Search
-
May 9, 2025Dear friends in Christ,
Under perhaps the most perfect weather conditions we ever had in 40 years, CtR and the greater Cypress community again united to celebrate our families, our friendship, and our faith at our Spring Festival last weekend, and what a celebration it was. The joint was jumping Saturday night and all day Sunday with great food, wonderful fellowship, and fun for young and old alike. Speaking from a purely personal standpoint as it was my last Festival as pastor, what a way to go out. It was just about perfect from start to finish!
Suffice to say we owe a huge debt of gratitude to our hundreds of parishioner volunteers who made the event a great success. You put your faith into action through selfless gift of stewardship of time, talent and treasure. My thanks as well to all the booth workers, food servers, auction helpers, game attendants, flea market and Sweet Shop workers, Bingo callers, auction helpers, Knights of Columbus, Ladies Auxiliary, CtR School students and faculty, Youth Ministry, the Piecemakers, and everyone else. It was a superb job by all. And, of course, a great big thank you to all of you – the people of Christ the Redeemer – who came out to support us during the weekend.
Everyone contributes to the success of the festival, whether you bought raffle tickets, or priced items in the flea market, or poured Cokes, or baked a cake, or worked a shift in a booth or ride. The list goes on and on and on. Everyone is part of it and everyone contributes to the success of it. That’s stewardship in action so thank you one and all!
Let me again thank our team that oversaw the operations from the initial planning months ago to final execution this past weekend. Our chairpersons of Ken Aubry, Ed Crosson, Rene Gomez, Ismael Morales, and Bradley Wargo all worked together to make the many facets of the Festival work in conjunction with one another. From an operations standpoint it was perhaps our smoothest Festival weekend in memory. There were very few hiccups along the way, and those that did pop up were resolved quickly and efficiently. Thank you, brothers!
Our parish staff, led by Megan Dillingham, Director of Advancement, deserves special thanks, too, for their work in overseeing all the details on a day-to-day basis. Megan’s attention to the many details and a sincere desire to cast cast a wide-net among us for involvement of our parishioners, was a great gift to us. She was more than ably assisted by Angela Borges and Sylvia Baker in the Development department, and Carrie Taylor and Tatiana Vasquez in Communications, Nora Pena and Carolyn Thornton in the Business office, and of course, our outstanding Facilities team of David Prieto, Wilber Sorto, Omar Cerna, and Jose Moreno. All did yeoman duty to see that every detail was addressed. We couldn’t have done it without them, so please join me in thanking them.
Thanks as well to Stacey Garcia for chairing our live auction, and Jenny Tyler, Suzanne Villareal, Marta Flores, and our Ladies Auxiliary for their dedicated work on gathering the many items for a terrific Silent Auction, too. Thanks as always to Dan Block, our masterful DJ and auctioneer, who again returned home to CtR from Louisville to help us get the bids up, up, and up! Likewise, thanks to Stacey Garcia, who coordinated the auction, and Bryan Bradburn, our Auction MC who kept it moving, and, of course, to all of our generous bidders.
As always, the Food Booths were some of the most popular areas of the Festival. As I say every year, if you went hungry, it was your own fault. Please join me in thanking our barbecue team who smoked up delicious brisket sandwiches and sausage. Special thanks to all our food booths: Vietnamese, Cajun, Mexican, African, Pizza, and of course our Knights of Columbus with the traditional hot dogs, fries, and the always popular funnel cakes. While I know you all enjoy the food each year, you cannot begin to imagine the time and effort that goes into the preparation of it all. The food booth chairs deserve our most sincere gratitude for their generosity. Ditto to Angie Wells for again overseeing a terrific Flea Market all week. Angie and her team, including among many others, Lisa and Mike Kramr and Theresa Van, always do an amazing job of pricing and selling your donations, but this year was something else in terms of the sheer amount of items.
There were so many who contributed so much time and talent over the weekend to make the Festival a great success, but at the risk of omitting some, let me especially acknowledge and thank the following: Paula Aubry, Gilda Bartz, Stacie Bradley, Caroline Champness, Diana Crosson, Dan Daues, Melanie Gehrt, Lynn Gondesen, David Grams, Donna Heath, Justin Hirtzel, Pat and Marie Kelly, Diane Kitchens, Steve Owens, Kelly Questell, Rachel and Bryan Smyth (shout-out to the Tot Spot!) and so many more. Indeed there are hundreds of more volunteers I could and should list if I had room, but please know of my deep gratitude to God for you and your service to our community.
We’ll report back in a few weeks with some final thoughts on the festival after we close the books and review our notes. It’s been my great joy to be pastor for the past 21 incarnations of the Festival, and now I look forward to returning as a guest in the future. I plan to be the first in line to buy my raffle tickets next year! (I’m happy to report that Tom and Janet Kelly, long-time active parishioners and volunteers who do so much for CtR, were the Grand Prize winners this year.) For now, let us give thanks to God for the blessing of the weekend and all who made it possible. Thank you one and all!
We wish a blessed and happy Mother’s Day this weekend to all of our mothers. Moms hold a special place in our hearts and we need only look at the example of Jesus to know that love and respect for mothers is an age-old tradition in our faith. From the wedding feast at Cana to the hill at Calvary, Mary was always present in the life of her son. In a special way we ask the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary on all mothers, both living and deceased. And let us not forget the wonderful gift of life that grandmothers, adopted mothers, step-mothers, foster mothers and Godmothers offer their children. May God bless them all!
There are 200 mothers at CtR this weekend who are doubly-blessed with not only Mother’s Day but also their child’s first Holy Communion. We celebrated two masses Saturday morning to welcome the children to the table of the Lord for the first time. Congratulations to each and every one of them. And in keeping with the busy sacramental month of May, this week we will celebrate two masses of Confirmation for our high school students on Monday and Tuesday, May 12 and 13. We likewise congratulate our teens and pray that the fullness of the Holy Spirit they receive in Confirmation will guide their hearts and minds all the days of their lives.
Peace, Fr. Sean