Weekly Letter: Feb. 9, 2025 Bulletin

Dear friends in Christ,

     “Duc in altum” has long been one of my favorite Latin phrases and we hear it this week from St. Luke’s Gospel on the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time. “Put out into the deep water,” Jesus tells his disciples. That’s good advice for not only catching fish, but for going further in our journey with Christ. If we want to truly be his disciples, we’re going to have to “go deep” into His life, and trust that God will lead us. If you find that your faith life has been a bit shallow, “duc in altum!” You never know what you might catch.

     I’m happy to announce that in this Jubilee Year of Hope, we are planning a 12-day parish pilgrimage to Rome and Paris, Sept. 29-Oct. 10. We’ll visit all of the sites in the Eternal City of Rome and have a chance to pass through many of the Holy Doors that are opened only once every 25 years, including at St. Peter’s Basilica. We’ll spend several days in Rome, touring just about every place you’d want to see, and take a day trip to Assisi as well. Plus, we’re going to start our pilgrimage in Paris, and visit the famed Cathédrale Notre-Dame, which has recently reopened after the devastating fire of 2019.

     Our pilgrimage includes everything – round-trip airfare, hotels, guides, transportation, etc., for $4,990 per person, and of course, we’ll celebrate Mass nearly every day in some of the most beautiful and historic churches in the world. It promises to be a spiritually uplifting pilgrimage to these two classic cities. We’ll open registration on Thursday, Feb. 13 at 9:30 a.m. in the parish office. Visit ctrcc.com/parish-pilgrimage for a brochure with all the details, and registration form. Space is limited, so if you’d like to join us, sign up soon.

     This Tuesday, Feb. 11 is the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, and the World Day of Prayer for the Sick. We’ll offer the Sacrament of the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick at the 9 a.m. Mass that day for anyone in need. We do that on the last Wednesday of every month at our evening Mass, but for those who might not get out at night, we’ll do it at the Tuesday morning Mass next week. Please keep all of our sick and elderly in your prayers, and let’s lift up all doctors, nurses, and health care workers to the Lord, too.

     On a related note, I encourage anyone who might be undergoing surgery or hospitalization to please let us know, so that hopefully we can get you anointed in advance. Often people wait until the last minute when they are already in the hospital, but sometimes we priests can’t get there in a timely manner. We try, believe me! But with a third major hospital set to open next month in Cypress, we are inundated with calls and requests. We’re blessed to have a strong and active Ministry to the Sick (led by Deacon Steve and Carol Moses) and our Eucharistic Ministers do a great job in bringing Holy Communion to those in need, but they, too are stretched fairly thin, and only priests can anoint, so if you can let us know in advance, that would be a great help to us all.

    To follow up on our kickoff to the annual Diocesan Services Fund that I spoke about at Mass last weekend, let me first say thank you to all who have already responded. Remember that you may drop your DSF pledge envelope into the regularly weekly offertory baskets and we’ll separate them out to make sure they are properly recorded, or you may bring it by the parish office at your convenience and we will forward them on for processing at the Chancery offices. Of course, it’s easy to make your pledge on-line at www.archgh.org/dsf if you’d like to take care of it that way.

     Thank you for your support of the DSF which goes to fund the more than 60 ministries of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. Our goal at CtR this year is $373,000 and if we all make a pledge to the extent that is possible given our own circumstances, we’ll easily make our goal. Again, the size of the gift is up to you, but please do join us in this important work so that we might all “Cry Out with Joy to the Lord,” as this year’s theme states, for our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout our archdiocese.

    Lastly, please keep our parishioner Brad Snyder in your prayers as he will be ordained to the Sacred Order of the Diaconate this coming Friday, Feb. 14 for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. We give thanks to God for his vocation, and we ask God’s blessing upon him, his wife, Michele, and their family, as he begins his public ministry for the Church here at CtR. He’ll serve as deacon for the first time next weekend at the 5 p.m. Mass on Saturday and the 9 a.m. Mass on Sunday, with a reception following on Sunday morning in the Parish Hall. God bless Deacon Brad and all our dedicated deacons. And since I began this week’s message with a Latin phrase, I’ll close with another: “Ad multos annos!” That means “for many more years,” which is our celebratory acclaim for Deacon Brad!

Peace, Fr. Sean