Rich Thoughts

Dearest friends,

My time serving at St. Austin Catholic Parish concludes this weekend. It isn’t “farewell” as much as “thank you” and “until we meet again.” It’s been six wonderful, action-packed years, overflowing with ministry opportunities, new friendships, unexpected blessings, and a shocking amount of guacamole!

In my fourth year of priesthood at the University of Tennessee, I asked the Paulists to send me to St. Austin. I felt this was the best community to prepare me for becoming a future pastor or director, and indeed, the circumstances of 2016-22 offered many opportunities. Not only has Fr. Chuck allowed me significant responsibilities, but also I’ve learned a lot serving here during a pandemic and the largest construction project in Paulist history!

But more than that, your support over these past six years has allowed me to better understand who God calls me to be. As I become more comfortable acknowledging my strengths and weaknesses, I continue growing in believing that God loves me as I am. Words alone cannot express my gratitude for the unconditional love you’ve shown me. I will treasure that even more than all the live music and tacos!

I’d like to offer some advice on how you can best support the Austin Paulists in the next few years:

• Don’t hesitate to reach out to Fr. Chuck or Fr. Paolo if you need pastoral guidance. Yes, their workloads are increasing, but I promise you that they’re glad to make time for one-on-one conversations with you. (They like talking with you more than going to construction meetings, I promise!)

• If you want the Paulists to continue their ministry in Austin, please learn how to better articulate how our charism of evangelization, reconciliation, and ecumenism benefits your faith life. The best way to do that is to join the Paulist Associates, now led locally by Pat and Steve Macy. Check out Paulist Associates, and then contact Fr. Paolo to get started.

• If the Holy Spirit is calling one of your family members or friends to join the Paulist community, please encourage them to embrace that call. If there’s any Catholic community in the country that should be brimming with vocations to the Paulist Fathers, it’s St. Austin!

The incoming Paulist General Council has formally approved my next assignment, but as I write this (May 19), I still cannot announce it publicly. The cardinal of the archdiocese to which I’m moving has not yet had a chance to give his consent. (There are three positions that require a combination of approval from the Paulist General Council and a cardinal: the pastorships/directorships in Chicago, New York City, and Boston. A web search should reveal which one of these positions is currently filled by a Paulist over retirement age.)

I have every intention of visiting Austin again and again. Clearly, wherever I’m going up north, I’ll want to come visit you during the long winter months!

With many blessings and deepest gratitude, until we meet again,

 

Change is inevitable. And so, I share this sad news: my service as an associate pastor at St. Austin concludes on May 22, 2022.

This leads to a lot of questions, which I’ll answer.

• Why are you going? There’s at least one Paulist pastor/director/superior retiring this summer, and I am one of the most senior Paulists available to step into a leadership role.

• Why won’t the Paulists let you stay here and become the next pastor after Fr. Chuck? St. Austin is far too complex an operation for a first-time pastor!

• Who will be taking your place on the staff? We don’t know yet. Since there are Paulists retiring this year and no Paulists being ordained, there’s a possibility that I won’t be replaced. So, please pray for more Paulist vocations!

• Where are you going? That’s not finalized yet. Fr. René has asked me to stay open. The final determination should be made in early May. Let us pray: “Blessed are the flexible…”

I am so grateful for the six years I’ve served at St. Austin Catholic Parish and School. (I’m one of the longest-serving associates in the parish’s 114-year history.) I will miss y’all terribly! But since I’m still here for another two months, this column is not the big goodbye. That farewell is scheduled – in combination with the 10th anniversary of my priesthood ordination – for Sunday, May 22, in the church after the 11:30 am Mass. I hope you’ll join us for that! Details will be forthcoming.

My schedule’s filling up very quickly, so if you’ve been meaning to set an appointment, please email sjones@staustin.org ASAP. Not only is there still plenty of work for me to do, but also many of the beloved friends I’ve made here are already inviting me to farewell meals. I have a lot of dinners and lunches scheduled, and I’ll probably start adding breakfasts once those slots are filled. Sorry that I can’t join you for a mid-morning coffee or an afternoon snack, since I still need to get things done between consuming calories!

Please – no gifts for me! If you’d like to make a donation on my behalf, please consider giving either to the Paulist Fathers at paulist.org/give or to the St. Austin Persons in Need (PIN) collection at staustin.org/special-gifts. For those who like giving material items, please buy HEB or Target gift cards, $50 or less, with amount marked on the card. Your generosity will assist our social justice ministries, primarily our St. Vincent de Paul chapter and the Gabriel Project ministry.

This is a change, not an end. In Christ, nothing ever comes to an end. Even after May 22, you’ll still find me on social media, and I will be happy to visit St. Austin, especially during the winter months. And who knows? Perhaps I will be asked one day by a future Paulist administration to return as the pastor!

With every blessing and prayer,

Read About Fr. Rich
at Catholic Profiles                 

This photo shows St. Austin's Fr. Rich Andre with classmates, Fr. René Constanza, left, and Fr. Tom Gibbons, right.
The three, all dear to our community, were ordained to the priesthood in May 2012.
Fr. René is the newly-elected president of the Paulist Fathers. 

The best time for anyone outside the Paulist Fathers community to learn about Paulist life and leadership is during an election year, such as this one. Our elections highlight both the joy and the tension of being a missionary.

The Paulists elect a president (superior general) and a vice president every four years. A president can serve two consecutive terms. The president selects a third Paulist, called the first consultor, to serve with him and the vice president in full-time administration. This Presidential Board is assisted by a part-time General Council of six other Paulists. Each new administration begins with a two-week General Assembly, where another 21 elected Paulists join these nine to discern the direction of the community for the next four years.
 

Our current Presidential Board is wrapping up eight years in administration. This past week, the Board met for the last time with the 2018-2022 General Council. Three of the six general councilors have served at St. Austin: Ivan Tou in 2002-2006, René Constanza in 2012-2016, and Chuck Kullmann since 2010. We are grateful for their service.
 

As many of you have heard, René will formally take office as the 20th Paulist president on June 7. I’m excited for him and for the Paulists. Not only is he holy, wise, and a dear classmate of mine, but also he brings management training and experience from the secular world!
 

Every election year brings excitement and anxiety not only to each Paulist, but also to the entire network of people served by the Paulists. Father René and the people of St. Andrew Cathedral and the Catholic Information Center are mourning his impending departure from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Who will take his place? By the time you read this, we will be electing a vice president. If either the new VP or first consultor is not serving in full-time administration already, other Paulists will need to fulfill their current ministry obligations. There will be assignments this year to other positions open due to health issues, retirement, and term limits.

While nothing will be finalized for several months, one of the Paulists most likely to move this summer is… me. As much as I would love to continue to minister at St. Austin, I have had the privilege to serve here longer than most other Paulists in the parish’s 113-year history. The community needs me to serve as a pastor or director, starting at a smaller, simpler place than St. Austin!

You can send René a congratulatory note at fatherrene@cathedralofsaintandrew.org, but clearly, it is too soon to pepper Fr. René with questions about what happens next in Austin. Trust that your concerns are on his radar, and that he and the new Presidential Board will do everything in their power to care for the people whom the Paulists serve in Austin, as well as the people whom we serve in Berkeley, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Grand Rapids, Horseshoe Bay, Knoxville, Los Angeles, New York, Rome, San Francisco, Vero Beach, Washington, D.C., and in our various national ministries, too!

The Paulist Fathers are gearing up for our quadrennial leadership election process. The new administration begins in late May 2022 with the General Assembly, when 30 newly-elected officials (plus the outgoing President) will meet for two weeks to set the Paulists’ administrative agenda for the next four years.

Over the past few decades, in an attempt to be more synodal (listening and collaborative), the Paulists have held “preassemblies,” where all Paulists and many of our lay collaborators discuss the current issues facing the communities the Paulists serve. Due to safety concerns during this election cycle, we held three online pre-assemblies of 30-45 people each. On November 30 through December 2, four Paulist Fathers and five lay people from central Texas participated in the third and final pre-assembly. During those days, I participated in small-group discussions with Paulists living in Delaware, Illinois, Tennessee, and Rome; Paulist offices border mine (Diane Zbasnik and Fr. Paolo). Among other topics, my small groups discussed how to better articulate Paulist spirituality for employees, parishioners, and the general public; the opportunities and challenges that technology offers us as we negotiate how the pandemic has permanently changed the Church; and the demographic realities of the Paulists being a community of 97 priests with an average age of 71.

While an online process isn’t going to delve as deeply into issues as an in-person gathering would, the 2021 pre-assemblies had a distinct advantage over previous ones. Now that our elections are conducted electronically and on a more compact schedule, this pre-assembly process took place BEFORE we begin our elections. Perhaps this allows us a better opportunity to listen to the Holy Spirit guiding us to elect the men with the gifts most needed in the current moment!

Please pray for us in this election process. The nominations of candidates to be our new President (Superior General) begin in January, and we should know who the Presidentelect will be no later than February 8.

Fr. Paolo celebrated a Mass for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe at San José Church on December 11, as part of “Santa Eddie’s Color Run and Advent Sing Song” at St. Austin Catholic School. The image of Our Lady emblazoned on Juan Diego’s tilma (poncho) displays a sophisticated knowledge of both Spanish Catholicism and Aztec culture that no human being could have possessed in 1531. The tilma itself should have disintegrated within 15 years, but the material has withstood an acid spill in 1791, and a dynamite explosion in 1921. This miracle is a perfect example of how best to carry out Christ's commission to “make disciples of all nations.” Two different cultures affirmed the holy in one another while not incorporating any of the sins of either culture. In our current moment of such deep polarization and tribalization.

May Our Lady of Guadalupe inspire each of us to strive to recognize one another as children of God! 

November is Native American Heritage Month, and while St. Austin Catholic Parish will be participating in Catholic Extension’s virtual immersion experience on November 7 - 8, there is so much more that we could be doing. Since the murder of George Floyd nearly 18 months ago, many of us have wrestled to understand the discrimination that people of color experience in the United States. However, most of us are not aware of the contributions of our Native American neighbors to our society over the centuries nor mindful of how our ancestors contributed to the hardships that Native Americans continue to face today.

One person to consider this month is Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680), the first Native American to be declared a saint in the Church. While her canonization took place in 2012, the main champion of her sainthood was Fr. Clarence Walworth (1820-1900), one of the founders of the Paulist Fathers.

Kateri was born into the Mohawk tribe in what later became upstate New York, at a time of great upheaval for Native Americans because of the arrival of Europeans. Kateri’s life was severely affected by European-borne smallpox, which orphaned her around the age of four and left her disfigured and nearly blind. (Tekakwitha means “she who bumps into things.”) Her adopted family’s village was destroyed because of Dutch and French traders pitting tribes against one another. Lastly, by choosing to become a Christian through the influence of Jesuit missionaries, Kateri was ostracized by many in her community. Pierre Cholenec (1641-1723), one of those missionaries, reported that Kateri said, “I have deliberated enough. For a long time, my decision on what I will do has been made. I have consecrated myself entirely to Jesus, son of Mary.” She took the name Kateri (for Catherine of Siena) when she was baptized at the age of 19.

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, pray for us!

Image of St. Kateri from Knights.net