On this second Sunday of Easter we are blessed to believe because of our faith experiences of the risen Lord Jesus in our Lives. The UCC has been blessed in so many ways this past year as our student groups have reached out in ministry to their fellow students and to people beyond the UT campus. What starts here has begun to change the world through all of our community involvement with faith , social and social justice activities this past year. While we can be proud of all of our accomplishments we desire to do even more.

Last month our staff had a visioning day during which we identified our top four areas of growth that we want to concentrate on in the next five years. The first area that we identified, and one that has always been our goal, is to increase the number of students attending Sunday and daily Mass. Currently we see about 1200 students each weekend and up to 100 at daily Mass. We estimate that this is only about 10 percent of the Catholic students attending UT. While some may attend other nearby churches, there are many students that are not attending any church on weekends and our goal is to reach out to them and to increase our Sunday and daily Mass attendance by 40% by the end of the 2013 school year.

Our partnership with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students has borne much fruit this year with 16 bible and Catholic study groups meeting this past semester with outreach to fraternities and sororities and UT athletics. We plan to capitalize on this in the Fall semester and along with the enthusiasm of all of our student groups we will put forth an even greater effort in our welcoming activities and advertisements to UT students during those first few weeks of the fall semester.

Our second goal for next year is to continue to improve our UCC hospitality with a full time front desk person to welcome and greet visitors during the day and also to have evening receptionists to do the same in the evenings. We are also looking to have student ambassadors of the UCC who would be able to offer hospitality to visitors and orient new students to our place.

Our third goal is to increase the opportunities for Eucharistic Adoration here at the UCC working towards the possibility of having perpetual adoration. Toward that end this past Lent we offered additional opportunities for adoration on Mondays and Wednesdays after 12:05 daily Mass till 4:30 pm. We will look to do more in the Fall semester.

The fourth goal is more long range with short range objectives. The fourth involves collaborating with St. Austin’s to create a more cohesive Catholic presence in the area between us and St. Austin’s; perhaps even making Dobie Dorms into a Catholic Dorm. For such a grand vision to take place we will have to vision with St. Austin’s and the diocese. Towards achieving such a grand goal there are many steps along the way: One step that we have been researching is how we can better use the resources of our current building and parking lot. Over the past four years we have managed to lower our energy use but there is a lot of room for improvement. This past year we have made some good progress in identifying ways we can make our building even more energy efficient. We also continue to explore ways of collaborating more effectively with St. Austin’s.

Many other specific visions and goals for the UCC were identified as well. Essentially we want to continue to expand the amount of ministry opportunities available and to increase the number of students, faculty and staff participating in these ministries by 30 percent over the next two years. All these initiatives will enable us to better achieve our mission of providing pastoral care to the Roman Catholic community at the University of Texas at Austin. We are always open to feedback and suggestions and welcome your comments and input.

Thank you for supporting all that we have and are accomplishing now. With your continued participation in our mission we will be able to achieve our goals and have the best possible Catholic Campus Ministry here at The University of Texas in Austin.