August 2021 VICTORY on the DIAMOND
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DIOCESE OF SAN ANGELO PO BOX 1829 NONPROFIT ORG. SAN ANGELO TX 76902-1829 US POSTAGE PAID Inside this issue: SAN ANGELO, TX PERMIT NO. 44 CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED • Bishop Sis on Heaven (Page 2) • Parish festivals: Mark your calendars (Page 5) • Race Relations in San Angelo (Page 6) • Latin Mass (Page 7) • Living a year like Christ on the street (Page 14) AWESTNGELUS TEXAS Serving Catholics in the Diocese of San Angelo, Texas Volume 41, No. 8 August 2021 VICTORY ON THE DIAMOND WEST TEXAS ANGELUS The players representing the youth of the Diocese of San Angelo celebrate their “W” after defeating the diocesan clergy and seminarians in the annual clergy vs. youth kickball game, held on Aug. 1, 2021, at the Texas Bank Sports Complex in San Angelo. This is the first defeat for the clergy since the inception of the game, which is hosted each year by the Vocation Office of the Diocese of San Angelo. See more photos, Page 24. Page 2 AUGUST 2021 The Angelus From the Bishop’s Desk Heaven The Prayer Square Our daily routines can become mesmerizing. We Prayer for Our can go on for years, with our nose to the grindstone, day after day, never looking up to view the horizon and think about our long-term future. A shortsighted Bishop Michael J. Sis College Students approach to life robs us of our potential and blinds us to the fullness of our calling. Occasionally we need by Bishop Michael Sis to slow down, step off the treadmill, and ask our- Diocese of San Angelo selves, “Where am I headed? What is my long-term God our Father, please bless our students plan?” while they are away in college. As Catholic Christians, we need to look further Watch over them as they study, work, and play. down the road and consider our eternal destiny. This Give them good and honorable friends, life on earth is not all there is. It is only the prelimi- we ever did here on earth. In heaven, we will have keep them safe and healthy, nary chapter to the book of our life. We are made for the fullness of love for all people, unobscured by the and draw them close to you in prayer. eternity. Why did God make you? To know him, love limitations of sin, jealousy, competition, or broken Send your Holy Spirit into their hearts and minds. him, and serve him in this world, and to be happy hearts. Our human relationships will not disappear or Grant them wisdom to make good decisions, with him forever in heaven (Baltimore Catechism, become distant in heaven. They will be glorified, ex- understanding to remain focused in their studies, no. 1, first question). St. Augustine prayed, “O Lord, alted, and transformed into something infinitely strength to resist temptations, you have made us dynamically oriented toward your- better. courage to defend their faith when it is challenged, self, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you” In the Prayer of Commendation in a Catholic Fu- humility to ask for help when they need it, (Confessions, book 1, chapter 1). neral Mass, we pray, “Open the gates of paradise to grace to make the most of their opportunities, Heaven is our ultimate goal and the fulfillment of your servant and help us who remain to comfort one and gratitude for your many blessings. our deepest human longings (CCC, no. 1024). As another with assurances of faith, until we all meet in Whenever possible, bring them safely home to us, Christians, we need to live our life with one eye to- Christ and are with you and with our brother/sister so we can give them a good meal and a warm hug. ward earth and the other eye toward heaven. We live forever.” We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. with our feet firmly planted on the ground, yet ever We are made for eternity, and we are wired for Amen. mindful that heaven is our true home. Here on this union. The kind of union that we will experience in earth, we are on a pilgrimage. We are citizens of heaven is beyond our wildest imagination. It will be heaven. an experience of total, intimate, communion with what is called “hell” (CCC, no. 1033). God does not God, the saints, and all of creation. A beautiful de- predestine anyone to go to hell; what is necessary to What is heaven like? scription of this communion in heaven is found in the go to hell is a willful turning away from God through It is total happiness forever, eternal paradise, Fourth Eucharistic Prayer of the Roman Missal: mortal sin and persistence in it until the end (CCC, where we live in complete union with God. In “There, with the whole of creation, freed from the no. 1037). heaven, there are no more tears, no more illness, no corruption of sin and death, may we glorify you more loneliness, no more pain, and no more hate. through Christ our Lord.” The last judgment Heaven has none of those things. The last judgment will happen after the final res- Heaven is beyond our human capacity for under- Does everyone go to heaven? urrection of the dead; it will coincide with the second standing and description (CCC, no. 1027). From the Our Christian faith does not claim that everyone coming of Christ in glory at the end of time. All perspective of our limited human minds, we can’t automatically goes to heaven. Jesus says in Matthew human beings who have ever lived will be gathered even begin to fathom it. St. Paul says that God “is 7:21, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ before Christ, and he will separate them into two able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imag- will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one groups – those going to heaven and those going to ine” (Eph 3:20). Try to imagine what you would con- who does the will of my Father in heaven.” St. Paul hell. The last judgment will reveal that God’s justice sider to be the best possible existence; heaven is writes in 1 Cor. 6:9-10 that “the unjust will not in- triumphs over all the injustices that have ever been infinitely better than that. St. Paul says, “Eye has not herit the Kingdom of God” and he lists some particu- committed throughout history. Jesus describes this seen, ear has not heard, what God has prepared for lar behaviors that will keep people from entering the judgment in Matthew 25:31-46. This passage is wor- those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9). Kingdom of God. Romans 2:6-8 says that God “will thy of much personal meditation by all of us. St. Au- Whatever is joyful in this life, will be infinitely repay everyone according to his works: eternal life to gustine offers a profound reflection on this passage in more joyful in heaven. Whatever is beautiful in this those who seek glory, honor, and immortality through his eighteenth sermon: life, will be infinitely more beautiful in heaven. Wha- perseverance in good works, but wrath and fury to “All that the wicked do is recorded, and they do tever is loving in this life, will be infinitely more lov- those who selfishly disobey the truth and obey not know. When ‘our God comes, he does not keep ing in heaven. This is the understanding that allowed wickedness.” Jesus says in Matthew 24:13, “The one silence.’…he will turn toward those at his left hand: St. Therese of Lisieux to have complete confidence at who perseveres to the end will be saved.” …’I placed my poor little ones on earth for you. I as the hour of her death. She said, “I’m not dying. I’m When God creates individual human beings, his their head was seated in heaven at the right hand of beginning to live!” intention for them is to be joined with him forever in my Father – but on earth my members were suffer- Jesus teaches us that the afterlife is not simply a heaven. That is God’s desire for every person. Those ing, my members on earth were in need. If you gave continuation of this life. It is not just “the same ol’ who die in God’s grace and friendship and are per- anything to my members, what you gave would reach same ol’” for eternity. Heaven will be an entirely new fectly purified will live forever in union with Christ their Head. Would that you had known that my little mode of existence, beyond the limits of space and in heaven (CCC, no. 1023). However, God also gives ones were in need when I placed them on earth for time. There we will be more fully alive than we are us free will, and our exercise of that gift of freedom you and appointed them your stewards to bring your now – more happy and more fulfilled. has eternal consequences. good works into my treasury. But you have placed nothing in their hands; therefore, you have found We will see God face to face The particular judgment nothing in my presence’” (qtd. in CCC, no. 1039). The First Letter of John says that, in heaven, “We When a person’s body dies, their immortal soul shall see him as he is.” (1 Jn 3:2). In the Second Eu- receives the particular judgment in accordance with Conclusion charistic Prayer of the Roman Missal, speaking of their works and faith.