I am very proud of all of the programs that we offer at Emmaus.  Among those is one designed to help our immigrant neighbors as they endeavor to become fully functional in the context of American culture.  We have offered English as a Second Language for several years now and I have seen how the participants bring to the classes a lot of enthusiasm and dedication.  It is making a difference in their lives. We do need more volunteers to help our neighbors who want very much to learn English.  If you would like to help, please know that you are needed.  You do not need specialized training.  We have volunteers who have that and they will guide you.  All you need is enthusiasm and a desire to help others.  If you would like to learn more about how you might help, please contact our Coordinator of Hispanic Ministry, Paloma Rodriguez, at paloma.rodriguez@emmausparish.org.

I have been very privileged to have been pastor of this parish since January of 2007. It has been a challenge guiding this parish through those 10½  years as Lakeway has been transformed from a largely retirement community to a community of younger families with a lot of very dynamic senior citizens.  We have accomplished much together.  We have built ministry and programs that were only dreamed of when I arrived.  We built a magnificent Parish Life Center and we have paid off most of the debt on that building.  We paid off the debt on Queen of Angels Chapel.  We have expanded our faith formation programs to serve the religious education needs of about a 1000 children, youth and adults each year.  We have developed a very welcoming parish community in which any newcomer who wants to can become as involved as her or she likes.  These past 10½ years have been among the most dynamic and rewarding years of my priesthood.  

The current capital campaign to raise funds for a much needed building project on this campus and for a very much needed chapel activity center at Queen of Angels, is, most likely, the last big project that I will undertake as a pastor.  I will be eligible for retirement in less than two years and I look forward to serving then in a different capacity.  However, it is very important to me that when I do leave this parish, that I leave it in very good shape.  All that we have accomplished has made this parish a better place.  However, we do have to replace the portable buildings with a permanent structure that will house offices, much needed meeting/faith formation rooms and a communications center.  Also we really do need to help Queen of Angels to be a place where we can do more than is possible now.  You and I have been privileged to create in this rapidly growing part of Texas a vibrant faith community.  In the end, that is what it is all about: creating a community in which we help each other live as God has called us, becoming the very best people that we can be. 

We have a very enthusiastic capital campaign committee that is doing a lot of work behind the scenes right now. Campaign results are published in the bulletin regularly. And the numbers are still going up. For this I am very thankful. Please donate to this campaign as you will be contributing to the future of our beautiful Catholic community. (click here)

Since I went on vacation not long after Fr. Rito arrived I am just now getting to know him.  He has a great sense of humor and his needs are very simple.  I had a good example of both of those qualities this past week when one of the two water heaters in the rectory went out.  I had only lukewarm water in my quarters.  I was concerned about Fr. Rito who has his quarters on the second floor of the rectory.  I asked him if he had hot water and told him that the heater that served my part of the house was on the blink.  He replied that he did have hot water but it would have been alright if he did not.  “After all,” he said with a big smile, “in my home in Nicaragua we did not have hot water.”  I am beginning to wonder if perhaps we might be spoiling him with luxuries such as hot water and other perks of life in the United States.

One of the nice things about vacation is having time to read to the excess that I like.  I read a number of books while enjoying the cooler climes of Ruidoso, NM.  Among them was a novel entitled The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens.  It is one of those “cannot put it down books.”  It tells the story of a university student who has a class assignment of writing a biography.  The person he chose was a man in a nursing home who is dying.  That man has a very interesting history.  He was a war hero and he was a convicted murderer.  The contrast between those two things caused the student to dig deeper into the man’s past with some very interesting results.  This is a really good book, well written, excellent character development and compelling in its ability to give one pause about how we judge others.