HARVARD—St. Joseph Parish, here, has spent the last several decades as a bilingual parish, and parishioners mention the unity they find even as it serves parishioners whose first languages are either English or Spanish.
Father Steven Clarke, pastor, notes a couple of events that bring people together.
“For several years we had a Taste of St. Joseph festival. We featured international foods: Italian, Mexican, Polish, Austrian, German and more.”
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And before COVID-19, he points to a St. Joseph’s Table that was presented by the parish youth ministry. Everyone was welcomed to the meal provided.
“We’re multinational and multicultural,” says Deacon Tony Koss with pride. He says the German and Irish founders and descendants “meld together” with the people from Mexico who came to the area to work on farms.
“We’ve had priests through the years who worked hard to bring (the communities) together,” Deacon Koss says, adding that the Hispanic Catholics who have come to the area are helping the parish hold its own in this smaller town.
“You could say in this day and age the Church might get smaller,” he notes, “but with the influx of the Spanish, we actually grew.” The training from the now-closed parish school’s 100-year history “kind of hangs around,” he says, and that “training gets extended into the community.”
Some parish ministries have spanned the Anglo and Spanish cultures successfully, including work for the community food pantry, the always active RCIA group, and an annual Fiesta along with mini-fiestas each year (aside from COVID-19’s impact on 2020 and 2021). “If you go to a Spanish baptism,” he says, “you always feel welcome there.”
Other ministries that were not as successfully integrated are probably “just a matter of comfort,” he speculates, acknowledging every heritages’ customs and how “it takes a long time to overcome these things.”
Even so, the common Catholic faith unites everyone at a deeper level.
Sandra Meza, 45, was baptized at St. Joseph’s and has been “at the parish all my life,” she says.
Her Mexican-heritage parents at first attended church in Woodstock, but once Spanish-language Masses were offered at St. Joseph, they began attending there. Meza reports that “every priest that comes in unites the two communities.”
She also points to the “so many opportunities to volunteer,” and adds, “I’ve done everything except (being a) sacristan.” Working with the youth group at the parish, she says that group “does a lot of volunteering in our community.”
The “awesome” adoration time on Wednesdays draws all peoples together, as does the Emmaus ministry of small groups, both Spanish and English, Meza says. The bilingual bulletins are helpful, “so we’re all on the same boat,” she adds.
And the “beauty of the church” is something Meza mentions more than once as what makes her parish special. “Everywhere you look, there’s something to contemplate.”
Teddi Salas’ family also began attending St. Joseph Church once it began to offer Mass in Spanish, and she received her First Communion there at age 8, more than 35 year ago.
“There’s such a great relationship and community between the two cultures,” she says.
Because she is bilingual, Salas feels she get “the best of each” of her pastor’s English language Masses and their parochial vicar’s Spanish Masses. Priests, she says, “are treasures, but ultimately it is our (parish) community that is united ... we have to keep strong and together. I think that’s what’s special about our community.”
Salas mentions both the “so faithful” senior parish members and how the youths of the parish are “kind of blossoming” in their faith. Although their numbers are not great, “the ones you see are just full of faith.” With college and work, the “youth come and go, but to see them grow up in the parish, it’s amazing.”
St. Joseph Parish has been “so beneficial” for her own 17-year-old son, Salas says, adding that the senior community has “seen him grow” and has “been supportive.”
The effects of COVID-19 had an impact, and Salas calls it “a very, very hard year.” But parish ministries, she says, “are resilient” with “several ministries on the English and Spanish sides of the community.”
“I think (of) the variety of opportunities the parish has for people to grow in their faith,” she says. “There’s no excuse for not persevering in the faith ... Keeping up with our faith is so important.”
Rose Mary Martin has been a member of the Harvard parish since 1950. Her family picked that area, she says, because their requirements were “a Catholic church, school and a hospital. At the time, the hospital was across the street from the (Catholic) school.”
That hospital was built from the original St. Joseph Church, Martin says. That first “Log Cabin Church” had trees for its foundation, and she says that in its basement “you can see those tree trunks.” A rest home later replaced the hospital, and several parishioners, she adds, reside at that home.
She notes the “many changes” at the parish, noting times of remodeling that include her class receiving its first Communion in the school basement in 1954 because of work on the building and her marriage as the last wedding before a 1968 remodel that added marble to the sanctuary.
But, Martin notes, “the church isn’t the building. It’s the faith community (which is integrated) like a beautiful woven fabric. (The community) makes it what it is ... even if we didn’t have the beautiful, beautiful church, we still have the same group of people.”
The Hispanic members, she says, “bring so much” to the parish, mentioning the Emmaus retreat, calling it “a wonderful gift.”
The parish’s patron, she says, was “Jesus’ father on earth,” and she notes “how brave he was and how enduring he was.” As part of a group that did a study and consecration to St. Joseph this year, Martin says the preparation “opened my eyes to a lot about St. Joseph ... he had to be a very strong man to do what he did ... he was there with the king (and) the one to show Jesus the moral things to do (and) raise him as a child and as a man.
“He didn’t have an air of authority or arrogance, he was humble, (a) lowly yet very powerful man.”
Martin recalls the parish’s past loss of an associate pastor, Father Edward Rogers who died in an automobile accident on the fourth of July in 1956, and the death of their pastor, Father Hubert McGinn in 1994, which was “really tough on the parish,” she says. She notes three diocesan priests — Msgr. Thomas Brady, Msgr. Philip O’Neil and Father Jeremy Trowbridge — attended St. Joseph Parish.
“We’ve had a lot (of trials), but were always fortunate ... We have a lot of love and pride in our parish. We’re blessed.”
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