CFF Pancake Breakfast 2018
Join us for an Advent breakfast & wreath making
Alternative Bazaar
Each year, just as the holiday season starts, St. Joseph Parish offers a fantastic opportunity to get a head-start on your Christmas shopping - while at the same time supporting local and global non-profits and artisans from around the world. The Alternative Bazaar has evolved and grown through the years and now includes beautiful, handcrafted items from international groups like Snow Leopard Trust, handmade Christmas decorations from local communities, such as Christmas wreaths benefiting St. Edward School, and gifts made by individuals from our Outreach Partners, including Chief Seattle Club and Jubilee Women's Center. Buying a gift from the Alternative Bazaar helps global and local non-profits, empowers artisans as entrepreneurs, and builds our authentic companionship as a community of compassionate care. Alternative Bazaar 2018 This year's St. Joseph's Alternative Bazaar takes place on Sunday, November 18 from 10 am-1 pm. Like year's past, it will feature beautiful, handcrafted items from dozens of countries, and organizations around the world - all to support disadvantaged artisans overseas and in the U.S. The artisans and vendors with us are Fair Trade Certified and 100% of sales proceeds support the sponsoring organization. Participating organizations include L'Arche, Chief Seattle Club, Association of Catholic Childhood, Monroe Prison Quilting Project, Ten Thousand Villages, and many more. Please mark your calendar for November 18 and join us. For more info please contact Deacon Steve or stevew@ or call 206-965-1646.
Liturgy Survey
Thank you in advance for participating in this evaluation. It should take about 10 minutes. This survey is designed to assist the pastor and parish staff in understanding the aspects of liturgy that support parishioners in full, active conscious participation in the liturgy. We want to know what elements of how we celebrate Mass together help deepen your experience of worship and/or your engagement in the community. We also want to hear from you about elements of our worship together that take away from your experience, that you have questions about and/or that you find distracting. In undertaking this survey, we acknowledge that we are a diverse community. What may be inspiring for some people, may be distracting for others. Our intention is to use this feedback to affirm those things which deepen our community worship experience. We also want to determine whether there are elements of how we worship that might benefit from some changes. The parish Liturgy & Worship Commission will meet in December to study the results and will share these results in an executive summary after the New Year.
Annual Stewardship Appeal
To make a gift to our annual stewardship fund, please give here. Thank you for your generosity and support of the mission of St. Joseph Parish. To view the annual report, click here. To affirm your membership with a pledge of prayers, click here.
Welcome to St. Joseph Parish
the Jesuit Parish in Seattle
Dear Companions & Friends, Peace of Christ!
Whenever the early Jesuits would enter a new town, they would look for the busiest corner, and there they would set up shop. Unlike older, monastic orders, they did not seek mountaintops or secluded alcoves to set themselves aside in prayer; rather, these followers of Ignatius sought crossroads, believing that here—amid the hustle and bustle of ordinary life, amid the glorious racket of God’s creatures—the surprising grace of God was most truly to be found.
St. Joseph Parish, in the spirit of those first Jesuits, likewise seeks to live at the crossroads: at those points where the hum and buzz of the world meets the quiet of the Spirit, where the awesome beauty of liturgical worship encounters the chaotic longings of the young, where the pain of war and poverty are met by the compassion and love of a diverse community. A communion of opposites, the living Church at St. Joseph seeks to engage the world in the dialogue of Christ, and to live faithfully the call of our brother Jesuit, Pope Francis, who asks us to “come out of ourselves in order to go to meet others, to go toward the outskirts of existence, to be the first to take a step toward our brothers and sisters, especially those who are the most distant, those who are forgotten, those who are most in need of understanding, comfort, and help.”
In our Mission Statement, “Ignited by the Eucharist to love and serve,” St. Joseph declares that we are women and men on fire through the presence of Christ in our midst, and committed to follow Christ in the active love and personal service of all of our sisters and brothers. Coming from various places and traditions, from a variety of social, economic, and political backgrounds, we have found our way to this crossroads, to this place of God’s Holy Spirit. Some come seeking greater depth in their life of prayer; some, greater understanding of the faith they profess; some desire a values-based education for their children; some, a place of beauty and respite in a difficult world; some seek to do justice with others; some do not yet know what they seek, but come from habit, or tradition, or an inchoate longing in their heart. Yet, all who come with hope, are touched by the grace of the One who loved us first.
Placed on the crossroads through its history and its people, St. Joseph Parish welcomes every pilgrim and passerby, every sinner and everyone longing for sanctity. Whether you come to us for a while or abide with us for a lifetime, whether you explore us on the web or stand with us at the table of Eucharist, we welcome you, and bless you, and open our door to you, for the greater glory of God.
Yours in the Lord,
John D. Whitney, S.J.
Pastor
