Weekly Letter: Oct. 6, 2024 Bulletin

Dear friends in Christ,

     Greetings from Mexico City, where I am writing you from, though by the time you read this in the bulletin, our group of 46 pilgrims will be home. I’ll have more to share with you in next week’s bulletin about our pilgrimage, but safe to say we’ve enjoyed a spiritually uplifting time visiting churches and holy sites in an around Mexico City. Our Lady of Guadalupe has been our spiritual guide and she is a good one!

     We’re into October now, which is designated as Respect Life Month. I encourage you to visit our website at www.ctrcc.com/respectlife to see a variety of initiatives that we invite you to support to recognize the dignity of the human person, from natural conception until natural death as is summed up in this year’s theme, “I Came So That They Might Have Life.” Permit me to highlight two in particular, one new and one oldie but a goodie.

     First up is a new program of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston that we are partnering with for the first time called St. Joseph Ministry for Foster Care. Foster families and children in Texas face many challenges, including there simply not being enough families for young people in need of a home as well as existing foster families lacking sufficient support to provide their children with desired opportunities. The St. Joseph Ministry seeks to address these issues by helping parish communities like CtR evaluate the needs of nearby families and to discern how they are best positioned to help.

     The options for support may include periodic assistance with childcare, hosting a parents’ night out, providing financial and material support to current foster families, visiting youth living in residential centers (i.e., not with a family), and mentoring young adults aging out of the foster system, to name just a few. The St. Joseph Ministry provides opportunities both for individual parishioners and for existing parish ministries to be involved.

     To help us assess the needs in our CtR and greater Cypress community, I invite you to complete a brief online survey linked on our website at www.ctrcc.com/outreach. If you are a current foster or kinship family, we would love to learn about your current needs and what types of support will be most helpful to you. If you are not a current foster/kinship family but are interested in helping or learning more about the program, the survey will capture this information as well. All results are confidential and will be used to help us discern a ministry direction for the parish.

     We are excited as a parish community to begin work on the St. Joseph Ministry to help us provide an opportunity to assist a vulnerable and underserved community and to further our mission of supporting life at all stages. For any questions about the ministry, please contact Kerry Chu, our Director of Social Ministry and Outreach at [email protected].

     We’re also brining back our Baby Bottle Blessing program this year. We’ll distribute simple baby bottles this weekend after all masses and invite you to return them to the narthex in the Church or the parish office in the coming weeks with a donation (cash or check) that will be given to groups and organizations in Cypress and Houston that have a life-centered focus to care for children and mothers. Your gifts will enable us to partner with them to respond to the many needs in our community so as to strengthen the dignity and respect of human life. Any weekend in October is fine to return the bottle with your donation. We’ve done this a few times over the years and CtR has always responded generously and invite us to do so again this year.

     Lastly, we’re just a week away from the annual Knights of Columbus Golf Tournament on Columbus Day, Monday, Oct. 14 at Windrose Golf Club in Spring. Entry fee is $150 and we have room for foursomes and single players. It includes lunch and dinner and plenty of fun along the way. Our Knights of Columbus always do a great job of hosting it each year and all the proceeds go to benefit CAM and youth scholarships from the parish. See our CtR website for more information, or you can register directly on the Knights’ page at www.8771events.org.

Peace, Fr. Sean