CYO/Youth Ministry - Catholic Youth Organization
Our High School Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) is a fellowship and service organization through which our high school youth reflect their love of and commitment to God, our church, and our parish. The CYO is most notably attributed with their re-enactment of Jesus’ birth in their annual night presentation of the Living Nativity in the pecan grove in front of church.
On Good Friday afternoon, the CYO leads groups of people from around the county in a pilgrimage up Cross Hill for the Stations of the Cross. This Good Friday journey was a tradition in our church, dating back to the 1840’s, that ended sometime in the mid 1900’s. In 1998 our CYO group and their sponsors started the Cross Hill project to rebuild the stations and since 1999 it is, once again, an annual pilgrimage. The CYO also clears the path prior to Good Friday and picks up after.
The CYO has accepted various other building and maintenance projects to benefit our parish, such as installation of the irrigation system and replanting of trees in the pecan grove, preparing the cemeteries for All Souls Day services, as well as, designing, constructing and maintaining a Prayer Garden on the church grounds.
The CYO works together and prays together, and they share this fellowship with their classmates from other parishes by hosting a weekday “school lunch” at our parish hall several times during the school year.
The CYO is directed by volunteer parent sponsors.