CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL An Episcopal Community in the Heart of Houston, Texas
A safe and accepting path Siblings Mike Puccio and Patti Ramsey remember their mother, Lillian Puccio, as a truly honest perfectionist, someone who wanted everything to be done right — her way. “Mother was probably the most particular person about things that mattered or didn’t matter. She was a very high-maintenance person,” Patti said. “But she made friends very easily and was a very genuine person.” “Some people may have thought she was insensitive,” Mike said. “But she was real honest about what she saw. If she didn’t like
something you were doing, or even if she did, she was real honest.” As children, Mike and Patti didn’t attend church, despite their father growing up a devout Roman Catholic. When Lillian, an Armenian, and Joe Puccio, an Italian, decided to marry, the church wouldn’t accept it and much of the Puccio family didn’t approve. So Lillian never attended a church even though she made sure her children were baptized at an Episcopal Church.
PATH, back cover
Lillian and Joe Puccio
Dedicate Easter lilies to honor, remember Easter is a wonderful time to remember that each person, like a lily, is a creation meant to glorify God. As you consider those who mean the most in your life, you may want to remember or honor them by sponsoring one or more of the lilies that grace the Rood Screen at the Cathedral for our great festival celebration. Checks for $10 per plant should be made payable to the Altar Guild and mailed to
Christ Church Cathedral, 1117 Texas Ave., Houston, TX 77002, attn: Altar Guild. If you wish to honor a loved one with your donation, please include a list of names, indicating if they are in memory or honor of, by March 1. Names received by then will be listed in the Easter Bulletin. Those received later will appear subsequently.
FEBRUARY 2013 CHRISTCHURCHCATHEDRAL.ORG
Traveling the road
During my childhood, my family trekked each November from Paragould to my father’s hometown of McGehee, Arkansas, to spend Thanksgiving with my grandmother. It was always an adventure. The drive consisted of four hours along poorly maintained state highways, occasionally (in the 1970s) through sleet THE REV. BARKLEY and snow. And yet we THOMPSON knew at the end of the road my grandmother awaited us with warmth and love. Packed like sardines into a “Brady Bunch” station wagon, our sojourn always included a combination of excitement, nervousness and promise. As I prepare to load the truck and join the Christ Church Cathedral family in Houston this month, I am reminded of those trips from Paragould to McGehee, and the same admixture of emotion wells within me. I am also reminded of God’s call to Abraham in Genesis 12. The call to be your dean is for me literally a call to different geography, but it is a call to a “new place” for both the Cathedral community and me. New relationships always entail exploration and discovery of spirit. When God beckons Abraham out of his settled home and into a new place, he does so with the promise of blessing. What’s more, God’s promise is not for Abraham’s own sake. God blesses Abraham so that Abraham may extend God’s blessing to others. I have already experienced the call to be your dean as a blessing in my life. Even before we’ve traveled the road to Houston, many of you have reached out to my family and me to extend your warmth and love. And I hold fast to God’s promise that the ministry we share will be a blessing to one another, to Houston and to the Diocese.
TRAVELING, back cover