Shrine of St. Joseph the Worker Hosts Jesus aCross the Border

By Fr. Eugene J. Tremblay, OMI, Photos by Danny Battis

With the start of the new academic year and the opening of the Fall semester, the extended grouping of young adults known as ” Jesus aCross the Border” has resumed its monthly gatherings (3^rd Friday). On September 21, 2018, the Shrine of St. Joseph the Worker in Lowell, Massachusetts played host to the group.

St. Joseph the Worker Shrine in some respects serves as the unofficial “home base” for these faith-filled young people whose membership extends across parish and even state lines.  The solidarity manifested in these cross-boundary gatherings – whose hosting alternates among the various area parishes – serves to encourage all participants in their quest to deepen their comradery as young adult Catholics and thereby deepen their spiritual lives.

Under the leadership of founder Billy Beauchesne and his able assistants, the September meeting nearly 100 young people for an evening of prayer, music, adoration, Reconciliation and Eucharist, concluding with purely social festivities that lasted into the late evening.

Oblates on the Shrine staff along with other area clergy made themselves available for Reconciliation and participated in some of the liturgical components of the evening – Fr. Steve Conserva, OMI presided and preached at the evening’s Eucharistic celebration.