A Tribute to Mother Mary - May 2011

Pasasalamat Sa Mahal Na Birhen Maria

Every month of May we honor our Blessed Virgin Mary. It is our humble way of expressing our gratitude for her constant intercession for our community. Last year, our Santacruzan came with grace and beauty as we line up the procession of sagala. The image of Mother Mary was so impressive with beautiful flowers surrounded her float. We end up the acitivty for the evening by offering flowers for to our Lady.

This year, we don't have the sagala since our attention was focus on our fund raising for the concreting of the congregation area of St. Joseph the Worker Church - "Give Me Five, Sagot ko Semento ng Simbahan ko!".

But we did not forget our Blessed Mother. We attribute the roof of our church through her intercession. We remember, when we signed the contract for the roof last September 8, 2010 (the birthday of Mother Mary) and completed the roof on the Feast of Immaculate Conception (December 8, 2010). Our community - the St. Joseph the Community early years is attributed and founded by our common devotion to the Mother of God.

On May 28, 2011, the last Saturday of the month, we are inviting everyone to honor our Blessed Virgin Mary in our community. The Schedule will be as follows;

5:30 p.m. Procession of the Image of Mother Mary.

6:30 p.m. Floral Offering and Coronation of Mary

7:00 p.m. Thanksgiving Mass

We encourage everybody to join this tribute to our Lady - "Pasasalamat Sa Mahal na Birhen Maria". Please bring your rosary, a candle and flowers to offer.

Mother Mary, Pray for Us.

Give Me Five

We have launched last April 24, 2011 the next fund raising campaign for the St. Joseph the Worker Church - "Give Me Five Sagot Ko Semento ng Simbahan Ko".

We are at the stage of concreting the congregation area of St. Joseph the Worker Church. We encourage once again everyone to participate in this endeavor. As we have done in the previous construction developments in St. Joseph the Worker Church, the participation of the faithful is important. The cost estimates for this stage which is the based preparation and concreting of the congregation area is P250,000 for an area of 460 sq meters. This is where we derive the P500 per square meter. We ask 250 families to be generous to us.

We are now accepting the pledges every Saturday and Sunday at the basement of St. Joseph the Worker Church from 9:00a.m. to 11a.m and 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Please ask for a receipt for your donations.

Photo Essay of May 1, 2011 Celebrations in SJWC

Pictures Taken on May 1, 2011 Celebrations

Briefing our City Mayor Hon. Danilo Leyble together with

his beloved wife Atty. Carmencita Leyble, how we are slowly building

St. Joseph the Worker Church.

Preparing of our Traditional Petiton Baloons for St. Joseph the Worker

Releasing our Petition Baloons after our Prayers

to St. Joseph the Worker

Our Holy Mass Celebration

The faithful joined the celebration of Feast of Divine Mercy,

also the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, our patron saint.

The Holy Eucharist is well attended

Young Volunteers of St. Joseph with our Parish Priest

Fr. Alfredo "Jhun" Meneses, Jr.

Our parish priest could be easily mistaken as one

of our young volunteers.

Partner Builder of St. Joseph the Worker Church

The Procession in the Afternoon

The Knights of Altar led the procession

Returning to St. Joseph the Worker Church

for our final prayer in the evening.

We thank all our benefactors and sponsors.

We also would like to thank Mayor Danilo Leyble together and his wife

Atty. Mechie Leyble for their generosity and support.

Happy Fiesta!

A Day of Mercy and A Day of Joyful Celebration

With the Joy of Easter in our hearts, we celebrated three important occasions in our community. First, the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, which is designated on May 1. This date also happened to be the second Sunday of Easter, which is the feast of Divine Mercy (this particular feast takes precedence of any other feast as required in our liturgical celebrations). And on that same Sunday, was the beatification of the late Pope John Paul II in Rome.

Before, the celebration on May 1, 2011, we were permitted to have a Triduum Mass in honor of our patron saint St. Joseph the Worker. We thank Fr. Clifford, Fr. Pheng Reyes, MJ and Fr. Freddie Dulay, MJ who presided over our Triduum Mass.

And on May 1, 2011, we used the liturgical readings of the feast of Divine Mercy, but before the Holy Mass, we recited the prayer to St. Joseph the Worker followed by the releasing of petitions balloons. We also asked the intercession of Blessed Pope John Paul II.

We thank Fr. Alfredo “Jhun” Meneses, Jr., who presided over the Holy Mass at 7:30 a.m. He is also the new parish priest of San Antonio de Padua Parish, in which our community belongs.

Hon. Mayor Danilo “Nilo” Leyble and his wife Atty. Carmencita “Mechie” Leyble also joined us in our celebration. We thank Mayor Nilo Leyble for gracing our festivities and for becoming a partner builder of St. Joseph the Worker Church.

Truly, May 1, 2011 became a Day of Mercy and A Day of Joyful Celebration for all of us.

TO CONTINUE WHAT WE STARTED...

After several meeting with St. Joseph the Worker Community on how to raise fund and continue the next stage of our construction - Phase 5 that is Slab-on-grade and exterior wall, several fund raising were proposed. But again as we study... It is either we can't find volunteers to handle the project or lack the time to proceed because of the proximity of the feast of St. Joseph the Worker on May 1.

Discerning on how to continue...we revived the pledges, otherwise known as the Brown Envelope. We had gone through the most expensive stage so far (the roofing). We are confident that our community will respond to our call To continue what we started... through the intercession of Blessed Mother Mary and our Patron - St. Joseph the Worker.

Every Pledge Matters...

painting by Guido Reni

St. Joseph, Pray for Us...

A New Parish Priest for Us

Last February 7, 2011 was the arrival of the new parish priest of San Antonio de Padua Parish which St. Joseph the Worker Community belongs. He is Rev. Fr. Alfredo "Jun" E. Meneses, Jr. His previous assignment was in Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Navotas, Cardona, Rizal. We are very happy to welcome this young & vibrant priest in our community. We hope to invite him soon in our community for a briefing about St. Joseph the Worker Community. Our community has its first encounter with Fr. Jun when he presided in our Holy Mass on March 13, 2011.

During the initial meeting of the coordinators of the different communities under San Antonio de Padua Parish with Fr. Jun, we are called for unity in the parish.. "to think, to worship and act as one parish".... Welcome po Fr. Jun.

We would also like to thank Rev. Fr. Nolly C. Buco,JCD, our outgoing parish priest, for Shepherding our parish from its transition from being with the SVD to our diocesan priest. Salamat po, Fr. Nolly.

Gift Giving 2010

Roofing of St. Joseph the Worker Church

The Advent in SJWC

In this season of advent, we are called to patiently wait and prepare ourselves... this virtue of patientlty waiting and preparing became more significant in our community....while building a place of worship we call - St. Joseph the Worker Church.

As we have said it before, it took us awhile to gather enough funds for our trusses. And in God's timing... we started the construction last September 8, 2010 with the signing of the contract. We only have enough funds for the trusses. In fact, it is specifically indicated in the contract that after the completion of the trusses, the contractor will put the temporary roofs we had been using for awhile. It is also stipulated that the contractor will apply a metal primer to protect the trusses for long exposure without the roof panels. This safeguard is necessary because of the limited funds we have....indeed we don't have enough to complete the 4th phase (the complete roofing stage) of the construction.

But the waiting has finally paid off...not only the trusses was now in place but also the roof panels....we have completed the roofing stage... we attribute this thru the intercession of St. Joseph the Worker and our Blessed Mother Mary... This is God's way and timing.... all we need to do.. is to patiently wait and hope....trusting in God's ways and timing....we only hoped for the trusses but He gave us to include the roof panels by opening the hearts of the faithfuls to be generous once again....

And in this advent.. we are preparing the place where our Lord Jesus will dwell... the place we call - St. Joseph the Worker Church.

We are about to finish the Roofing Stage

Finally, The Steel Trusses is in place. Our gratitude to all who have been very generous in our effort to build St. Joseph the Worker Church. It took us three (3) years putting up funds for this stage of the construction development. The most expensive indeed in our stage of construction (Php 2.573M).

We could still remember when we first asked for estimates for the steel trusses of the church. We all wonder how could we put up such a huge cost for the trusses. We took a second look at our financials and think of other alternative ways to augment funds for the construction.

Eventually, we realized that this is a place of worship.. a House of God.. we just have to do what we are supposed to do...and leave the rest to God's providence...besides, we have St. Joseph..the patron of our community.. lest we forget that he is a carpenter by profession... We know that St. Joseph will not let us down and will continue to intercede for us.

We went through a lot of fund raising... The Decorate the Christmas Tree for several Advent and Christmas seasons, An Evening of Music for St. Joseph Concert at the Cathedral, The Php 20 para sa Bubong ng Simbahan....our Brown Envelop Pledges offered in the Holy Mass, the District Sponsorships Every Sunday and the most recent Mutya ng Robinsons 2010. We looked back at the effort and perserverance of St. Joseph the Worker Community.... we can now say.. its all worth it.

Our experiences in the past.... in building a church, made as grow spiritually too, the encouragement we received from churchgoers ... the generosity of the faithful ... our shortcomings ......even the negative remarks we received from those who doubted our intentions and the capacity of the faithfuls to build a beautiful place of worship..... made us more mature in our endeavor... constantly asking our God for guidance and wisdom... realizing, our journey will not always be a smooth sailing we need always God's blessing....

We could still remember Fr. Joel of the Missionaries of Jesus,...telling us that we are not just building a physical structure of the church...that we should also commit ourselves in building a community of faithfulls...That's the reason for our several activities... like the Gift Giving, Mass for the Elderly and the Sick, Praying for the souls of those who passed away in our community... and our promotion of the devotion to Mother Mary or Block Rosary... and of course our on-going formation like our recent Advent Recollection.

Fr. Dom of the Order of Franciscan Minor (OFM).. reminds us of the abundance of God's love for all of us....that we should be an instrument of God's abundance .....we continue our journey.. in building a church and a community of faithfulls... with perserverance and a pure heart....

1sang Libong Pamilya Para Sa Yero ng Simbahan!

The roof frame (SteelTrusses) of St. Joseph the Worker is about 80% complete. We thank everybody who in one way or another contributed for the trusses to be put up. As we have said before, this is the most expensive stage of the construction and it drained our fund.

The next stage is the installation of Roof Panels (Long Span). We ask formal quotation from a steel company fabricating roof panels so that we can determine the cost. The Roof Panels was estimated to be P600,000. We immediately convene how to finance the cost. We again consulted people from our christian community about these things. After much deliberation, we have decided to approach individuals within our community to finance (as loan) the installation of roof panels of our church due to the urgency of the situation.

We launch the 1sang Libong Pamilya who will pledge P600.00 pesos to put up the P600,000 for paying these individuals who will finance our roof panels.

Our initial launching last week is very encouraging so far...we have almost 100 families donated or pledge to donate for our Roof Panels...

We also wrote letters to persons outside our community to solicit for the roof panels of St. Joseph the Worker Church. Whatever donations from this will be used to pay for our loan for the Roof Panels of the place of worship we call St. Joseph the Worker Church.

With the grace of God and the intercession of St. Joseph, we hope to have completed the roof before Christmas Time... we hope this to be the gift of our christian community to the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Photos - Activities at SJWC

Our Sunday Mass is temporarily held at the Basketball Covered Court

Fr. Rhing

Working with a Smile in the Vineyard of the Lord

We held our regular Sunday Mass at the Basketball Covered Court for several weeks now because of the on-going construction of the roof frame or trusses of the St. Joseph the Worker Church.

I would like to thank the members of St. Joseph of the Worker Community who volunteered to prepare the basketball court so that we have a clean and orderly celebration of the Holy Eucharist. They wake up as early as five in the morning to prepare everything from cleaning the area, preparing the chairs, bringing-in the sound system, the altar table, linens and the sacred vessels.

Again, after the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, they have to carry out everything they prepared for the Holy Mass for safe keeping. They are the first to be there and last to come home. These are the people who works in the background and sometimes unnoticed without complaining...... working with joy in their hearts and smile in their faces in the vineyard of the Lord.

Constructing the Roof Frame (Trusses)

Dismantling of Temporary Roofing of SJWC

The construction of our Trusses of St. Joseph the Worker church actually started last September 13, 2010 (Monday) and so far we are on schedule on the construction. If God permits, we will finish the Main Trusses of the church in the early weeks November 2010.

We held our regular meeting at the basement of SJWC (The Carpenter's Shop) on how to finance the second stage of roofing.... that is the acquisition of roof panels (long span) and installation of the same.

The Signing of Contract for the Trusses of SJWC

Fr. Nolly C. Buco, JCD - Parish Priest

of San Antonio De Padua Parish

Mr. Danilo Leyva Columa, The Contractor

Discussing the details of the Contract

Fr. Alex

devotees outside the carpenter's shop

The Carpenter’s Shop

Liturgical Services in St. Joseph the Worker Community continues while the construction of the roof trusses is on-going. Yesterday (Sept 15, 2010) the novena to our Lady of Perpetual Help was held in a room at the basement of St. Joseph the Worker Church. It was the first time we held our Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help including the celebration of the Holy Mass. Fr. Alex of PACEM presided over our first Holy Mass in the basement. We shall be gathering again this Friday in the same place for our Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The room at the basement of St. Joseph the Worker Church was a multi-purpose room where we hold our regular meetings and it also where we received our visitors during important occasions in our community. But for now, it will be used for our novenas and devotions. One member suggested that we give a name to this room. I suggested that since St. Joseph is known as a carpenter from Nazareth, we shall call it “The Carpenter’s Shop”.

This coming Sunday because of the volume of faithful going to the Holy Mass, it will not be held at the Carpenter’s Shop. Instead it will be held at the Basketball Court. We thank the officers of our subdivision for allowing us to use the basketball court temporarily every Sunday until the completion of the roof trusses of St. Joseph the Worker Church and hopefully, the roofing.