With every visit, the Shrine of St. Joseph invites Carlos Garcia to pray and reflect on his life. Nestled in Watchung Mountains, the shrine is blessed with a lush landscape and devotional sites, such as chapels and grottos, that help this Morristown Catholic “find God’s peace and time for reflection.”
Everyone from the Paterson Diocese is invited to a special event on Saturday, May 31, that mixes that bucolic spirituality with joyful family fun: a pilgrimage and a Jubilee Family Fest at St. Joseph’s in the Stirling neighborhood of Long Hill Township. Families and others will enjoy a lively afternoon of faith, food, fun, and service. It’s one of the diocese’s many events for the Jubilee of Hope 2025, which the Universal Church celebrates.
“Families are a gift. We all come from families. The Jubilee Family Fest will give families, including grandparents and friends, an opportunity to spend time together in a prayerful and fun way,” said Eni Honsberger, director of the diocesan Family Life Office, who is co-coordinating the event, parochial vicar of Holy Family Parish in Florham Park and diocesan vocations assistant director.
Run by the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity, St. Joseph’s has experienced an uptick in the number of individuals and groups visiting its 43-acre campus this year. The shrine is one of five designated holy sites in the diocese, where the faithful can pilgrimage this Jubilee year. The May 31 Jubilee Family Fest will be the second of five diocesan pilgrimages, one to each local holy site. The pilgrimages enable the faithful to receive an indulgence, a special holy year blessing. For more information, visit https://rcdop.org/designated-jubilee-sites.
On May 31, Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney will lead a 1-mile procession at noon from St. Vincent de Paul Parish, also in Stirling, to St. Joseph’s. The Jubilee Family Fest will start at 1:30 p.m.
The day will offer fun for parents and children, including face painting and Jubilee-themed crafts. Food trucks will have food for purchase. Complimentary snacks and water also will be available. Families could choose to picnic on the grounds.
A Catholic activity, the Jubilee Family Fest will have Stations of the Cross, adoration, Family Rosary, and opportunities for confession. At a Vocations Tent, diocesan and religious priests and religious sisters will speak about the beauty of their vocations. Bishop Sweeney and concelebrating priests will close the event with a Mass at 4 p.m. Most devotional activities will be in English and Spanish with some also in Polish and Tagalog.
The Jubilee Family Fest will offer service opportunities for families. They could assemble kits with items for women in need through the Passaic Neighborhood Center for Women. Partnering with diocesan Catholic Charities, attendees will have the opportunity to serve the communities of the Department for Persons with Disabilities. They could engage and play games with people with developmental disabilities in attendance who are clients of the Department for Persons with Disabilities, part of diocesan Catholic Charities.
Jubilee Family Fest visitors can pray at St. Joseph’s, which has devotional sites, such as the main chapel with floor-to-ceiling windows that view the mountains and the Oratory of St. Joseph with a nine-by-eight-foot mosaic of the saint’s life. The campus has a Tower of Remembrance made of beams from the World Trade Center. The shrine offers daily Mass, adoration, and confession but finds an increase in faithful on Saturdays. For more information, visit https://www.shrineofsaintjoseph.com.
“St. Joseph’s Shrine has a beautiful and peaceful environment with nature and many sacred spaces, such as Stations of the Cross and statues. They invite me to prayer — sometimes silent prayer — and inner reflection,” said Garcia. He recently helped coordinate a Jubilee pilgrimage for his parish, St. Margaret of Scotland in Morristown, to St. Joseph’s.
Father Christopher Barkhausen, pastor of St. Francis de Sales Parish in Vernon, identified the Jubilee holy sites that Bishop Sweeney approved. He said the holy sites give local faithful who are unable to walk through the Holy Doors in Rome an opportunity to participate in the holy year.
“Making a pilgrimage to these sites is a journey of faith physically and spiritually. We grow closer to God as pilgrims of hope. It’s a way to enter into that hope in Christ,” Father Barkhausen said.
Register for the Jubilee Family Fest at https://insidethewalls.org/jubilee-family-fest. The event is free, but donations are appreciated.
