St. Joseph Cathedral wil celebrate the final holiday of the Christmas season with the 'Feast of the Presentation of the Lord' this weekend, Febryary 1 and 2, 2025. Fr Bani will bless the candles used in our historic church throughout the year,  and parishioners are invited to bring your candles from home to receive a special blessing at mass.

Candlemas, also known as the Feast of Light and Hope, is an ancient feast that has developed over the centuries. In the early Church’s liturgy. 

On February 2, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, forty days after Christmas. In the 1962 calendar the feast is called the “Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary” and commonly referred to as Candlemas. When this feats falls on a Sunday the General Norms of the Liturgical Year and Calendar specifies that Feasts of Our Lord that fall in the General Roman Calendar take precedence over the Sundays in Ordinary Time, so this feast would be celebrated instead of the Sunday in Ordinary Time..

This is considered a “Christmas feast,” even though it is not part of the Christmas season. This the last feast of the liturgical calendar that we commemorate Christ still as an infant child.

Choir Returns!

The Cathedral Choir returns for this mass and will sing selections composed by Bach, Handel, Howells and Latona.