4th Sunday of Lent

by Fr. John Granato  |  03/15/2026  |  Words from Fr. John

My Dear Friends,

We are more than halfway through Lent, approaching Easter Sunday. W ithin the Lenten season, we have two solemnities in our liturgical calendar, St. Joseph and the Annunciation. These two solemnities, in other countries, are holy days of obligation. In the United States, they are not holy days of obligation. But these two solemnities are very important. St. Joseph said yes to the Father in taking Mary, who conceived by the Holy Spirit, into his home and become the foster father of Jesus.

He is the patron saint of the Catholic Church and the patron saint of our own Archdiocese of Hartford. His feast day is on March 19th. The Annunciation is also very important because it is the beginning of the incarnation. Life begins at conception in the womb, so Jesus became human at the moment of Mary ’s answer to the angel Gabriel that she would be the mother of our Savior, the Son of David. In society today where many people believe that a human being does not exist until birth, or at the very least in the last couple of months of pregnancy, Catholics are encouraged to truly celebrate this feast day for it is the antidote to the destruction of life that truly does begin at conception. This feast is celebrated on March 25th, a full nine months before the birth of our Savior on Christmas day. This year the Annunciation falls on a Wednesday, so we already have this Mass on the schedule. But March 19th is a Thursday, which is my day off and the day when we do not have a parish Mass. Because St. Joseph is so important, I do have a Mass scheduled on Thursday this week at 12:10 pm in Immaculate Conception Church in New Hartford. St. Joseph, pray for us. God bless