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Dear Friends:
About a month or so ago Bishop Mulvey spoke to me about doing some special work for our diocesan Church over the next few years, which I find exciting and challenging. We also discussed my present role in the Diocese as the Vicar General, a position I have held since Archbishop Roberto appointed me to when he assumed the responsibility of leading the Church of Corpus Christi as the sixth Bishop of this Diocese. For most of my forty-three years of priestly ministry I have had two assignments in the administration of the Diocese, first as Vice Chancellor, later as Chancellor and then as Vicar General, as well as Parochial Vicar at the Cathedral, Chaplain at Incarnate Word, Parochial Vicar here at St. Pius X, Rector of the Cathedral and Pastor of St. Pius where I have balanced most of my time between two pastoral assignments, each of which were important and each of which have had their own demands in terms of time and energy.
As parishioners you know that this past year has taken a toll on my health and consequently on my ability to carry out my duties as I have always done with an attitude of giving both of my assigned pastoral roles my best. While I have definitely made progress in what has been a long journey to normalcy, my legs are still weak, causing me to fall without warning as happened four or so times in recent weeks. In most cases, I was able to call for help but a week ago I returned to my casita after my workout at physical therapy and a visit to the doctor's office. As I pulled into the garage I remembered that I had put the sprinkler out in the back part of my yard. I was in a hurry and forgot to take my cane along with me which was a mistake as I stepped into an uneven part of the grass and immediately went down. With nothing to hold on to and no telephone to call for help (it was in my slacks in my bedroom), I crawled on the grassy area until I lined up with the door that led into my mother's future quarters. I crawled onto the porch and still on my knees opened the door. I was so relieved until I heard the sound of the security alarm beginning its count down to its active alarm. Trying to get to the alarm pad required more crawling through three rooms to get to the nearest pad, but not in time to stop the full sounds of the alarm going wild. Eventually, I was able to leverage my body with the help of something to hold onto and finally got back up on my two feet.
I mention this because I still have a way to go as it sometimes seems as if my thigh muscles have not returned to their once upon a time strength. That being said, I have really slowed down in my energy level and my capacity to commit to a full time schedule at the parish or the chancery. And so, when the Bishop spoke about how he was hoping to use the Vicar General in ways that were going to demand something close to full time and how he was concerned about asking me to commit to that kind of schedule in light of my health concerns, I readily told him that I thought it best if someone else assist him in this role. He did ask me to take on some other challenges in the Diocese that I could carry out on my time and in response to my energy levels.
The first is to serve as his Vicar for Special Affairs. It immediately brought some tongue-in-cheek remarks from my old pal, Msgr. Chamberlin. I suspect that the title will be changed to "Special Events" either of which I am willing and ready to do. Since I had chaired the committees that had planned the installation and public reception of three bishops, along with a number of other diocesan events, he believed that I could continue to take on any future events as they appear on the radar screen.
The second task he asked of me was to join with Msgr. Michael Heras in planning and executing a year of celebrating the Centennial of the Establishment of the Diocese beginning in March 2012 and ending in March 2013. We both met with the Bishop last evening and did some brain-storming about this historical event in the history of the Diocese and will begin putting a committee together to help with our intent to reach out to all parts of the Diocese and to initiate listening sessions in all of the Deaneries of the Diocese to get the input from the priests, deacons, religious and laity.
The third task that the Bishop asked me to work on was the planning, fund-raising and construction of a retirement and nursing facility for our retired priests, something I have always wanted to do. Hopefully, all of this can be done and completed during the Centennial Year of the Diocese.
Lastly, the Bishop said that he would like for me to reach out to our brothers and sisters of faith in the non-Catholic and Jewish communities in our Diocese to strengthen the spiritual bonds that are common to us all, to dialog on areas of concern that face our churches and synagogues in our communities throughout the Diocese and to celebrate special times and events that have meaning to our faith communities and their peoples.
While that sounds like a full plate, I believe that it is a more manageable schedule of the time and energy that I can give to the larger Church of the Diocese, all the while being able to devote more time to my ministry here in the parish as pastor. One of the first things that I want to do beginning next week is visiting all of our parishioners who are in nursing homes or who are homebound in their own homes. I really have missed this part of my ministry as pastor and hope to get back in the saddle again.
All of this presupposes that I get my health back to where it was several years ago before it began to run-down to the point that I couldn't stand up to a little puppy dog. So pray for me and continue to be patient with me. I owe many of you thank you notes for a year of birthday, get-well, Christmas, Easter, Anniversary of Priestly Ordination greetings, gifts, and prayers, something I am hoping to personally respond to over the next few weeks as I begin a new schedule of priestly ministry that will be focused on you, on the parish and the other challenges that will take me into retirement a little later than I had previously planned for myself.
With your support and the power of the Holy Spirit, I'll give it my best - something I have always tried to do.
Fr. Richard
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