Dear Parishioners & Visitors,
What a wondrous people of God you are here at our beloved Holy Rosary! It is an immense gratefulness that I have experienced, do experience, and will always experience the ways in which you have not only shared most generously of your lives and faith but also the many ways you have taught me how live the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity more fully. In this 104-year old parish community within our thriving Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston we are surely both blessed and encouraged to continue the work of the Gospel.
Switching gears a moment, let me say that there will be a more extensive financial report concerning the Campaign, Phases I and II, once our new Pastor, Father Jorge Rativa, O.P., gets his sea legs in this, his new mission and ministry. However, after in-depth discussion with our Financial Council, Parish Pastoral Council, our Office Manager and our CPA, I want to share with you a brief view of the overall picture of what has been accomplished and what remains to be accomplished concerning the Capital Campaign. The Capital Campaign will come to completion on June 30, 2018. Your generous attention to the needs of our parish-priory entities over the span of this Campaign are overwhelming. Not only were you responsible for the Campaign accomplishments and those to be completed, you have, in addition, offered, in most generous fashion, your prayer, service, and hard cold cash for needed projects not within the scope of the Campaign, e.g., the razing of the old house next to our Religious Education Building, restoration of paintings in our church building, assistance for families going through rough times, and much more.
We have, through your generosity, been able to consolidate the loans we owed to our Archdiocese which amounted to $525,000.00 in August of 2015 and pay it off to the point where what we owe now is roughly $28,000.00. This is a good and united effort and once again, Thank You! We have a most diverse and united community of families, indjviduals and new arrivals (babies and new families registering as parishioners) and I know that we will continue to thrive and to take care of the poor as Jesus invites us to do. You are in my prayers now and also as I begin my new mission & ministry in Rome. I beg your prayers. A 'Hail Mary' prayed with love for God and Neighbor is worth much more than the recitation of the whole of the Most Holy Rosary without love in the heart.
In Christ and in His Mother and ours, The Immaculate Conception,
-fr. Chris, O.P.
