Adapting to change, overcoming adversity

If there is one thing all students of history agree about Ss. Cyril & Methodius Parish in Corpus Christi is that it can adapt to change. In its 100-plus year history it has gone from being a parish founded for German farmers, to serving the Bohemian or Czech community, to today being predominantly a community whose ancestry is Mexican.

“In my 21 years as pastor, I have placed great emphasis on building a vibrant parish community based on the communities of the early Church,” Msgr. Lawrence White said on Trinity Sunday as the parish played host to Bishop Wm. Michael Mulvey who joined them to celebrate their centennial as a parish.

Community is a reflection of the Holy Trinity, Bishop Mulvey said to a standing room only congregation at the noon Mass. 

“We should model our human life after the life of the Holy Trinity. Jesus is at the center of our existence and has been at the center of this parish for 100 years. Come and listen to the word of God, not as usual but as God speaking to us. The words of God are an invitation to enter into a life with Him,” Bishop Mulvey said.

The faith community that became Ss. Cyril & Methodius in 1939 began to show signs of life in 1904 when Bishop Peter Verdaguer asked Father F. J. Goebbels to take charge of the growing German community in and around Corpus Christi. Father Goebbels gathered the people, mostly farmers, and they activated the church they called St. Boniface, after the English bishop who is known as the patron of Germany.

After a two-year fund-raising drive led by Father Goebbels, Msgr. Claude Jaillet dedicated a new church on Jan. 26, 1908.  The mission church, the third church in the growing city, began to thrive but tragedy struck four years later, on Feb. 3, 1912, when flames engulfed the rectory and Father Goebbels perished in the fire.

If adaptation to change is the hallmark of the parish, overcoming adversity is its companion characteristic. The community has survived many disasters in its 100-year history. The 1919 hurricane destroyed the parish hall that doubled as a school and severely damaged the church.
From the start, the Bohemian community had been an important part of the German church, and on Feb. 2, 1922, Bishop Emmanuel Ledvina decided to make it a national parish to serve Bohemians exclusively. It was not until nearly 20 years later, in 1939, that the bishop approved the name change to Ss. Cyril and Methodius, brothers in blood and cloth, who were known as the “apostles to the Slavs” and whom in 1980 Blessed John Paul II named as co-patron saints of Europe.

After surviving the Great Depression and the Second World War, parishioners at Ss. Cyril & Methodius set out to build a new church. Father Francis J. Kasper, who had been pastor since 1930, asked permission from Bishop Ledvina to build a new church in what was then the middle of cornfields at Lexington (now SPID) and Kostoryz. After rejecting the idea as “crazy,” the bishop relented and his successor Bishop Mariano Garriga dedicated the current Ss. Cyril and Methodius church on April 11, 1948.

Five years later Msgr. Kasper began construction of a school that opened in 1954 staffed by four sisters of the Holy Ghost. The school remains a vibrant part of the parish community, teaching students through the fifth grade.

Msgr. Kasper died in 1968 after having presided over the transition from German to Czech, from St. Boniface to Ss. Cyril & Methodius and from Agnes Street to the corner of SPID and Kostoryz.  He is credited with building the modern plant that is still in use.

No doubt that Msgr. Kasper also guided the parish through the initial stages of its third transition from a Czech parish to a predominantly Hispanic church family. It was Msgr. Patrick Higgins, who succeeded Msgr. Kasper as pastor, who guided the parish through the changes brought about by the Second Vatican Council.

The spiritual renewal of the parish was his focus. He is largely responsible for all the ministries the laity enjoys today. Msgr. Higgins made the parish the center for Cursillo movement. It was this spirituality that transformed the parish once again. While Ss. Cyril & Methodius are still on the nameplate, the parish’s spirituality is centered on Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Today, Msgr. White said, the parish serves more than 3,000 families who come from all over the city. More than 5,000 cars daily pass in front of church once located on a cornfield. Many tourists and out of town visitors stop at the very visible church, the only one in the diocese fronting a busy freeway. Many of the visitors stop for Mass while in town and many return often.

“The parish has an active Works of Mercy that feeds and clothes the homeless and helps families in need,” Msgr. White said. “There are approximately 450 public school children, kindergarten through middle school, enrolled in the parish Religious Education Program. The Life Teen Program, which is centered on the Eucharist, guides about 60 high school teens weekly in their struggles to live the Catholic faith as teens. The parish sponsors an active scout program for both boys and girls.”

In addition, a growing RCIA program brings adults into full communion with the Catholic Church. Msgr. White said the parish has very active groups of Guadalupanas, Catholic Daughters, Knights of Columbus and Altar Society.

While the Cursillo movement transformed the parish, Msgr. White said that the community is now known as “the ACTS parish.” The parish annually holds two ACTS (an acronym for Adoration, Community, Theology and Service Devotion) retreats for men and women.  Msgr. White credits these retreats with the increase in those enrolling in RCIA, in convalidation enrollees, in the numbers receiving communion, in confirmation, in school enrollment, in volunteerism, in adoration and in collections.

With six sons from the parish serving as priests, Ss. Cyril & Methodius parishioners pray for vocations every Sunday. The parish’s parochial vicar, Father Peter Stanley, also serves as an associate Vocations Director for the diocese.

Among the priests formed at the parish is Msgr. Louis Kihneman who serves as Vicar General for the diocese. The first priestly vocation was Msgr. George Harris who died a few years ago. Fathers Frank and Peter Martinez serve in the Diocese of Corpus Christi; Father Ed Kucera is serving in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston; and Father Pete Nolasco Hinojosa is serving the Diocese of Laredo.

“I am proud to be the pastor of such a loving community. I pray, that as we begin to write the history of this parish for the next 100 years, the Holy Spirit will continue to guide each of us to be an active member of this parish and that this parish will be blessed with many more vocations to the priesthood, the diaconate and to consecrated life,” Msgr. White said.

“My wish for the parish is that you continue to be a community of faith,” Bishop Mulvey said.