Welcome!
Welcome to St Catherine of Siena Parish! If you are looking for a church to enliven and deepen your faith, be part of a friendly, easy-going community, or would like to get involved in one of our ministries or begin a new one, I believe you may well have found the parish for which you’ve been looking!
Introduce yourself to me in the narthex before or after Mass – I’m always the first to arrive and the last to leave. I have a very good memory for faces, and in time, I will even remember your name! To get to know your fellow parishioners, come to our Saturday evening refreshments immediately after the Mass or Sunday breakfast after the 8.30 Mass. This is usually held on the weekend of the first Sunday of the month during the school year. Notification of any and all activities is in the parish bulletin which you’ll find here online. This allows us to keep our tradition of keeping Mass completely announcement-free.
As part of our charitable outreach, we donate 10% of our annual income to charities nominated by the parishioners during Lent each year. We have a food drive for a local shelter every month, and as you get to know us, you’ll discover all the other ways we are church, live our faith and serve our neighbors.
Father Niall
Weekly Message from Father Niall
Dear Friends,
The relocation of the Mission of Yahweh monthly food drive drop boxes to just inside the Church proper, beside the statues of Mary and Joseph respectively, worked like a charm last weekend. The food donations are far safer there under the gaze of everyone who comes to worship here and well away from the sticky fingers of those who would like to steal, as sadly happened a month ago. It is one of those “live and learn” moments where we realize what worked for so long doesn’t anymore, and we just need to adapt accordingly. For those of you who volunteer to take the donations after the last Mass on the weekend to Mission of Yahweh itself, we have a cart to help you take the food items to your car. As you also saw last weekend, the ushers who are younger and more able-bodied than some of you, are more than willing to help. There are always plenty of people after Mass who are likewise ready and willing to lend a helping hand.
At last, the planets are aligned in a row! We now have our full complement of parish staff, so we will be up and ready to get the year off to a great start beginning in September when CCE resumes after Labor Day. As you read in the bulletin two weeks ago, our newest staff member to join us is Cathy Busald, the Coordinator for CCE. Janie Morales will continue as Business Administrator until the end of the calendar year as she promised, but she also wants to take her retirement from the Archdiocese a little more seriously and is already headhunting for her replacement. Betty Vitek continues in her role as Assistant Administrator, and we are now joined by Michelle Smiley who is going to take on the role of Communications Coordinator to look after the bulletin and the parish webpage and keep it current so you will be informed of the parish’s comings and goings. Until now, Adolfo Reginato looked after the bulletin and parish webpage while we were searching for the right person to take his place and let him get on with the rest of his busy life. A big “thanks!” to Adolfo for helping us get this far and for developing and improving the webpage in its present easy-to-use format. Michael Varona is our photographer who takes those wonderful shots you see on the cover of the bulletin most weekends, and as time moves along, we hope to expand our photo library and have more of his work on the inside of the bulletin (and on the webpage) as well.
After all that updating, I hope your life is going equally as well as our parish and that you are enjoying your summer.
God bless.
About St. Catherine Catholic Church
Our History
On May 14, 1975, Bishop John Morkovsky issued a formal Declaration establishing the parish of St. Catherine of Siena to help provide for the corporal and spiritual welfare of the growing west Houston community with Fr. Cliff Natho being assigned as the founding pastor.
Until the completion of construction (3 years later), Sunday Masses were celebrated in neighboring churches and schools, including Congregation Beth Am Synagogue, Spring Oaks Junior High, and Fairhaven United Methodist Church.
The initial construction was completed in 1978, and included the community center (which doubled as the sanctuary), the offices and classrooms. The present sanctuary was completed in 1993 and stands as a living testament to the generous spirit of the people who gather to worship God under the patronage of St. Catherine of Siena. At the 25th anniversary celebration in 2000, our beautiful prayer plaza garden was dedicated by Auxiliary Bishop Curtis J. Guillory.
Born small and committed to growth in the Holy Spirit, the parish family of St. Catherine of Siena continues to blossom in what was once a distant Spring Branch prairie but is now part of Houston’s ever-expanding metropolis. From the beginning, this community has fostered a loving, welcoming family spirit. And as with most families, the sharing of food occupies a very important place in all our gatherings; so don’t be startled if someone offers you a cup of coffee and a doughnut. It’s just who we are.
Our Patron
St Catherine of Siena (1347 – 1380)
Born in 1347, St. Catherine of Siena was the twenty-third child born to Jacopo and Lapa Benincasa. Recognized as a lovely and highly intelligent youth, she was filled with a joyous spirit from an early age.
However, no one expected this lovely young girl to become one of the great mystical doctors of the Church. Yet, it was early in life that she demonstrated an uncommon desire to surrender herself completely to Christ. It is due to this desire and her willingness to live it completely that she is remembered and celebrated today. At the age of eighteen, she entered the Dominican Third Order and spent three years in seclusion and prayer. A group of followers gathered around her—men and women (lay and religious) – and an active public apostolate grew out of her contemplative life.
But it was during the Great Schism (beginning in 1378) which split the allegiance of Christendom between first two, then three popes that Catherine became most notable. She spent the last two years of her life in Rome, in prayer and pleading on behalf of the unity of the Church and arguing for the legitimacy of Urban VI. In 1380, she died at the age of 33. She was canonized in 1461.
Along with Theresa of Avila, St. Catherine was named a doctor of the church in 1970 by Paul VI. Her most famous work, The Dialogue, contains an ecstatic vision of a conversation between a soul (who rises to heaven) and God. This mystical work is often called her spiritual testament.
She is the patron of Italy and Europe.