This weekend we celebrate Corpus Christi.  We also here at St Joe celebrate our 150th.  It was 150 years ago in 1868, almost to the day, that Mass was offered here on this property on Broadway by a Fr. John Gillig.  Fr Gillig was the pastor of St Vincent, but he was the one who had come over and found this plot of land when there was no more room at SV.

The people of the parish built this place–first a smaller church, which is now the rectory, and then this beautiful mother of a church.

They broke their backs building this place, they spent every penny, they bled and sweat for this place.

And why??

For the Eucharist.

They wanted Corpus Christi, they wanted the Body and Blood of Jesus more than anything….for themselves and their descendants

Not so different a story than we hear a slice of in our first reading, about how Moses “erected at the foot of the mountain an altar and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel….”

We follow those ancestors of ours.  Their dedication…it was something wild. It spurred them on to do amazing things, build amazing buildings, plant deep roots

May our dedication, our love of the Eucharist mirror theirs…..and may that secure our next 150 years