Newsletter: April 2026
Dear Friends of Joseph House:
When we love someone, what is important to that person becomes important to us. The same is true if we love God; His concerns must be ours, too. Scripture is clear about what is close to God’s heart: justice, truth, mercy, peace, and above all, love for everyone—the little and the great, the saint and the sinner. God’s love excludes no one.
God doesn’t exactly play favorites, but there are people who have a special claim to God’s heart, and they are the poor. Scripture gives ample testimony to this. Take Psalm 72, for example: “For God rescues the poor when they cry out, the oppressed who have no one to help. He shows pity to the needy.”
And when Jesus began his ministry, he chose this passage from Isaiah as his mission statement: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord” (Lk 4:18-19; cf Is 61:1-2).
Our work at the Joseph House is to follow God’s lead. We love the poor “in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18). As indicated by its name, our goal at our Crisis Center is to relieve the urgency of a crisis. The face of the crisis, so to speak, is typically the lack of something material, such as food, rent money, electricity, heat, etc. But poverty is more than that. It can be loneliness and isolation, feeling fragile and disempowered, a lack of opportunity, a sense of hopelessness. People are complex and multi-faceted; there is never just one issue involved in a crisis.
Although we can’t address every issue equally, we and our volunteers do our best to make a connection with each person—and that’s a start. The human element has always been essential to our ministry. Its power can never be underestimated. Going through a crisis is frightening, whether it’s teetering on the edge of homelessness or not having enough food to feed your family. When people know they are not alone, that can make all the difference. “Do not be afraid, I am with you” is repeated throughout the Bible. That’s what people need to hear. That’s how we make God’s love present in the here and now to someone in need.
Thank you for your generous support of the Joseph House. By sharing your love so freely, you offer hope to people who need it most. And as you can see from the following stories, you are doing God’s work.
Justine, 71, is battling cancer. She has had surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatments. With her precarious health, one would hope she would not have to worry about affording her prescription medication, but that is not the case. Her monthly rent takes the lion’s share of her Social Security, and the remaining dollars must be divided among the electric bill, water, food, and insurance. Precious little is left for her medication. Justine was very worried because she had no money at all to buy her blood thinners, a critically important prescription. One of our volunteers called a local pharmacy and made arrangements for the Joseph House to pay for several weeks’ worth for Justine.
Amanda, 31, has spent the past year sacrificing her own finances to care for her ailing mother. She lost two jobs because of her devotion. Between her Unemployment benefits and a few hours of daycare work, her monthly income is only $560. Amanda has three children of her own. She is trying to piece together what she can to pay the back rent and avoid an eviction. A tax refund and selling her car will help, but they will not be enough.
“She needs a bridge right now,” said our volunteer who spoke with Amanda. A bridge to take her from calamity to a place where she can find her footing again. The Joseph House made a payment toward the back rent to help Amanda reach that place.
Charlie, 72, came to our Crisis Center seeking help paying his electric bill. He didn’t know why the bill was so high; maybe, he offered, there’s something wrong with the HVAC system of his home. If there was, he couldn’t do anything about it.
We are so grateful that our volunteers take their time with each person. The volunteer who worked with Charlie contacted an HVAC specialist and scheduled an inspection of Charlie’s home. It was determined that there was a problem with the ducts underneath the house. The Joseph House paid for the repairs and also made a payment toward the overdue electric bill to prevent a cut-off.
Jessie, 75 and a veteran, has been homeless for the past year. He’s found shelter in motels and some nights in a friend’s car. Jessie was married for 56 years until his wife passed away in 2018. His own health is not good; he’s had five strokes and has blood clots in his legs. Even so, he talks about going back to work. Jessie finally found an affordable apartment, but before moving in he needed to pay the first month’s rent. To get to our Crisis Center, his last hope, he took a bus at 4 a.m. from another town. The Joseph House made arrangements to pay the rent and get Jessie into stable housing.
Becky, 87, came to our Crisis Center the day before her electricity was going to be cut off. Fortunately, we act quickly and took care of the bill. Becky is a smart and capable lady, but she has vision problems that make reading and filling out forms difficult for her. We got her lined up with the right resources to get vision help, SNAP benefits (food stamps) and Meals on Wheels.
We know we’re not alone in welcoming spring this year with extra enthusiasm. Every season has its own beauty, but the storms from this past winter hit hard with an abundance of cold, snow, ice, and wind. They were more than wearisome; they created hardships and dangerous conditions for many people.
But spring follows winter—every time—and what a glorious sign of hope it is! The flowers are blooming, the grass is green, and the trees have their leafy branches once again. We cling to hope. It gives us the strength to believe that better days are ahead, that the Good News is breaking forth, too.
The Easter Season is a wonderful time to recapture this feeling of new life. Our prayers are with you as we journey through these grace-filled weeks.
Your Little Sisters of Jesus and Mary
Prayer Requests: Send us your special intentions and the Little Sisters will pray for you: Contact Form.
Donations: Your contribution will help people in need: Donate.
In the Ancient Near East, it was customary for kings to style themselves shepherds of their people. This was an image of their power, a cynical image: to them their subjects were like sheep, which the shepherd could dispose of as he wished.
When the shepherd of all humanity, the living God, himself became a lamb, he stood on the side of the lambs, with those who are downtrodden and killed. This is how he reveals himself to be the true shepherd: “I am the Good Shepherd . . . I lay down my life for the sheep,” Jesus says of himself (Jn 10:14f).
It is not power, but love that redeems us! This is God’s sign: he himself is love. How often we wish that God would show himself stronger, that he would strike decisively, defeating evil and creating a better world. All ideologies of power justify themselves in exactly this way, they justify the destruction of whatever would stand in the way of progress and the liberation of humanity. We suffer on account of God’s patience.
And yet, we need his patience. God, who became a lamb, tells us that the world is saved by the Crucified One, not by those who crucified him. The world is redeemed by the patience of God. It is destroyed by the impatience of man.
Pope Benedict XVI
Inaugural homily
24 April 2005
The primary purpose of this special commitment to the poor is to enable them to become active participants in the life of society. It is to enable all persons to share in and contribute to the common good. The “option for the poor,” therefore, is not an adversarial slogan that pits one group or class against another.
Rather it states that the deprivation and powerlessness of the poor wounds the whole community. The extent of their suffering is a measure of how far we are from being a true community of persons. These wounds will be healed only by greater solidarity with the poor and among the poor themselves.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Economic Justice for All
1986