Faith Can Grow Even In A Pandemic

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For many of us, this isn’t the first time that our Churches have been closed to us. Many of us remember and will never forget when our Churches closed or merged a few years ago. This time, we are able to see live streamings of Masses and devotions! My sister-in-law wakes up at 5 AM so she can watch a Mass in Ireland! Like before, “Roaming Catholics” resulted; today, we have “Streaming Catholics”!

Yet, that closing also brought us an opportunity to learn how much our faith meant to us and the lengths that we would go to keep it alive! This was a real opportunity for grace and a time to see if our faith could withstand the test of our Church gates being locked and our faith community scattered. For some, it was just too much and the hierarchy could never be forgiven for what seemed like the ultimate betrayal. Some became bitter.

For others, they accepted the change and just moved on and visited other nearby Churches to find one that would be suitable and might feel like buy trenbolone online “home” someday.

Still others believed that we should make a stand, and had to in order to “save” our long and deep St. Joachim history for others who would come after us and for those who had gone before us as they kept the faith alive for us. It seemed impossible yet three years later, the Capuchin Franciscans of the Province of St. Augustine would need a place to move their Friary and to open a Prayer Center for the community of Frankford.  St. Joachim Church in Frankford was available and fit the bill for their needs.

Services would begin again (although a Mass is not yet being said for our weekly obligation) and the Friary and Prayer Center, named for St. Padre Pio, to whom we prayed as the Area Parish Pastoral Planning Process was taking place and in the years since, would become an integral part of Frankford.

As hard as it is now, especially with the celebration of Easter, our holiest of holy days, there are silver linings behind every cloud. If you’re really blessed, you get a rainbow.

That rainbow is extended to us to take our faith and what we believe and seriously live it out as witnesses each and every day. We don’t need buildings for that; we are Church! We have each other. And we have a God who is most willing, ready and able to abundantly bless us for all that we do in His name. He loves us, and, while we may not be able to visit Him at His house, we can invite him into each of ours. He can give us the courage to accept the challenges of this coronavirus, to take care of ourselves and our families, and, to be more creative in caring for the needs of others.

We have an opportunity, once again, to see just how much our faith matters in our daily lives and how real God is to us! When Mary Magdalen finds the tomb empty and runs to tell the disciples, let us, too, run to find the Lord! It won’t be hard to find Him! He is in our hearts, the hearts of our family and friends, in our neighbors across the street and across the country. If He is not there, it is because they do not fully know the “Good News”! We are tasked with this mission. That’s a post for another time!

God bless!! Happy Easter! Amen, Alleluia!

 

 

Upcoming Presentation at The Historical Society of Frankford

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Save the Date! You are cordially invited and most welcome to the first event at The Historical Society of Frankford. Join us on Tuesday, September 10, 7:30 PM at 1507 Orthodox St., parking on street and usually in the lot of Frankford Friends School! Light refreshments follow!
 
The first topic of the new year sheds light on “The Church Street Quarries (Deni Playground)” presented by John Hewitt and Bob Smiley! John Hewitt is a graduate of St. Joachim Catholic School and local historian and Bob Smiley is a prominent member of Keep the Faith in Frankford and the editor of “The Frankford Gazette”
 
Also, meet and greet the members of “The Friends of St. Joachim Cemetery”! Pat Smiley, President and Executive Director of Keep the Faith in Frankford and Holy Innocents Parish will introduce their new effort to clean up, restore and maintain the St. Joachim Cemetery located behind the Church at Griscom and Church Streets. Joseph Taylor, Co-ordinator of “The Friends of St. Joachim Cemetery” will detail our project and upcoming events! 
This is sure to be an exciting evening! Hope to see you there!!

Friends Bring New Life to St. Joachim Cemetery!

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A very special day! Keep the Faith in Frankford launched the first project of more to come for The Friends of St. Joachim Cemetery. Joe Taylor co-ordinates this effort and he approaches it like many things he’s done before – with a list of tasks. A holdover from his Navy days perhaps but Joe has been invaluable with his lists of to-do’s and sets of plans for any project we’ve done!

Joe, your skill helped you and the Friends to be so successful today! Well done and we owe you, Maureen Taylor, and all who helped today our thanks!

Joe and Maureen Taylor are the “perfect people” to head this effort. Before the Capuchin Franciscans arrived, Keep the Faith in Frankford had a committee we called, “St. Joachim Sanitation Saints”. We would periodically clean Griscom St. along the rectory and cemetery and Church St. in front of the Church. Before this year’s Annual Feast Day Mass, Bob Smiley and I saw Joe and Maureen at their house and they mentioned being down around Church earlier that day. I asked, “What were you doing there?” and was told, they were cleaning up in preparation for Mass. Good people!

It was a hot Saturday morning in Philly yesterday – a heat alert was in effect by mid-afternoon, yet all who came out in the morning could have stayed home, done other things or nothing at all, but they wanted to help clean up the final resting place for people they might have known or for people that they didn’t know at all. As we continue this effort, we do want you to get to know the stories of the people who are buried here. These are the people who “kept the faith” for us for over 175 years.

Gina Christian, Senior Content Producer and Host of InsideCatholicPhilly.com podcast, came by, today, too! Thank you, Gina, for getting the word out there for us on Catholic Philly! Continued blessings and much success in your efforts!

Many thanks, Fr. Tom Higgins, Pastor, Holy Innocents Parish, for approving this project and for supporting it with your hard work, today, too. Father has always been supportive of our programs to honor those Veterans who are buried in our cemetery. To you, Father, Joe and Maureen Taylor, Brian McCloskey, Tom McAvoy, Julia, Lorenzo and Sal Roldan and Sean Brassil, a hearty and grateful “Thank You” for your efforts. May God continue to bless you for your generosity of time and talent!

To those who were not able to come today, we thank you for your donations of money and wanting to help, and to keep informed, you can find us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/thefriendsofstjoachimcemetery/ and on the web at https://keepthefaithinfrankford.org/the-friends-of-st-joachim-cemetery/

Here’s some of what The Friends of St. Joachim Cemetery were able to accomplish today! See you next time!

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