Sacraments
For all sacramental information, and to obtain records, please contact Lorene Coughlin in the Parish Office at 440-653-5615 or music@stjosephavonlake.org.
Baptism
Through water and the word you have become a child of God and are sealed as Christ’s own forever.
​
If you would like to have your child Baptized here at Saint Joseph's Parish, please contact Lorrie at Music@stjosephavonlake.org, or by calling the Parish Office at (440) 653.5615.
It is a requirement that the parents of the child being baptized attend a baptism meeting. There are many to choose from around the area. The schedule for classes is listed below.
Please call the parish office of the church hosting for that month to register.
Reconciliation
The sacrament of Reconciliation is also known as Penance and Confession, among other names. Although often called Reconciliation in common usage, the term “penance” best describes the essential interior disposition required for this sacrament.
​
In fact, there is a virtue of penance. This is a supernatural virtue by which we are moved to detest our sins from a motive made known by faith, and with an accompanying purpose of offending God no more and of making satisfaction for our sins. In this sense the word “penance” is synonymous with “penitence” or “repentance.”
​
Before the time of Christ the virtue of penance was the only means by which people’s sins could be forgiven. Even today, for those outside the Church in good faith, not possessing the sacrament of Penance, it is the only means for forgiveness of sins.
Holy Communion
In its most basic terms, Catholics receive the really-present Christ in Communion so that they may be Christ in the world.
​
Catholics believe that when one consumes the Eucharist, one is incorporated into Christ and becomes bonded to others who are also part of the body of Christ on Earth. It is not simply a matter of individual belief, but of Church unity and the mission of being Christ in the world.
​
To set oneself outside of the practice of Communion – or to be set outside by another – is to be apart from the very practice that incorporates one into the body of Christ.
Confirmation
We view confirmation as a sacrament instituted by Jesus Christ. It confers the gifts of the Holy Spirit (wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord) upon the recipient, who must be a baptized person at least seven years old.
A bishop normally performs the rite, which includes the laying on of hands and anointing the forehead with chrism (holy oil).
Marriage
Sacred Scripture and the teaching of the Church confirm these truths about marriage and deepen them. Genesis 1:27 shows us that the human person’s complementarity as male and female reflects the image of God.
A man “leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh” (Gn 2:23). The man joyfully recognizes the woman as “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (Gn 2:23). God blesses the man and woman and commands them to “be fertile and multiply” (Gn 1:28).
Jesus echoes these teachings from Genesis when he stated: “…from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and said, ‘[f ]or this reason a man shall leave … and the two shall become one flesh” (Matt. 19: 4,5).
Anointing of the Sick
When the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick is given, the hoped-for effect is that, if it be God's will, the person be physically healed of illness.
But even if there is no physical healing, the primary effect of the Sacrament is a spiritual healing by which the sick person receives the Holy Spirit's gift of peace and courage to deal with the difficulties that accompany serious illness or the frailty of old age.