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Introduction to Joshua[1]
Hail the conquering hero! Beowulf,
Alexander the
Great, Xerxes, Romulans, Marcus Aurelius, Hannibal, Caesar the Ape... okay,
we'll stop here. Needless to say (but you know we're going to anyway),
the world is full of conquering heroes. Did you know the Bible has one, too?
His name is Joshua. Written in Hebrew during the late 7th century BCE, the Book
of Joshua is the first recorded text of the Bible and kicks off what
is known as the Historical Books. This doesn't mean that everything is to be
taken literally (like our jokes). History was originally meant to teach a
community about how to be good citizens and way less concerned with historical
accuracy. The Book of Joshua, which reads like a game of Risk, tells the
tale of a man named Joshua (didn't see that one coming) and his conquest of the
land of Canaan with the Israelite army. Joshua
was Moses's replacement to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. The
problem? People already lived there. Joshua had the unfortunate job of clearing
out the wandering tribes of Canaan so the Israelites could have a home. We
think of this like when you go to play in the ball pit, but it's already filled
with kids so you kick them all out because it's your turn. Of course that's all
hypothetical. We don't do that anymore. We're proud to say we haven't kicked a
child out of a ball pit since last week. Like Exodus, the Book of Joshua is
about a nation discovering its identity and home in a foreign land, but it's
also a very personal story about an ambitious patriot who sees it as his duty
to sacrifice everything for his people and God. If that doesn't scream a
rockin' good time, we're not sure what does. Maybe if this all took place in a ball pit.
Why Should I Care?
Look, we're going to be
honest with you. This book is filled with a lot of bloody battles, human
conflict, and pump your fist in the air moments. But that's not why you should
care. The Book of Joshua is your history; a story about a foreigner in a strange
land with a special talent. To us, that screams freshman year of high school.
And college. And work. And the retirement home. It's a tale as old a time, one of those moments where the
Bible speaks to some experiences we all share, no matter where we fall on the
religious spectrum. Being the new guy is never easy. Or new girl for that matter. The Book of
Joshua teaches us about family, commitment, loyalty, and faith—all things we need to survive, to
make new histories. Give it a read. We dare you.
Dara’s Corner-Try “Ginger Fried
Rice”
·
Spirit Hour: Fresh Berry Delicious
· Bucket List trip: Transylvania
🌍 Dara’s Corner:
Aboard The World
Ordinary
Time | March 11 – March 18, 2026
Theme: Integration, Gentleness & the Slow Return to the Human World
Coordinates: Cape Horn → Beagle Channel → Chilean Fjords → Gulf of Penas →
Chiloé → Approaching Valparaíso
🪨 March 11 | Cape Horn Rounding
Title: The Rock That Reminds Us
Ritual: Touch a stone or railing and name one truth that held
firm in the Great South.
Scripture: Matthew 7:25 — “It did not fall, because it had been
founded on rock.”
Meal: Brown bread, salted butter, hot broth
Reflection: “Some truths only reveal their strength when the
winds rise.”
Hospitality
Arc: Ask someone what truth
steadied them in the South.
🌁 March 12 | Entering the Beagle
Channel
Title: The Narrow Way
Ritual: Walk a straight line on deck, slowly, naming one
narrow path you’re being invited to walk.
Scripture: Matthew 7:14 — “The gate is narrow and the road is
hard that leads to life.”
Meal: Smoked fish, potatoes, warm tea
Reflection: “Narrow places teach us to move with intention.”
Hospitality
Arc: Share with someone a path
you’re learning to walk with care.
🌲 March 13 | Chilean Fjords
Title: The Walls That Hold Wonder
Ritual: Stand between two structures—masts, walls, or
cliffs—and name one place in your life where God is holding you.
Scripture: Psalm 139:5 — “You hem me in, behind and before…”
Meal: Vegetable stew, crusty bread, berry tea
Reflection: “Being held is not confinement—it is care.”
Hospitality
Arc: Ask someone where they feel
held right now.
🌧️ March 14 | Fjord Rainfall
Title: The Rain That Softens
Ritual: Let a few drops of rain or water touch your hand,
naming one place in your life that needs softening.
Scripture: Hosea 6:3 — “He will come to us like the rain…”
Meal: Warm rice, sautéed greens, lemon water
Reflection: “Softening is not weakness; it is readiness.”
Hospitality
Arc: Invite someone to share
what is softening in them.
🌬️ March 15 | Gulf of Penas
Title: The Crossing of Courage
Ritual: Take three deep breaths, naming one fear you’re
willing to cross through.
Scripture: Joshua 1:9 — “Be strong and courageous…”
Meal: Light soup, crackers, ginger tea
Reflection: “Courage is rarely loud; it is usually a quiet
decision.”
Hospitality
Arc: Check on someone who may be
navigating inner waves.
🌅 March 16 | Approaching Chiloé
Title: The Islands of Memory
Ritual: Write down one memory from Antarctica you want to
keep alive. Fold it and place it in your pocket.
Scripture: Deuteronomy 4:9 — “Do not forget the things your eyes
have seen…”
Meal: Fresh fruit, soft cheese, warm bread
Reflection: “Memory is the island where grace lands first.”
Hospitality
Arc: Share one memory that
refuses to fade.
🕊️ March 17 | Sailing North Along
Chile
Title: The Gentle Return
Ritual: Sit for two minutes with your hand over your heart,
naming one grace that is returning with you.
Scripture: Isaiah 30:15 — “In returning and rest you shall be
saved.”
Meal: Herb omelet, roasted vegetables, mint tea
Reflection: “Return is not undoing—it is unfolding.”
Hospitality
Arc: Ask someone what grace is
accompanying them homeward.
🌤️ March 18 | Nearing Valparaíso
Title: The Shore of New Beginnings
Ritual: Watch the coastline appear and name one beginning
you’re ready to welcome.
Scripture: Revelation 21:5 — “Behold, I make all things new.”
Meal: Citrus salad, pastries, strong coffee
Reflection: “Every shore is a threshold, and every threshold is a
promise.”
Hospitality
Arc: Share with someone the
beginning you feel stirring.
March 11 Wednesday before Laetare Sunday
I command you: be strong and
steadfast! Do not FEAR nor be
dismayed, for the LORD, your God, is with you wherever you go.
The
Lord is patient and kind, yet He is also just. He will right the evil of man.
When man goes too far God intervenes.
Is another intervention coming?
Is there a breach in the lines of defense against the
forces of darkness?
Have we become fat and gross and gorged with
secularism?
Have we forsaken the God who made us and scorned Him?
Have we sacrificed to demons, to “no-gods”?
Good men heed the message of St. Faustina and seek the Divine Mercy of God while there is still time and then join the battle of God coming into the breach.
Read the online message of the Bishop of Phoenix and be prepared to fight and defend our church.[2]
Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, a simple,
uneducated, young Polish nun receives a special call. Jesus tells her, "I
am sending you with My mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want to
punish mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My merciful
Heart." These words of Jesus are found in the Diary of St. Maria
Faustina Kowalska, which chronicles Sr. Faustina's great experience of Divine
Mercy in her soul and her mission to share that mercy with the world.
Though she died in obscurity in 1938, Sr. Faustina was
hailed by Pope John Paul II as "the great apostle of Divine Mercy in our
time." On April 30, 2000, the Pope canonized her as St. Faustina, saying
that the message of Divine Mercy she shared is urgently needed at the dawn of
the new millennium.[3]
Copilot’s Take
Joshua 1:9 speaks into the midpoint of Lent with
a command that steadies the heart: be strong, be steadfast, do not fear.
Strength here is not self‑manufactured resolve but confidence rooted in the
presence of the Lord who goes with His people into every unknown.
As Laetare’s quiet joy approaches, the Scriptures
also warn that entire cultures can drift into darkness when they grow
comfortable, self‑satisfied, and forgetful of the God who formed them. When
people become spiritually dull— “fat and gross and gorged with secularism”—they
lose their defenses against forces they no longer recognize. The ancient
pattern repeats: when hearts turn toward “no‑gods,” the soul becomes
vulnerable.
Yet before God intervenes in judgment, He always
intervenes in mercy. This is the heart of the mission entrusted to St. Faustina
on the eve of World War II. Jesus revealed a desire not to punish but to heal,
to draw humanity back to His Heart before it destroyed itself. Her diary, later
lifted up by St. John Paul II, stands as a prophetic reminder that Divine Mercy
is not a soft message, but a rescue line thrown to a world in danger of
forgetting both sin and salvation.
Confronting evil does not begin with panic or anger but with clarity, purity, and sacrificial love. The call is to stand firm in truth, to enter the breach with courage, and to trust that the God who commands strength also promises His presence wherever the battle leads.
What part of life right now most needs the
courage and steadiness Joshua was commanded to embrace?
Wednesday before Laetare Sunday[4] beginning of Mid-Lent
Prayer. GRANT us, we beseech Thee, O
Lord, that, instructed by wholesome fasting, and abstaining from dangerous
vices, we may more easily obtain Thy favor.
EPISTLE. Exodus xx. 12-24.
Thus, saith the Lord God: Honor thy father and
thy mother, that thou mayest be long-lived upon the land which the Lord thy God
will give thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt
not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt
not covet thy neighbor’s house: neither shalt thou desire his wife, nor his
servant, nor his handmaid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his.
And all the people saw the voices and the flames, and the sound of the trumpet,
and the mount smoking: and being terrified and struck with fear, they stood
afar off, saying to Moses: Speak thou to us, and we will hear let not the Lord
speak to us, lest we die. And Moses said to the people: Fear not: for God has
come to prove you, and that the dread of Him might be in you, and you should
not sin. And the people stood afar off. But Moses went to the dark cloud
wherein God was. And the Lord said to Moses: Thus, shalt thou say to the
children of Israel: You have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven. You
shall not make gods of silver, nor shall you make to yourselves gods of gold.
You shall make an altar of earth unto Me, and you shall offer upon it your
holocausts and peace-offerings, your sheep and oxen, in every place where the
memory of My name shall be.
GOSPEL. Matt. xv. 1-20.
At that time there came to Jesus from Jerusalem scribes and Pharisees, saying: Why do Thy disciples transgress the traditions of the ancients? For they wash not their hands when they eat bread. But He answering, said to them: Why do you also transgress the commandment of God for your tradition? For God said: Honor thy father and mother;
and: He that shall curse father or mother, let him die the death. But you say: Whosoever shall say to father or mother, the gift whatso ever proceedeth from me, shall profit thee; and he shall not honor his father or his mother: and you have made void the commandment of God for jour tradition. Hypocrites, well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: This people honoreth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me. And in vain do they worship Me, teaching doctrines and commandments of men. And having called together the multitudes unto Him, He said to them: Hear ye and understand. Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man: but what cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. Then came His disciples, and said to Him: Dost Thou know that the Pharisees, when they heard this word, were scandalized?
But He answering, said: Every plant which My
heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they are
blind, and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both fall
into the pit. And Peter answering, said to Him: Expound to us this parable. But
He said: Are you also yet without understanding? Do you not understand, that
whatsoever entereth into the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into
the privy? But the things which proceed out of the mouth, come forth from the heart,
and those things defile a man. For from the heart come forth evil thoughts,
murders, adulteries, fornications,
thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man.
But to eat with unwashed hands doth not defile a man.
Mid-Lent
Customs[5]
Mid-Lent, the week from the Wednesday before to the Wednesday after Laetare Sunday, is a note of joy within the context of sorrow. The perfect symbol of this complex emotion is the rose vestments worn on Laetare Sunday instead of penitential purple or exultant white. Rose stands somewhere in between, as a sort of joyous variation of purple. The last day of Mid-Lent is when catechumens would learn the Apostles' Creed for the first time; the days leading up to that great revelation were thus for them a cause for gladness. This spirit eventually permeated to the rest of the community as "a measure of consoling relaxation... so that the faithful might not break down under the severe strains of the Lenten fast but may continue to bear the restrictions with a refreshed and easier heart" (Pope Innocent III (d. 1216)).
Mid-Lent customs predominantly involve pre-Christian celebrations concerning the "burial" of winter, where flower decorations and the like betoken the joyous end of the cold and dark. There are also customs involving either matchmaking or announcing the engagements of young couples. In either case, a joyous meal is celebrated during this time.
In England Laetare Sunday came to be known as "Mothering" Sunday
because it was the day that apprentices and students were released from their duties to visit their mother church, i.e., the church in which they had been baptized and brought up. This custom tied into the theme of Mother Jerusalem.
Bible in a
year Day 252 Queen
of Heaven
Fr. Mike points out Israel's continual disbelief in the prophet Jeremiah, and also explains who the queen of heaven refers to. We also conclude the book of Judith with Judith's song of praise. Today’s readings are Jeremiah 43-44, Judith 15-16, and Proverbs 17:17-20.
Daily Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Today's Fast: End
Sex Trafficking, Slavery
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Religion in the Home for
Preschool: March
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Make
reparations to the Holy Face
[1] Shmoop Editorial Team, "Book of Joshua," Shmoop
University, Inc., Last modified November 11, 2008, https://www.shmoop.com/book-of-joshua/.
[3]http://www.lighthousecatholicmedia.org/store/title/the-diary-of-st-faustina?utm_source=Lighthouse+Catholic+Media&utm_campaign=77ff8641ef-Faustina_Feast_Day_Fr_Gaitley_Segment_1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cb00b554f5-77ff8641ef-292834361&goal=0_cb00b554f5-77ff8641ef-292834361&mc_cid=77ff8641ef&mc_eid=15e7808aac
[4] Goffine’s Devout Instructions, 1896
The Corpse Came C.O.D. (1947)
Production Details
- Studio: Columbia Pictures
- Director: Henry Levin
- Release: June 2, 1947
- Source Material: Novel by Hollywood columnist Jimmy Starr
- Genre: Comedy–Mystery
- Runtime: 87 minutes
- Cast: George Brent, Joan Blondell, Adele Jergens, Jim Bannon, Una O’Connor, plus cameo appearances by Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, Jimmy Fidler, Harrison Carroll, and others.
Story Summary
A Hollywood starlet receives a package C.O.D., opens it, and finds a corpse. Two rival reporters—Joe Medford (George Brent) and Rosemary Durant (Joan Blondell)—race to uncover the truth while sabotaging each other’s scoops. Their investigation winds through studio lots, gossip circles, and the glamorous but precarious world of 1940s Hollywood publicity. The film stays light and quick, driven by Blondell’s sharp timing and Brent’s steady charm, with the mystery serving as a playful excuse to poke fun at the industry.
Historical and Cultural Influences
- Studio‑system publicity: Post‑war Hollywood relied on powerful publicity departments and gossip columnists; the film’s cameos reflect that world.
- Columnists as moral arbiters: Hopper, Parsons, and others shaped public opinion and enforced informal moral codes.
- Women in newsrooms: Blondell’s character echoes wartime female reporters whose competence persisted in film even as real jobs contracted.
- Hollywood under scrutiny: Light, self‑mocking mysteries offered reassurance during HUAC pressure and rising suspicion of the industry.
- B‑picture efficiency: Columbia’s brisk, mid‑budget films provided continuity and escapism during national transition.
Catholic Themes and Moral Resonances
Truth and the Eighth Commandment
The plot revolves around the tension between truth‑seeking and gossip. Catholic teaching frames speech as a moral act ordered toward truth, charity, and justice. The film’s playful chaos becomes a reminder that detraction, rash judgment, and rumor—however entertaining—fracture communion and distort reality.
Integrity of Work and Vocation
Joe and Rosemary chase the scoop with mixed motives: ambition, rivalry, pride, and flashes of genuine concern. Catholic social teaching views work as participation in God’s creative order. Their rivalry exposes the temptation to treat people as means rather than ends, raising the question of what kind of character our work is forming in us.
Public Image and Human Dignity
Hollywood’s glamour conceals insecurity, fear, and manipulation. Catholic anthropology insists that every person is a beloved image‑bearer, not a commodity or brand. The corpse‑in‑a‑package gag becomes a metaphor for the hidden rot beneath curated appearances, inviting reflection on authenticity and humility.
Charity in Speech
The real‑life columnists—playing themselves—embody a cultural power that can bless or wound. Catholic moral teaching emphasizes that speech must be governed by charity. Even lighthearted commentary can drift into cruelty if not anchored in love.
Rivalry, Partnership, and Communion
Joe and Rosemary’s dynamic raises questions about cooperation, respect, and the dignity of the other. Catholic teaching on communion and complementarity highlights mutual self‑gift rather than competition for dominance. Their eventual collaboration hints at the deeper truth that vocation flourishes in community.
Hospitality Pairing
- Drink: A Gin Rickey—clean, fast, and effervescent, matching the film’s newsroom tempo.
- Snack: Smoked‑paprika popcorn—simple, theatrical, and evocative of studio backlots.
- Atmosphere: A desk lamp and notepad to echo the newsroom without slipping into kitsch.
Reflection Prompt
In a culture that rewards gossip and spectacle, how do we practice charity of speech and integrity of witness, especially when truth is inconvenient or unglamorous?
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