Father Anthony Alphonse, a native of India, found his calling during his final year at Saint Joseph's College in Bangalore. while studying in commerce and sociology. One Sunday Mass changed his life.  He heard a pastor talk about joining the priesthood.  He said his mother told him that if God was calling, he should embrace that vocation despite his worldly dreams.

"You may earn millions of dollars," she said, "but everything will pass away.  Serving God is permanent!".

In 1984, Anthony joined St. John's Seminary  and in 1992, he was ordained into the priesthood.

The year of his ordination was also the year he experienced something many priests have never been fortunate enough to experience,.  He was blessed to work side by side with Mother Teresa.  Fr. Alphonse spent three months with Mother Teresa and her convent sisters doing missionary work with the natives in the jungles of Calcutta.

Surrounded by Mother Teresa's grace, Fr. Alphonse said she radiated God's love.  "I could experience that holiness in her."

Fr. Alphonse was sent to the United States by his Bishop in 1995 where he was pastor in Paris, a small northeast Texas town for almost eight years.

In 2002 he was invited to Rome to participate as one of the priest in the Mass to celebrate the 80th Birthday of Pope John Paul II.  While there he studied Trinitarian Spirituality taught by Fr. Jim Flannigan the founder of the Society of our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (S.O.L.T.)

He returned to a parish in Killeen, Texas in 2004 where he served as Assistant Pastor for six months.

In 2005, after the sudden death of the Pastor of Our Mother of Sorrows in Burnet, Fr. Alphonse was named Pastor where he continues today as Shepherd of God's faithful.

The History of Our Mother of Sorrows Catholic Church

The first Mass in Burnet was offered in a field in 1938 near the present Church site.  Attendance grew quickly and in 1939 approval was given for a church to be built in Burnet.  June 11, 1941 the Bishop of Galveston came to dedicate the new Church.

Over the next several years, many hardships were overcome, including getting heat and water to the church without much funding.  There was also no confessional, so the visiting priest heard confessions in the sacristy seated on a suitcase behind a makeshift screen. 

During the 1950?s various families, individuals and other Catholic churches donated the altar, statues, altar drapes, holy water fonts, the bell , the vestments, a stand for the sanctuary lamp, votive candle stands and rock work.

In 1954  Our Mother of Sorrows got their first resident pastor and in 1956 the west wing to the Church was added. 

From our humble beginnings we have added families, several more buildings, Catholic Spirituality and Love of the Lord and His Church??. Each priest who has served at Our Mother of Sorrows has contributed his own individual mark, pointing the way along the road to God.

After much consideration and prayers, the missionary priest named our parish ?Our Mother of Sorrows? Catholic Church because of all of the hardships and obstacles that they had to overcome