ROCKFORD—On St. Joseph’s feast day, March 19, members of the St. Joseph and Sons ministry group,

and others, brought tools to the 8:30 a.m. Mass at Holy Family Parish for a blessing. Father David Beauvais, chaplain to the group, celebrated the Mass and blessed the tools.

He joked a bit about his tool — a large, worn and newly-sharpened pick axe. He explained he purchased it in the early 1970s as he and a group of priests began clearing trees and brush on the land west in the Rockford Diocese that they had purchased together.

It’s an old axe, Father Beauvais said, kind of like me. He speculated that perhaps
“battle-ax” would be a good term for it, and him.

This was the second annual tools blessing at Holy Family and was coordinated by the parish Knights of Columbus who were part of the procession.