This is my last column as your Pastor. It has been a wonderful 14 years and 2 months! There have been accomplishments, tears, successes, some dead ends, a lot of togetherness, and some very good parties. I am deeply grateful for the way you have allowed me into your lives. It has always been interesting and never dull. Getting to know each of you has always proved rewarding, and often fun.
We have been through a lot together, in the growth and development of the parish community as new parishioners arrived, and stalwart parishioners moved on to another city or to their eternal reward. I have known a goodly number of memorable characters.
Together we celebrated Masses, Reconciliations, Baptisms, Weddings, Funerals, Anointings, Confirmations, and numerous Blessings. We have rejoiced at the opening of school years, graduations, and many parish and school festivals. We have played well together. When I arrived those many years ago, this community was still grieving and smarting from the totally unexpected death of your previous Pastor, Fr Jim Wiesner, CSP. He was much beloved, which made the loss all-the-more painful. But in true St Austin fashion, the parish pulled together and moved forward.
We survived winter storms and power outages, endless days of insane triple digit heat, the brutal COVID pandemic, numerous moves of location, and Austin traffic. We are still standing and still singing! Resilience is this community’s middle name.
I have been blessed to serve with very good Associate Pastors: Paulist Frs. Tom Gibbons, Stephen Bell, René Constanza, Rich Andre, Bob Cary, Dick Sparks, and Paolo Puccini. You welcomed them all and taught them how to be good priests. This is a great assignment for newly ordained men.
I apologize for the times I have been brusque or insensitive, or hurt you in any way. Some of those times may have been when I felt overwhelmed by the number of competing demands, and some no doubt were just plain irascibility and snarkiness. In any case, I am sorry.
I am confident that Fr. Jimmy Hsu, CSP, will find in this community the same openness, the same challenge, the same faithfulness and joy that I have been blessed to experience these last fourteen years. Welcome him and help him to be a great Pastor.
And I encourage you to keep singing. THANK YOU!!! God bless!