St. Joseph of the Lakes

This weekend is one of my favorite annual moments at Saint Joe’s. Easter and Christmas Masses are our biggest gatherings of the community, however their great shortfall is that we too quickly move from the large communal gathering that lasts about an hour to much smaller family gatherings that take up the rest of the holiday. On this wonderful weekend we begin with the 5:00 Mass underneath the big-top which moves into a large communal meal. We begin in prayer and we live out our community as we eat, drink, dance and enjoy each other’s company. It doesn’t end with the fireworks on Saturday evening, instead after we gather for the 10:00 am Mass on Sunday we open the campus once again to food, music, community servants (police and fire), music and dancing. The food choices are memorable enough to bring people back year after year. Again we experience the vibrancy of our parish community through the entire time of our festival.

None of this happens in a vacuum. There has been a group of people gathering monthly for most of the year to plan out this event. We have been calling out to our brothers and sisters to step up and help out and they have responded generously! We have been collecting donations from parishioners and community businesses. We had to call on the talents of our parish cover band: Java Soul when we were informed that the GB Leighton band had become unavoidably unavailable. Java Soul will fill our Saturday evening with their great sound. On Sunday our remarkable swing band: The Saints of Swing will treat us to big band music throughout the afternoon. Throughout both Saturday and Sunday there will be parishioners and friends making and serving food and drinks as well as providing entertaining games for our visiting youngsters and our gambling adults.

While all this is happening as we enjoy each other’s company and renew friendships our community grows stronger and more robust. Welcome to all our visitors and a great hats off to all who will make our festival the best ever!