Thanks to volunteers from Boy Scouts Troop 727 and Incarnate Word Academy to enhance our playground with benches and plants as part of Andrew Wight’s Eagle Scout project on June 11. The project has added a nice spot in the shade for parents to sit as they watch children play. Come and check it out!

     A number of years ago, late summer, I walked into a small and complex ecosystem, a patient’s room in MD Anderson’s critical care unit. Except for the chirping noises from a heart monitor and the sighing of a mechanical respirator, it was quiet like a grotto or chapel....

As my dad aged, the challenges of caring for him magnified for my mother. Navigating him between the porch and her car in the driveway exhausted her. Winters were awful. Parking in the garage was out of the question. For decades. Over the years my father, an Okie dust bowl farm boy, turned his garage into pharaoh’s tomb, cramming it full with everything imaginable. Because I might need it, he said.

Sunday, May 15, our parish children participated in the May Crowning. Mary was presented with beautiful flowers from these sweet kids.

Few motion picture scenes are more horrifying than the large raptor dinosaur ransacking a commercial kitchen to devour two children. I remember clearly my terror watching that episode in “Jurassic Park” (1993). The idea that a reptile can hunt down and consume mammals is abhorrent but alas, I can’t say no to Komodo Dragon nature videos...

Father Barker invites you to join him for burgers and fellowship, in appreciation for your dedicated service!

Years ago I offered Mass regularly in Spring Branch at a decades-old residential facility designed like a wagon wheel. Its pretentious name meant nothing. Everyone branded it a nursing home. Quite a few called it the Linoleum Club. Of course it looked seedy and reeked. Most residents there were poor and struggled with pain and serious cognitive problems. The kitchen clatter and weekly hairstyling made Wednesday Mass in the small dining room very difficult. Everybody screamed. A homily was out of the question. We couldn’t bear it. I remember vividly a woman named Mary, 92 years old. She wore a blousy Hawaiian sack dress, lugging her glossy black handbag on her right arm. Mary spoke with a heavy accent, and for the longest time I thought she was Spanish. She wasn't. She was Hungarian. Everyone called her the Duchess of Spring Branch.

I loved to fish on my dad’s ranch in the San Luis Valley a few miles south of Del Norte, Colorado. Working a fast-flowing snow-fed Colorado stream was my joy. The ranch meant chores, cattle and hay work, lots of it, and a teenage boy like me ached to slip away in the afternoons to stalk Frisco Creek’s banks. Sweet mountain meadows perfumed by alfalfa and timothy hay and clover. Crisp mountain air. Crystal clear, cold mountain water. Fresh-caught slippery rainbow trout.

On Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020, Father Barker published this reverent and inspiring reflection. Following are some of the highlights. The April 12, 2020 Spirit and Truth newsletter that features the complete article is now posted on our website for your convenience. The Spirit and Truth Staff...

Our parish youth, 8th-12th grade will be going to the Priests vs Seminarians basketball game at Rice University on Friday, April 29.

Each month, the “DSF in Action” e-newsletter highlights a ministry of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston made possible by your support of the Diocesan Services Fund (DSF)...

"Give laughter to friends, love to family, respect to our country, devotion to the Church and alms to the poor."

Applications for the 2022 Knights of Columbus Senior Scholarship are now open!

Most zebra births take place during rainy months when food is plentiful and herds pause their migrations. Zebra females about to birth depart the herd to locate a sheltered place in taller, thicker vegetation. The many harems of a migratory zebra herd typically graze a short distance away. When curious adults, including the harem stallion, approach a mother and her newborn foal, she becomes alarmed. The mare quickly blocks her baby from viewing the visitor's stripes. This task can be exhausting...

St. Philip Liturgical Choir, Lay Readers, & Extraordinary Ministers, Holy Week is just a few short weeks away. We are never closer to God than we are during Holy Week. The Triduum is the mountaintop we strive to climb. Without the wholehearted commitment of our Liturgical Ministers, we are not giving full glory to God during this week. I am asking all ministers to rise up and answer the call of service during Holy Week. In the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Father Richard Barker +++ Palm Sunday – April 10 @ 8:30 am & 11 am Holy Thursday—Mass of the Lord’s Supper, April 14 @ 7 pm Good Friday—Passion of the Lord, April 15 @ 3 pm Holy Saturday—The Easter Vigil, April 16 @ 8:30 pm Easter Sunday, April 17 @ 8:30 am & 11 am

Just below the south wall of Israel’s Temple Mount is Mount Zion. Ancient Jerusalem was founded on this long and very steep hill. These days it’s a boisterous Palestinian district. In 715 BC, Hezekiah ascended to the throne of Judah, reigning in “David’s City” about 30 years. Widely acknowledged as one of Israel’s three finest kings, he preserved his country’s independence in the face of hostile Assyrian and Babylonian powers. Hezekiah knew well that Jerusalem’s Gihon Springs (Heb. gushing) were outside the city walls. If a besieging army captured this reliable but intermittent water supply, the city would fall by starvation. Something had to be done...

The Knights of Columbus will host a Lenten Fish Fry on March 11 and April 1...

To everyone about the age of 70 or above, a moment for us. I appreciate the word elder, but I’m not fond of its adjective, elderly, or the term old age so often used to suggest impairment or irrelevance. Middle age, on the other hand, conveys years of full-bodied fervor and keenness embracing both present and future. Peggy Lee’s song “It’s a Good Day” expresses this well, “You know you gotta get going  /If you're gonna make a showing  /And you got the right of way.” Middle age, it seems to me, should go all the way through one’s 79th year...

he fact that I don’t speak Spanish didn’t stop me from going to Mexico as often as possible with bilingual Catholic friends. Our driving trips took us through many interior states. Hands down Guanajuato (birthplace of Mexican independence) is the most beautiful city I’ve seen. But the industrial city of Monterrey remains my favorite. There I found many of the beautiful things that have adorned our Saint Philip worship area over the years. You will recognize several of them, for example the framed Our Lady of Guadalupe portrait in the Day Chapel, the gold seashell I use when baptizing, the gold wine-and-water cruets tray used by altar servers in our Mass, and most especially, the gold and silver footed ciborium in our tabernacle which I gifted to St. Philip in honor of Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza appointing me pastor July 01, 2005...

The greatest and most powerful prayer we possess is the Mass! Our 2022 Liturgical calendar has many available Mass dates on which to offer your special intention.