Pastoral Council Goal:

St. Joseph Parish,

through evangelizing efforts

and enthusiastic spirit,

shall proclaim hospitality

in attitude, environment, and action.

Hospitality

The basic reason Catholic Christians are called to extend hospitality is that it is an expression of love.

• Hospitality is first an attitude, the attitude of servant, the attitude of foot washer.

• Hospitality is also an environment. It involves creating a warm, welcoming space for people.

• Hospitality is an action — the willingness to be open, receptive and responsive to people — to reach beyond ourselves: beyond our fears and stereotypes.

Hospitality includes a welcoming spirit at liturgy that is carried into the broader community.

Hospitality is more than just shaking hands before Sunday liturgy. It is to be a way of life for each of us.

Hospitality is the least expensive gift we can give to parish life.

The cost is our time, our energy, our self and our response to the grace of conversion.

Hospitality is everyone’s responsibility.

If we each give of our self, we can help others to feel they belong and are at home in our parish.

When hospitality permeates the whole of parish life, we become a welcoming community.

• We develop a sense of mission characterized by an attitude of being hospitable in all that we do.

• We evolve into a community which invites all people to hear the message of salvation in Jesus Christ.

• We serve the Body of Christ when we extend ourselves to our brothers and sisters in love and generous self-giving.

A welcoming community is the heart of an evangelizing parish. If and when hospitality is authentic, dynamic and vibrant in our parishes, we are better able to extend ourselves in welcome to those who join us at Eucharist, and to those who feel alienated, marginal and unwelcome. Ultimately, hospitality and mutual respect are catalysts for the conversion and transformation of our culture and global society.