday after Ascension Day
1 St Peter 4.7-11: Lindsey Schaub
May 28 – Whitsunday (Pentecost)
Acts 2.1-11: Glen Goody
A schedule for clergy, servers, and readers
for March and April is posted in the narthex
Bowing the Head at the Mention of Jesus Name
“…when in time of Divine Service the Lord Jesus shall be mentioned, due and lowly reverence shall be done by all persons present, as it hath been accustomed; testifying, by these outward ceremonies and gestures, their inward humility, Christian resolution, and due acknowledgment that the Lord Jesus Christ, the true and eternal Son of God, is the only Saviour of the world…” – from the 1604 Canons of the Church of England issued by order of King James I (of King James’ Bible fame)
The Bell of St Joseph's and Other Fun & Fascinating Facts About Our Church
(No, we don't have the Liberty Bell. That's not actually a picture of our bell.) 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).