By Amy White
The Texas Catholic
In the stillness of the All Saints Catholic Community chapel, parishioners of the Dallas church quietly kicked off a special year of celebration in the presence of the eucharistic Lord. Beginning on March 26 — a half century to the day from the parish’s founding in 1976 — and continuing into March 28, the “50 Hours of Adoration for 50 Years” marked the first of a series of Eucharist-focused golden jubilee events planned to commemorate the milestone anniversary.
“When the parish turned 40 years, they did a great party, a very big party,” said Father Jovita Okoli, pastoral administrator of All Saints. “Now, we are turning 50. I sat down and asked myself, ‘What do we really want? Is it another glamorous celebration, which we can do; or is it about bringing people back to what brought us to this place?’ And what is it that brought us to this place? I believe it is the Holy Eucharist; it is to have an encounter with Jesus.”
Reflecting this reality, the theme of the golden jubilee is “50 years: Shining in Christ’s Love,” organizers said — an apt theme for a parish united around a shared mission statement of striving “to Know, Love, and Serve, Empowered by the Holy Eucharist.”
“Anything that we do, we should keep the fact that Jesus — who’s in the Eucharist — is part of our lives,” said Catherine Foxworth, who is serving as lead for the golden jubilee planning committee, “and so our events and activities are focused on the Eucharist in that way … always keeping in mind it’s centered around Christ.”
United in the Eucharist
In keeping with that Christ-centered theme, the parish has invited its ministries to incorporate a eucharistic focus into their regular events throughout the golden jubilee year. Parishioners, too, are encouraged to celebrate the anniversary by spending 50 minutes with Jesus each week, Father Okoli shared — time to thank God for what he has done in the parish over the past half century and to ask for his guidance in the next.
Notably, the parish has also been granted a special permission from the Holy See in acknowledgement of its milestone year.
“We decided to write to the Holy See and see if they will allow us to designate our church as a place for plenary indulgence for the one year we are going to have our 50 years anniversary,” Father Okoli said. “It’s something that is going to draw people again towards the Holy Eucharist.”
The priest added that the parish also hopes to host a eucharistic procession from the school to the church near the end of the calendar year — uniting the two campuses in prayer and centering, once again, on the Eucharist during the golden jubilee.
“What really matters for us as Catholics is Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, the real presence of Jesus,” he reiterated, “and how we respond to the love that God has shown to us through the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.”
50 years as a faith family
Though All Saints’ golden jubilee year centers, in a special way, on the love of the eucharistic Lord, that focus is not new for the Dallas parish: The Blessed Sacrament — along with a spirit of hospitality — has always been central to the identity of the community, even at the genesis of the church, parishioners said.
All Saints first put down its roots on March 26, 1976, when then-Bishop Thomas Tschoepe established All Saints Catholic Community as a parish in the Diocese of Dallas. In its earliest days, parishioners shared, the community did not yet have a church building; instead, the congregation gathered to celebrate Masses in the gym of Prestonwood Elementary School — pulling out some chairs before each Mass and putting them away afterwards — until a church building was blessed and dedicated on All Saints Day in 1979.
“That first All Saints Day that we were in the church was a very special celebration,” said longtime parishioner Rosemary Greene, who joined the community a couple of years after it was established. Even in those years when the parish was still finding its footing, she said, All Saints was already a welcoming spiritual family united in Christ. As the community started to grow in both space and numbers — eventually adding a campus for All Saints Catholic School in addition to the church campus — it kept that hospitable spirit.
“We felt so welcomed and just a part of the community right away,” the parishioner said, and “that friendly spirit still remains.”
Another longtime parishioner, Pat Zaby, echoed this sentiment, remarking that the church is full of “wonderful, loving, selfless people that do things”— parishioners who see a need and, without fanfare, address it.
“We had a lady that — God bless her — she would get there every morning and go through the entire set of pews and arrange the books and get rid of garbage that was in there … That was her ministry,” Zaby said, “and it’s not just that person. It’s people that work for the Knights of Columbus or the women’s group or the men’s group or any of the different things.”
Zaby, who likewise is very active in his parish, as a lector, eucharistic minister, and member of the pastoral advisory council, pulled from a unique analogy — the mass migration of spiny lobsters from the Yucatán Peninsula to the Atlantic Ocean — to further illustrate the point.
“When they get tired, another one will come out of the line and come up there and take the position,” he explained. “It happens in our church. The Holy Spirit guides people to pick up, take things.”
Just as community members pitch in to volunteer for ministries, organize events, and fundraise, they also step up to support each other spiritually — through prayer and presence — according to parishioner Michael Greene, who said the congregation supported his wife, Rosemary, through two bouts of breast cancer.
“Each time, she has had prayers from the Knights of Columbus, the women’s organization — the whole church has been involved in those prayers,” he said. “That’s a very important part of our community: that we build each other up and we do that through prayer.”
“The church really is our spiritual home,” he added. “We go there to be nourished. We go there for weddings and for funerals and all of the sacraments, and we celebrate all of those as a community.”
The celebration of 50 years of All Saints, then, is a recognition of a half century of being a true family of faith united in prayer and mutual support. The mission for the years ahead, Father Okoli shared, is to continue to grow that spiritual family by inviting others into the richness of a relationship with Christ and his Church.
“For the next 50 years,” the priest said, “we want to focus on … reaching out, bringing other people into the church, and helping them find Jesus.”
Cutline for featured image: Members of the All Saints Catholic Community’s golden jubilee planning committee pose for a photo on March 26, from left, Ben Schexnayder, Catherine Foxworth, and Jeanie Adamson. Sondra Minigutti, not pictured, is also a member of the committee. (AMY WHITE/The Texas Catholic)
