St. Joseph the Worker Shrine

Welcome

St. Joseph the Worker Shrine

We who minister at the Shrine are committed to work collaboratively with one another and with you. Our aim is to provide a place of prayer, conscious reflection, and social action that is hospitable to and calls forth the gifts of all who come to the Shrine. We do this in the spirit of Jesus Christ and of Saint Eugene de Mazenod, founder of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

Our mission is based on Matthew 11:28:

Come to me all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.”

St. Joseph the Worker Shrine

Mass Times

Daily Mass

Monday - Friday
8:00 am - 12 noon - 5:30 pm

Weekend Mass

Saturday
8:00 am - 12 noon - 4:00 pm
Sunday
8:00 am - 10:00 am - 12 noon

Holiday periods may affect these times
Confession Schedule at end of page

Upcoming Holy Hours

Holy Hour for Life
Friday, March 22nd at 4 PM

 

Fr. Terry O'Connell Memorial Digital Bulletin Board

Weekly Bulletins

Employment Opportunity
St. Joseph the Worker Shrine

Part-time Office Manager/Bulletin Editor

The Shrine's Annual In-House Lenten Appeal is Underway

This year, our hope is to completely refurbish the interior back wall of the Shrine, to render it a more fitting and ample space to display the names of loved ones we might wish to memorialize in this house of prayer – as people have done here for generations (the confessional lobby memorial plaques have reached capacity!).

Thank you in advance for your accustomed generosity in this annual Appeal to maintain the Shrine’s inner workings. As of Laetare Sunday (March 10th) - the half-way point of Lent, we have only reached about 50% of our goal.

If you have not yet made your contribution, please do so in the closing weeks of the Lenten Season. Extra donation envelopes are available in the Confessional Lobby.

Please make any checks payable to the Shrine of St. Joseph with Lenten Appeal on the memo line.

Thank You.


 

Lenten Rhythms at the Shrine

Appropriately, the rhythm of religious life here at the Shrine is altered during the Lenten season – a time of introspection when we strive to root-out penny ante practices and unhealthy patterns that have become ingrained in our dealings with ourselves and with one another.

Be on the look-out for the following aids to our spiritual growth during the coming 40 days of Lenten repentance (“re-pensare”/“re-penser”) – think again! Click here to view


 

Lenten Fast and Abstinence
Guidelines for all Catholics

 

Mite Boxes

   

Once again, this year, the Shrine is making available Mite Boxes to take home and fill with loose change and dollar bills during the 40 days of Lent.  It’s a method of alms-giving – a constant, at-hand reminder that alms-giving, along with fasting, constitute the age-old pillars of Lenten observance.

 The very name “Mite Box” recalls the Gospel story of the widow who contributed 2 pennies (“widow’s mite”) toward helping others; Jesus accounted her sacrificial donation as having greater value than more weighty contributions from those who could afford more.

 It’s amazing how quickly loose change can accumulate when set aside.  Last year, the aggregate amount that was returned to the Shrine from the Mite Boxes at the end of the Lenten Season totaled over $2,000. Those alms contributions were directed to our St. Anthony Fund which is exclusively dedicated to helping the poor.

 Please consider picking-up one of these Lenten Mite Boxes and installing it in your home as an almost painless way of fulfilling the Gospel mandate to contribute alms for the poor.

 We almost always feel that we need to “put-in our two cents” on any topic or person under discussion – very often those contributions are less than charitable.  Perhaps having a Mite Box near at hand could help to curb that tendency by refocusing your “contribution” to something more helpful …… “a penny for that thought!”


 

DIOCESAN 2024 Catholic Appeal

On the weekend of March 9th and 10th a special collection was taken up in the pews to benefit the 2024 Diocesan Catholic Appeal. The last time this collection was taken up, in 2023, your generosity netted just under $3,000 in support of the many worthy and charitable causes in the Archdiocese that benefit from this collection.

If you wish to make a larger donation, or make a ’pledge’ contribution, envelopes for this are available in the Shrine Confessional Lobby. If you make use of this envelope, please return your pledge donation through your home parish. 

On behalf of Cardinal Sean, thank you for supporting the 2024 Diocesan Catholic Appeal!

Holy Week at the Shrine of St. Joseph the Worker

Palm Sunday, March 24th

Vigil Mass: Saturday at 4 PM
Sunday Masses at 8 AM, 10 AM, 12 PM

Holy Thursday, March 28th

Morning Prayer at 8 AM
Confessions: 10 AM - 12 Noon
(double confessors)

Mass of the Lord’s Supper: 7 PM
followed by Adoration until Midnight

Good Friday, March 29th

Morning Prayer at 8 AM
Confessions: 10 AM - 12 Noon & 2 PM - 3 PM
(double confessors)
Midday Stations of the Cross: 12 Noon
Divine Mercy Novena begins: 12:30 PM
Celebration of the Lord’s Passion: 3 PM
Twilight Stations of the Cross: 7 PM

Holy Saturday, March 30th

Morning Prayer at 8 AM
Confessions: 10 AM - 1 PM
(double confessors)
Divine Mercy Novena: 12 Noon
The Easter Vigil and Mass: 7 PM

Easter Sunday, March 31st

Masses: 8 AM, 10 AM and a closing 12 Noon Mass (with chimes)

March is the Month of  St. Joseph

The month of March is dedicated to St. Joseph. We don't know much about him except what is mentioned in the Gospels. Joseph was the husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the foster-father of Jesus. Holy Scripture proclaims him as a "just man," and the Church has turned to Joseph for his patronage and protection.

The Church encourages us to be devoted to Joseph because he was a model in the heroic practice of all the virtues. The example of virtuous living that he gave in the exact fulfillment of the duties of his state of life is worthy of our reflection. Read the Gospel and you will see his faith, hope and charity practiced under trying circumstances. He was prudent in caring for his wife and the child; he showed great leadership in protecting them and assisting them. He was religious in every sense, with that delicacy and sincerity of conscience that is proper to the saints of God. He was just in his dealings with God and man.

From: catholicculture.org

Please join us to pray the Novena to St. Joseph at each
Mass celebrated
 from March 11th to March 19th.

This Week's Message
from Fr. Amesse
March 17, 2024

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  But…for us the big feast is Tuesday…St. Joseph!  The other night, the young adults met, as usual, on the 2nd Tuesday of the month.  They also meet on the 4th.  They belong to Pure in Heart.  There are 2 dozen members.  We could always have more. 

I asked, “Was St. Joseph an old or young man when he married Mary?”  They responded that  the old St. Joseph would have an easier way of guarding Mary’s virginity.  I gave my opinion.  The Catholic Church is quiet about this.  However, I see that St. Joseph was young, strong, virile, athletic, handsome, chaste, and disciplined.

He must have been on fire with love.  St. Joseph, instead of being dried fruit, was rather a blossom, filled with promise and power.  He was in the morning of life, when he married Mary.  He bubbled over with energy, strength and controlled passion.  St. Joseph and Mary, brought to their marriage, great torrents of love. 

“In both Mary and Joseph, there were youth, beauty and promise.  God loves cascading cataracts, and bellowing waterfalls, but he loves them better when they do not overflow and drown his flowers.  God loves them better when they are harnessed and bridled to light a city and slake the thirst of a child.” (Venerable Fulton Sheen). 

In Joseph and Mary, we do not find one controlled waterfall and one dried up lake but rather 2 youths who, before they knew the beauty of the one and handsome strength of the other, willed to surrender these things for Jesus.  Leaning over the manger of the Infant Jesus, were the beauty of a woman and the surrender of a strong comeliness in a man,”  Sheen continued.

I remember you at Mass!


 

St. Patrick of Ireland 
March 17th


St. Patrick is one of the world's most popular saints. He was born in Roman Britain and when he was fourteen or so, he was captured by Irish pirates during a raiding party and taken to Ireland as a slave to herd and tend sheep. At the time, Ireland was a land of Druids and pagans but Patrick turned to God as he wrote in his memoir, The Confession.

In The Confession, St. Patrick wrote: "The love of God and his fear grew in me more and more, as did the faith. My soul was roused, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers and in the night, nearly the same. I prayed in the woods and on the mountain, even before dawn. I felt no hurt from the snow or ice or rain."  Patrick's captivity lasted until he was twenty, when he escaped after having a dream from God in which he was told to leave Ireland by going to the coast. There he found some sailors who took him back to Britain and was reunited with his family.  For more information on St. Patrick, visit catholic.org

St. Patrick is the Co-Patron Saint of the Archdiocese of Boston!

Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary
March 19


St. Joseph, the spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the foster-father of Jesus, was probably born in Bethlehem and probably died in Nazareth. His important mission in God's plan of salvation was ,"to legally insert Jesus Christ into the line of David from whom, according to the prophets, the Messiah would be born, and to act as his father and guardian" (Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy).

Most of our information about St. Joseph comes from the opening two chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel. No words of his are recorded in the Gospels; he was the "silent" man. We find no devotion to St. Joseph in the early Church. It was the will of God that the Virgin Birth of Our Lord be first firmly impressed upon the minds of the faithful. He was later venerated by the great saints of the Middle Ages. Pius IX (1870) declared him patron and protector of the universal family of the Church.

From: catholicculture.org

Pope Francis’ March
Prayer I
ntention
is for New Martyrs

Let us pray that those who risk their lives for the Gospel in various parts of the world might imbue the Church with their courage and missionary drive.

 

 

 

Women's History Month

This is the 3rd of 5 installments in our celebration of Women’s History Month.  Today’s focus is on St. Marianne Cope, (1838-1918)  a.k.a. Saint Marianne of Molokai’i a German-born American woman who made significant contributions to the history, culture and society of those suffering from Hansen’s Disease in the Hawaiian Islands.

Marianne made history  

* when she founded St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, NY, the first General Hospital ever to be established in the U.S;

* when she became involved with the move of the Geneva (NY) Medical College which morphed into the College of Medicine at Syracuse University;

* when she relocated to Hawai’i in 1883 with six other Franciscan Sisters to care for persons with leprosy;

* when she opened the Kapiolani Home on the island of Molokai ‘I  in 1885 to care for homeless female children of leprosy patients;

* when she was inducted into the Royal Order of Kapiʻolani by King Kalākaua for humanitarian services rendered to the Kingdom of Hawai’i;

* when she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Fallls, New York in 2005.

St. Marianne Cope’s Feast Day is January 23, the anniversary of her death.  She is honored especially in the Dioceses of Honolulu, HI and Syracuse, NY .

March's Hidden Apostle
Brother 
Albert Rondeau, OMI


Brother Rondeau was born in Fall River, Massachusetts on November 15, 1901.  He was the son of the late Philippe and Mathilda (Ferland) Rondeau.  He entered the Oblate Novitiate then located in Hudson, New Hampshire on February 16, 1926. 

During his novitiate year he suffered a serious work accident that required hospitalization, and when he appeared near death was allowed to make a profession of vows.  Having recovered, he began once again his novitiate year and renewed his vows on December 11, 1927. 

Following his perpetual vows he was assigned to St. Joseph Parish (St. Jean Baptiste) as Sacristan and projection assistant to Fr. Lucien Brassard, O.M.I., who showed religious films at St. Joseph Hall on Merrimack St. In 1941 he was assigned to St. Joseph High School Seminary in Bucksport, Maine where he remained until 1961. The young seminarians nicknamed him l’associé (French for Associate) of Fr. Etienne Larose, O.M.I.

Brother Rondeau is fondly remembered for his keen wit, sense of humor and clever inventiveness in carrying out his maintenance duties. He died on August 21, 1992.  His funeral was held at Ste. Marie (Holy Family Church) in South Lowell with burial in St. Joseph Cemetery, E. Chelmsford.

Legion of Mary
at the Shrine

Meetings are held in the downstairs Conference Hall each week after the Sunday 12:00 noon Mass.

The Legion of Mary is a Marian movement founded in Ireland in the 1920’s. It is currently the largest apostolic organization of lay people in the Catholic Church.

Catholic Conversations

2023 Saint Joseph the Worker Award winner Dr. Rebecca Duda talks with Br. Richard Cote, of St. Joseph the Worker Shrine about Lent. Click on image to view.

Pure in Heart

Pure in Heart (young adults ages 18-35) meets at 7pm in the Shrine Conference Room on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month. The next session will be March 26. Learn more

  • 5:30 - Mass at the Shrine
  • 6:15 - Social
  • 7:00 - Meeting

 

Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Brazil

Four young Oblates from the Eastern U.S. arrived in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1945, after difficult travel in the immediate post-war period.  The Superior was Lowell native, Father Walter Mooney, OMI.  Beginning with ministry to the English-speaking colony of the area, they and succeeding U.S. Oblates were assigned to outlying priest-less districts and the desperately poor urban favela slums of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Recife, and Belen in the Amazonian north.

Several Oblates were targeted by the authoritarian regime for imprisonment and even torture because of their championing the interest of the indigenous people and the poor of the city of Recife whom they served.

Joined the 1960’s and 1970’s by Oblate missionaries from the Central U.S., Canada, France, Belgium and Ireland and an increasing number of Brazilian Oblates, the Brazilian Province now numbers 65 priests, Brothers and seminarians in four districts.  They work to extend the Word and Work of the Gospel through pastoral ministry, social services, and the formation and support of Basic Christian communities throughout the vast country.

The vast favela slums of the cities where Oblates have lived and served.

Returning to France at the age of 20, you gave yourself to a life of frivolity and pleasure. But the Savior led you to understand how empty this was.

St. Eugene, guide us to the Savior in our time of need!

St. Joseph
Support in difficulties
Pray for us!


Litany of St. Joseph

Downes Parking Garage Ticket Validation

  • Available in the Gift Shop /Bookstore on Monday through Saturday from 9 am - 5 pm.
  • Sunday street parking is always free
  • Those attending the Saturday 4 pm Vigil Mass who park in the Downes Garage can still validate their ticket in the Gift Shop before Mass.

Ring the Bells of the Shrine

Everyday of the year, the “Bells of St. Joseph” ring-out God’s praise for all to hear!

Our Carillon can play Special Hymns of your choice any day of the year. At your request, our chimes will ring in honor of loved ones for the entire community to hear and prayerfully remember.Your offering of $20.00 will be greatly appreciated and will assist us in maintaining the Shrine and its ministries. Thank You!

Bell-ringing selections may be reserved for specific days & times throughout the year(s) in the Shrine Gift Shop/Bookstore.

St. Eugene de Mazenod’s Prayer to the Sorrowful Mother


 O Lord, Almighty God, you endowed the Blessed Virgin Mary with the fullness of every gift and grace. By allowing her heart to be pierced with the deepest sorrow, you crowned her merit and placed her at the head of countless legions of martyrs who, for love of your Son Jesus Christ, have shed their blood. Through the painful martyrdom endured by this gentle Mother seeing her beloved Son dying as a Victim because of his love for us, grant us the grace to bear with fortitude the disappointments and setbacks in our life, and not to fear torment or death itself, when we are called to confess our faith in Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

Shrine Memorial Plaques


Since 1868, this holy place - dedicated to the honor of St. Joseph - has been a treasured oasis of prayer and serenity in the heart of the city of Lowell. For generations, many have found great solace and experienced healing and reconciliation for themselves and their families within this holy sanctuary.

In gratitude many have chosen to memorialize their loved ones by inscribing their names on the very walls of this grace-filled place.  To inscribe the names of loved ones on our newly expanded Remembrance Wall, please make arrangements in the Gift Shop/Bookstore – at the same desk where Masses are registered.

Light Up Shrine Candles Online

Click to Light a Candle 
Thank you!

Please choose your donation amount. $5.00 is the standard donation per candle online

 

Archdiocesan COVID protocols lifted
Learn more here

 

Confession and Adoration

Confession

Mon - Friday
10:00 am - noon
4:30 pm - 5:15 pm

Saturday 
10:00 am - 1:00 pm

First Wednesday of the month
Every Wednesday during Lent
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Eucharistic Adoration

 

 

 

 

The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed for adoration on -

Saturday after the noon Mass until the 4:00 pm Mass
First Fridays after the noon Mass until the 5:30 pm Mass

Say NO to Physician Assisted Suicide in Massachusetts
Learn more

Gift Shop, Office and Museum Hours

Business Office Hours:

Monday - Friday
9:00 am - 3:00 pm

Ed Wilk, Bulletin Editor
Jessica Rauseo, Business Office Manager

Gift Shop & Bookstore

Aurea Torres, Gift Shop Manager

Hours
Monday - Saturday 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
First Sunday of each month 8:30 am - 1:30 pm

If for any reason you're still unable to visit the Shrine or Gift Shop and you'd like to book a Mass Intention request please call the Gift Shop Manager at 978-459-9522 x213 or email AureaTorres@stjosephshrine.org

Oblate Historical Museum

Brother Richard Cote, Museum Curator

Saturdays 10:00 am - 2:00 pm
Sundays 8:30 am -1:15 pm
During Lent - Wednesday 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm