Bulletin for June 16

Dear friends in Christ,

Buongiorno! I greet you today from Italy where our 2019 Parish Pilgrimage to the Shrines of Southern Italy is visiting Monte Cassino, about 80 miles south of Rome. It is here that St. Benedict founded the Benedictine Order in the 6th century, and as you are celebrating at CtR, our group of 48 will offer Mass at the Abbey of Monte Cassino. We are one with you in spirit, and though we’re having a beautiful and spiritually-fulfilling trip, we look forward to being back home next weekend. In the meantime there are many more churches to visit and much more gelato to eat!

Happy Father’s Day to all our dads this weekend. I pray that your family will celebrate your presence in their life by giving you the greatest gift a dad could ever want – complete control of the TV remote for one day! Seriously, we honor all of our fathers, both the living and deceased, today and thank them for the gift of life they provide. Let us call upon the patron saint of all husbands and fathers, St. Joseph, to watch over and intercede on behalf of all of them. And let us not forget the wonderful gift of life that grandfathers, adopted fathers, stepfathers, foster fathers and godfathers offer their children. May God bless them!

Having culminated the great season of Easter with the Feast of Pentecost last Sunday, the Church now turns her attention to Ordinary Time, weeks so named not because of their “ordinariness” but because they are numbered. Today is the beginning of the 11th week of Ordinary Time, and we’ll continue in Ordinary Time all the way to Dec. 1 and the beginning of Advent. The first two Sundays following Pentecost are given special recognition with today being the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, or as it is most often called, Trinity Sunday. Next week is the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, or Corpus Christi Sunday.

Today we don’t just celebrate a rule or teaching of the Church, but rather the very mystery of the Godhead – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is a belief that there is one God, yet Three Persons. How can that be? Three doesn’t equal one. Don’t think of “persons” as we normally do, i.e., I’m a “person,” you are a “Person,” the guy next to me is a “person.” In God, the Three Persons are one being with a single, divine nature. The members of the Trinity are co-equal and co-eternal, one in essence, nature, power, action and will. It is one of the most complex theological doctrines of the Church and not easily explained or understood. But think of it this way: The Trinity is not a math problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. We are invited into the love that flows in and between the Persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To be caught up in that active, dynamic Trinitarian love is our hope and destiny.

In other news, each year, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), a Georgetown University-based research center, compiles a snapshot of the men who are being ordained as priests this spring for U.S. dioceses and religious orders. The report is commissioned by the Secretariat for Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and I always like to share with you some of their findings. About 79 percent of an estimated 481 ordinands in the United States responded to the survey this year, including the seven for Galveston-Houston. That’s roughly 50 more than last year, but there is still much more work we all have to do in promoting vocations. The good news is that applications for seminary enrollment are up.

Among the findings of this year’s class is the following: The average age of men ordained to the priesthood in 2019 is 33, about two years younger than last year. The majority are between the ages of 25 (the youngest possible age for priesthood ordination) and 39. This follows the trend during the past few years of ordination taking place in the mid-30s. (By comparison, I was 32 when ordained and Fr. Ralph was 30 years old.) Our new priest, Fr. Vincent, who will join us in July, is also 32 though he looks much younger!

In other findings: About two-thirds of the responding ordinands (65 percent) report their primary race or ethnicity as Caucasian/European American/white. Compared to the U.S. adult Catholic population, ordinands are more likely to be of Asian or Pacific Islander background (11 percent), but less likely to be Hispanic/Latino (20 percent). One in four were born outside the United States, with the largest numbers coming from Mexico, Nigeria, Colombia and Vietnam, where Fr. Vincent was born (he came to the U.S. at the age of 17 as an exchange student and finished high school here). Between 20 and 30 percent of ordinands to diocesan priesthood for each of the last 10 years were born outside of the U.S.

Here’s an interesting note: Between 39 to 47 percent attended a Catholic school for at least a portion of the education, which is a rate higher than that of all Catholic adults in the U.S., and yet another good reason for us to support Catholic schools. More than half (51 percent) of them attended their parish’s Religious Education programs, for an average of seven years each, which is yet another good reason for us to support our R.E. departments and make sure our children are registered for classes. I’ll have more to share with you next week about vocations to the priesthood, including two young men from CtR who will be entering this fall.

Lastly, this Friday, June 21 is the first day of summer (though the temperatures have been summer-like for several weeks). As you might suspect, our congregation falls off in the summertime, as it does at every parish, and with it, our offertory, too. This makes it harder to predict how much we will have to support our year-round ministries, not to mention budget enough for the air conditioning and meeting our other financial responsibilities which don’t take a break in summer.

A great way to help us is by contributing electronically through Faith Direct, our online offertory partner. Simply sign-up and enter our parish code of TX150. It’s easy to do and secure. We all pay a great many of our financial obligations and bills electronically in this day and age. Why not handle your parish tithe in the same way? I do, and so though I’m in Italy this week, my weekly Sunday offering is being made to the collection just the same. I encourage you to join me in doing so, and since the first day of summer is National eGiving Day, this week would be an opportune time to get started on it. Thank you for your continued support of your CtR parish.

Peace,
Fr. Sean