Dear Friends in Christ,
Thanks be to God we were spared from both storms this past week. We know how fortunate we are to have not been hit by Hurricane Laura or Tropical Storm Marco! We pray for a quick recovery of all of those who were in the path of these storms. A number of the priests from the Diocese of Beaumont came to Houston seeking refuge. Fr. Jim McClintock, pastor of St. Mary’s in Fannett stayed with us. His parish has been flooded three times in recent storms. He had just moved into the rectory a few weeks ago after the flooding caused by Tropical Storm Imelda last year and they are still not back in their church. While our area was hit badly by Hurricane Harvey, most of us were also blessed to be able to recover. Please remember in your prayers those who have yet to recover or for whom it was an extremely difficult trial.
This week we said “Thank You and Happy Retirement” to our Business Manager, Pete Prados. Pete has been with the parish for fourteen years after a career with Conoco Phillips. I am always grateful to Fr. Morfin for hiring Pete, who has been an invaluable member of our staff. To name all of the many things Pete has accomplished for our parish would take up more space than I have in this letter. We wish Pete every blessing and much happiness in his retirement! One of the last contributions of Pete was to help me find his successor. I am happy to welcome Mike O’Donnell to our staff as our new Business Manager. Mike, his wife Dina and their three children are long time and active members of St. John Vianney Parish. The kids have all been altar servers. Mike has served as an usher and on our cooking teams and Dina is involved in numerous activities including Parish Life and the Bazaar. Previously Mike was a manager with Petrobras and has had a great career of accomplishments. I am excited to welcome Mike to our team and look forward to his many contributions to our parish.
During the last few months we have also had a few other personnel changes. Sean Strasma, our Coordinator of Youth Ministry left us when his wife, who is a physician, took a position back east where they were originally from. We wish them much happiness and success. Sean did a great job in helping bring back our Youth Ministry program after Hurricane Harvey. We also said good bye to Natalie Shigg, one of our administrative assistants serving in our Ministries Offices. Natalie is headed back to school to complete a Master’s degree. We wish her many blessings too. We welcome to the parish staff Matt Zelinsky as our new Coordinator of Youth Ministry. Matt grew up in our area. He and his family attended St. Cecilia’s. He went to LSU and the University of Dallas. He is an Eagle Scout and previously served at St. Michael’s parish in the Galleria area. Matt is already off to a great start in spite of the current pandemic. Another new and great addition to our staff is Vivian Ramos, who is our new Director of Communications. Vivian, her husband, Aldo and their children are also long time and very active parishioners. Vivian has served on Pastoral Council has been active in Young Adults, St. Anne’s, St. Monica’s and JPII School. Aldo is one of our ushers and the children are involved in the parish as well. Vivian has an MBA from the University of St. Thomas and previously worked in marketing with the Sysco Corporation. Jean Carlile who has served us as Communications Director will now concentrate her efforts and talents to our IT needs. Jean did a great job in developing and growing our communications efforts. We look forward to many new initiatives and great success in our overall parish communications. Welcome Mike, Vivian and Matt! We are glad to have you serving with us on our parish staff!
In pace Christi,
Fr. Troy