Prepare the way... Season of Advent

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Downtown Houston will be filled with the music and festivities of ancient Mexican tradition to celebrate the anniversary of the Virgin Mary’s appearance to a humble Mexican peasant, St. Juan Diego, in 1531.

The annual procession and Mass, honoring the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, will begin at 9 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 8, with a blessing of the procession at the Downtown Chancery Office, 1700 San Jacinto. The procession will conclude at the George R. Brown Convention Center, 1001 Avenida De Las Americas with a Mass at 12 p.m. celebrated by Daniel Cardinal DiNardo in the second floor assembly room.

Scores of matachines, or indigenous folk dance troupes, mariachis and other singers, as well of hundreds of families will participate in the procession and Mass.

Daniel Cardinal DiNardo will preside over the 2019 Filipino Simbang Gabi Grand Culmination Mass at Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church (6502 CR 48, Manvel) at 6:30 p.m.

A Filipino pot luck dinner will follow. 

Simbang Gabi is a beloved Advent tradition for Filipino Catholics. It is a series of devotional novena Masses, which begin Dec. 15, offered in anticipation of the Nativity and in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the Philippines, the Masses are usually held in the early hours of the morning, but in Houston the Masses are celebrated in the evening to allow more faithful to attend.

In 2018, at least 33 parishes participated in the Simbang Gabi celebrations, including at least five parishes like Notre Dame, Corpus Christi, St. Dominic, St. John Neumann and Sacred Heart in Manvel that celebrated Masses every day during the novena.

For more information, visit the Archdiocesan Simbang Gabi Schedule.

The Vietnamese Catholic Association of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston will host their Annual Christmas Vigil Mass on Tuesday, December 24, 2019, at the George R. Brown Convention Center, 1001 Avenida De Las Americas in downtown Houston. The celebrant will be Cardinal DiNardo with concelebrants from across the Archdiocese. For more information, please call 713-853-8000.

Schedule:

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm: Penance Service
5:00 pm – 5:30 pm: Christmas Carols
5:30 pm: Procession and Adoration of Baby Jesus
6:00 pm: Christmas Vigil Mass

The next Café Lite will be on Thursday, January 16, at St. Clare of Assisi (3131 El Dorado Blvd, Houston) from 7:00-9:00 p.m., with an optional prayer hour from 6:00-7:00 p.m.

Our speaker will be Fr. Luke Millette, Judicial Vicar for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. His topic will be “Spiritual AND Religious: Staying Connected to Christ and his Church."

The Café Catholica program seeks to help young adults (ages 18-39) encounter Christ and his Church. All young adults are invited to join us for Café Catholica Lite throughout the year. We will gather at different locations around the Archdiocese for a talk, followed by time in prayer and fellowship.

For more information contact the Office for Young Adult and Campus Ministry at www.archgh.org/cafecatholica or yacm@archgh.org or 713-741-8778. Save the dates for upcoming Café Lite talks: March 12, 2020, at Our Mother of Mercy, Houston; May 28, 2020, at Christ the Redeemer, Houston