As you may know, we have just celebrated our 10^th anniversary as a parish. What a blessing! Thank you for all your help! Together we have made great gains these past years in helping college students keep their Catholic faith and building up the body of Christ on our Denton campuses.

Many people said we could never build this parish. They said it would take a miracle. Well, yes, it actually took many miracles, but thanks be to God and to many generous benefactors like yourself we not only have a parish to call our own, it’s also paid for in full!!!  ($3.5 million) Thank you!

This is what I wrote 5 years ago:

“Just imagine sitting down for Mass in a room large enough to seat 200 people, with a real sacristy, altar, and statues. Think how it would be to go to Reconciliation in a real confessional, to have nice offices for all the staff, and rooms for you to have private conversations with them when seeking help. How wonderful it will be to come to church knowing that you absolutely will have a seat in Mass, no standing or sitting behind a wall for an hour because you got there at the last minute.”

Obviously, 5 years ago we faced many obstacles to our daily parish life, yet we dreamed anyway. With God all good things are possible, and with your help our dream came true. We have a parish that is vibrant and fully functional. It may not be half the size of most small parishes, but we have a wonderful place that students, young adults, and a growing parishioner base can call home.

Now we must look at the next 10 years and see where we hope and even dream to be. Ten years from now we should have 25 to 30 students each year going through the RCIA process to become Catholic. We should have over 400 students in our bible study / faith groups. And we should have built another building with classrooms for faith formation classes, parish small groups, and bible studies, etc, a lounge for students to hang out, a coffee shop for our students and to be welcoming to newcomers, and a Catholic bookstore. Once we have all these things we should be looking toward building a church that is two or three times larger than our current one to accommodate larger Sunday Mass attendance, with the current church being transformed into a chapel for weddings, baptisms, and Eucharistic adoration.

Therefore, we have developed a plan for the next three years to purchase as much nearby land as possible. If we want to become a tier one, premier Catholic university parish helping to keep our Catholic students Catholic, then we first need to buy land for more parking and buildings.

We have contacted several landowners who are willing to sell, but we must act quickly. To be able to purchase these lots we will need a large amount of money down, and other money to be pledged. In general, the Diocese of Fort Worth requires that we have 40% of the money for a project in the bank and another 25% in pledges before any land purchase or building project begins. Because we are so small of a parish, the diocese did not give us a loan to begin construction on this new building until we had 65% in cash and another 25% in pledges. In the long run this actually helped us. We were able to pay off our debt in less than 3 years! Praise God! We did it once then and we can do it again with God’s help and with yours!

Thus, I need your help! We are so small of a parish that it is simply not possible for us to do this on our own. St. John Paul II University Parish is already helping the future of the entire DFW Catholic community. It is with that in mind that I ask for your support.

Please pray upon this vital need and consider a donation that God places upon your heart and mind; a one-time upfront donation AND the consideration of a 3-year pledge.

One-Time Gifts
https://membership.faithdirect.net/givenow/TX511/49348

Recurring Monthly Gifts
https://membership.faithdirect.net/enroll/TX511
Scroll down and use the LAND - Securing Our Future campaign