Here at St. Bernadette Catholic Church we are a community of family, faith, and friendship. We want you to feel like you are at home when you are with us in Mass, during our ministries, or in our community events. We hope that this website will assist you in exploring all that we have to offer here at St. Bernadette and that it allows you to be up to date and informed on our growing mission to evangelize to all people and to form a strong and loving community of people of God.
St. Bernadette was founded in 1977 by Bishop John L. Morkovsky, S.T.D. and entrusted to the care of the Carmelite Fathers with Fr. Frank Tasker serving as the first pastor. The surrounding Clear Lake area, at the time, was undergoing substantial growth with the end of the Apollo program and the beginning of the Shuttle program at NASA.The programs brought into the area families from across the country and the world.
Following the leadership of Carmelites, Fr. Tasker, Fr. Butler, and Fr. J.J. McCarthy, the parish was entrusted to the care of our current pastor, Fr. Robert Barras. With Fr. Bob at the helm, the focus continues to be directed toward full, conscious and active participation in faith life and parish life. The parish is blessed with a number of original families for whose wisdom we are grateful, a vibrant mixture of cultures and international experiences, and growing families with young children.
St. Bernadette Soubirous was a poor, uneducated, peasant girl, who lived in the small milling town of Lourdes, France. On February 11, 1858, when she was 14, Bernadette enjoyed the first of many visits from the Blessed Virgin Mary, who appeared to her as she gathered firewood with her sister and a friend.
The message of Lourdes was a simple one: prayer and penitence. In one of her appearances, the apparition identified herself by saying, "Tell them I am the Immaculate Conception." Soon thousands of people crowded the meadow overlooking the grotto where the Virgin Mary appeared. Watch the video for more information on St. Bernadette!