Belonging to a Faith Community

Finding the right faith community is important because part of our conversion occurs in group.  Belonging to a group that shares our same desire to grow and mature inspires us to continue seeking, to continue looking for answers to our questions while offering support and encouragement along the journey.  Some people that live in rural areas don’t have the ability to be picky as to where to attend services, lucky for city folk, I have quite a selection to choose from.  When asked, what parish I belong to, I usually say that I have dual residency because I belong to one and serve at another- but in reality I like attending the parishes in my area for different reasons.  Thus, today following on my last post, I want to share the local parishes that you will find me throughout the year.

Saint Barbara- When I was attending protestant Churches my brother asked me to attend a retreat with a group that he belonged to (Jóvenes Para Cristo) at Saint Barbara’s.  After the retreat I joined the group and that’s where my Catholic conversion began.  Through the years I went from joining the JPC Prayer Ministry, lecturing, heading the Hispanic Parish Council and currently I help out with RCIA.  Most of my involvement has been with the Hispanic community, but the parish has a thriving Vietnamese and Anglo community too; which makes for some great trilingual services.

Saint Vincent de Paul- I wanted to learn my faith in English because some of my friends were asking questions and I felt like I didn’t have a place to refer them to because of the language barrier.  So, I began attending services, becoming a CORE member for confirmation and joining a young adult group at Saint Vincent’s.  I met some wonderful people and the parish is absolutely beautiful!  Since, this parish is the closest to my house as a child we used to attend when before they built the church we used to have services in the hall – so we do have history.  I love the crucifix, I can just contemplate it for hours.

Holy Spirit- Every year Holy Spirt hosts the blessing of the animals’ ritual which is how I started attending this location.  It’s a flourishing community, recently I was able to take Bishop Barron’s, “Catholicism the Pivotal Players Part I” study series and I had the best experience.  Some Sunday’s you will find me at the 3PM Mass with my family.     

Saint Simon and Jude- For Franciscan feast days this is the place you’ll find me, after all it’s a Franciscan parish.  Every year they host the most beautiful Transitus service.  This year I invited my buddies from my fraternity to join me and I think they might be joining me yearly because they couldn’t stop raving about it.

I am blessed because I live close to many parishes.  This makes worshiping a lot easier because I have quite a selection to choose from.  On an average Sunday you will find me at Saint Barbara’s until twelve-thirty helping with RCIA and then I swing by to pick up my parents and nephew to attend the 1PM Spanish service at Saint Vincent de Paul.  Though Saint Vincent is my home parish I just can’t seem to leave the location where it all began (smile).