St. Joseph Marello Catholic Church

7200 Auburn-Folsom Road

Normal Hours:
8:30-2:00pm M-F
First Sunday of the Month:
9:30-10:30am
SUMMER HOURS:
8:30-12:30 M-F

Are you new to St. Joseph Marello Catholic Church? Welcome!
Please download a Parish Registration Form by CLICKING HERE (or pick one up at the Welcome Table in the vestibule of the church).

Are you interested in becoming Catholic? Please visit our Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults page.

Please click here for the readings and here for a brief reflection on them to help you prepare for Mass this weekend. The music ministry calendar is here. 

Did you notice?  In July, our parish took delivery of a new, semi-customized, two-manual digital organ, which with our existing beautiful Yamaha piano, will enhance the music at our liturgies!  Previously, we were utilizing a donated instrument that was over 40 years old and not reliable.  This new, state of the art Allen G-210 organ is highly versatile and well-suited to our sanctuary space. It will provide support to the choirs, cantors, and parishioners to sing the Mass for many years to come!  

Also, we are blessed to have organist Elsa Gustafsson on staff at our parish to accompany the Music Ministers and provide beautiful music for our liturgies.  Elsa has been playing for the parish since fall of 2015. A student of the piano since age five, she began organ studies in 2016 after receiving a lesson scholarship from the Sacramento chapter of the American Guild of Organists. In addition to playing for Mass, Elsa teaches piano lessons, performs for special events, and accompanies local violin students, school choirs, and the Northern California Children's Chorus. When she isn’t at a keyboard, Elsa enjoys working and playing in the great outdoors.

Please say hello to Elsa--and thank you for your prayers for Music Ministry at St. Joseph Marello parish!

Questions? Interested in joining Music Ministry?  Contact Pete Buccola at 916-303-0581 or pete@buccola.org

Our Journey Home – Dennis and Valerie Studebaker

I, Dennis, spent the first 11 years of my life in the San Francisco Church of the Brethren (an Anabaptist denomination). During the first fiveyears my dad was the pastor of the church. Things changed when my mother suddenly left the family to pursue a career in Hollywood. My dad remarried when I was 11. We moved to Burlingame where we attended a Presbyterian Church. There I was baptized and confirmed. Shortly after my baptism my step-mother (who had no love for the church), insisted that we stop attending church.

Valerie was raised in a non-religious family. She did have a neighbor who was a devout Catholic. Val went to a Midnight Mass with her family one year, which deeply impressed her. Later she joined the Episcopal Church at the encouragement of a friend and her family. She was baptized and confirmed and attended church there for 3 years. But her family eventually dissuaded her from continuing to go to church.

After highschool we each got swept up in the 1960’s craziness in the Bay Area and got heavily involved in Hinduism during our 20s. After we met and married we pursued Buddhist meditation and intermittent church attendance during our 30s and 40s.

Hinduism and Buddhism are alien to most Christians, but there were benefits from those experiences. In the Hindu days, Val and I were both introduced to devout liturgical worship, and I had the opportunity to experience a number of pilgrimages to sacred sites in India.

From Buddhism, we deepened our practice of meditation. Learning to meditate during those years deepens our prayer life today.

In my late40s I sustained a brain injury. I lost my job and our house. We were also struggling with spiritual oppression. We decided it was time to earnestly re-commit ourselves to Christ and His church. Val went through RCIA at St. Eugene’s in Santa Rosa and I joined a local Methodist Church. We sought help from a kindly nun at St. Eugene’s who put us in touch with a Jesuit priest named Fr. Bernie Bush. Fr. Bernie was a great help for us. He set us on the right path and we started to get free from the oppression. I eventually overcame the brain injury, our faith deepened daily, and our circumstances gradually improved.

After a year in the Methodist Church, I switched to St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Kenwood to spend 10 wonderful years enjoying liturgy and fellowship with that great congregation. During that period all three of our adult children followed Val’s lead and became Catholic. I then joined the Catholic Church in 2015. We moved to Folsom six months later and eventually found our church home at St. Joseph Marello.

We love our parish. We have been welcomed here with open arms. We love the Mass, the music, the priests, and the parishioners.

Currently, I have a music apostolate where I lead sing-alongs at a nursing home and an assisted living facility, and I lead the singing in a study program at church called Alpha. Val attends daily Mass faithfully and helps clean the church once a week. She also helps tend the rose garden.

We’re so glad and so blessed to be home now. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

See below for the online version of the trifold handout.

For more detailed information click for:
1) Survey Paper Version - hardcopy version of the survey questions
2)Survey Responses Final - Survey Monkey generated report on the responses to each of the survey questions  
3) Survey Final Summary Report - 8 page report summarizing, cross-referencing, and synthesizing the survey results (including comments)

On Friday, September 13, Thirteen Courageous Chili Cook Teams will vie for the prestigious title of Champion of the 6th Annual Chili Cook-Off,to be held in our Ministry Center. The Knights of Columbus and the Ladies Auxiliary hold this event for local charities benefiting the Intellectually Disabled. 
 
Tickets will be available after all weekend Masses August 17/18, 24/25, August 31/September 1.  For more information about tickets, or just a question, contact Dan Field 916-759-9352or Karen Chappelear 916-652-7560.  A few competition slots may still be available for individuals, teams or families who want to put their chef's hat in the ring.
 

For a printable registration form, click here. 

The myParish app allows us to better communicate with you throughout the week and keep you updated with relevant parish news or updates. The app is very well designed and very intuitive. It is a great resource for parishioners by providing daily Mass readings, Catholic news and prayers, convenient prayer and Confession reminders, our bulletins, parish calendar and more. We hope our app is a tool for fostering stronger parish life at St. Joseph Marello and better engaging the New Evangelization. To download, go to https://myparishapp.com/download/If you have questions or need assistance, email Anne at marelloparish@gmail.com.
 

CLICK HERE TO ENROLL
Questions? Please CLICK HERE for more information
or watch the video directly below.