I want to thank everyone who came together to celebrate our family of faith at our annual fall festival at the Civic Center. It was beautiful to hear stories of people praying together before beginning work and seeing everyone work together to provide an amazing opportunity for our families to come together and enjoy the day with each other. I had great conversations with people about coming back to the faith, coming to confession, and renewing their relationship with God. On top of all of this, we were able to raise funds for the mission of our parish to raise missionary disciples who make missionary disciples for the glory of God.
We want to especially thank Martin Medina and Albert Cavazos who led our parish festival and have led it for many years. Martin has led the festival for fourteen years and Albert has helped with the coordination for five years as well. It was a tremendously successful festival in every way thanks to their leadership. They have informed me that they feel it is time to step aside as leaders of the festival and allow new leaders with new ideas to continue to grow our festival where they have left off. We are profoundly grateful for their years of service, so please be sure to thank and congratulate them when you see them.
As we approach the end of the year, we are looking forward to many celebrations of our faith. We ask everyone to bring photos of their deceased family members and friends and place them on the stands we will have by the altar starting the weekend of October 26/27 in preparation for All Souls. These photos will be left up the entire month of November as we pray for the souls in Purgatory. To have masses offered for the repose of your loved ones' souls, please fill out an envelope that is at the entrance of the church, turn it in, and we will offer masses for them on November 2nd & throughout the month of November.
We will have Trunk-or-treat on October 31st beginning with 5:30 PM All Hallows Eve Mass, which is a Holy Day of Obligation, followed by trunk-or-treat at 6:30 PM. We invite everyone, especially our children, to dress up as their favorite saint as we celebrate all the saints on All Hallows Eve.
On November 2nd we will celebrate mass for all of our departed loved ones at 11 AM at Holy Cross Cemetery. Usually this mass is celebrated in the evening, but because it falls on a Saturday, this is not possible, because an evening mass would be a celebration of the Sunday mass, not of All Souls. There will also be a mass at Crescent Cemetery on November 2nd at 2 PM for those who have family buried there.
These are just a few of the things going on. I pray we can enjoy all of the many celebrations we have in the next two months and that they help us grow in our personal relationship with God and with one another.