On the Road

Written by: Denise Serafini on Monday, May 15, 2017

Being in a church named in honor of St. Joseph is always a special experience for us. We have dedicated our role in this ministry and all of our travels to the patronage of St. Joseph. We believe that if he could take flight into the land of Egypt with the Holy Family without any knowledge of what he might encounter, then we can certainly depend on his guidance for our activities and travels. He does such a tremendous job of putting all the right people in our path to make our trip safe and our stops logically organized. If left to our own devices, we would likely find ourselves lost in a host of issues as soon as we hit the interstate. At our respective ages who would be surprised? St. Joseph is also the one that encourages the faithful to attend these events and you have seen first hand what his handiwork does in that respect. Each time we present at a church of St Joseph we offer it in thanks to him for his patronage and care.

St. Joseph always makes his participation with us known. It so happened that our first event here in Utah was at St. Joseph’s Church in Ogden. Not only that, the name of the priest that presided over the event was, you guessed it, Father Joseph, the Parochial Vicar for the parish. This church, unlike many of the churches we visit out west, is a very traditional church with a beautiful sanctuary and stained glass windows. Since that architecture is consistent with most of the churches we have our east, it was like coming into one of our home town churches. The size of the church gave us plenty of room to display all 8 of our backdrops, something we can do in only a few churches we visit.

There were exceptionally wide sidewalks in the front of the church so we made a decision to park on the sidewalk right up close to the handicap ramp to make our offloading easy. We were met by one of the local knights and a state officer that helped us unload. Even Father Joseph, a very young priest, helped us to set everything up.

We did the program in Spanish and English and Father Joseph did the standard prayers as well as the “Call from the Crucified Heart” which provides thoughts from Jesus from various scenes in the Passion. The faithful in attendance seemed to have been very touched. There was a sizable crowd and veneration went on for quite some time. That always tells me that the people really take the time to engage in prayer with Jesus using each relic in logical succession along the way to Calvary and beyond.

We are very thankful to St. Joseph for leading us to yet another parish of faith filled individuals seeking to deepen their relationship with Jesus and His Mother in His Passion.  We know this event will set the tone for all the ensuing presentations we do here in Utah.