St. Paul’s The Apostle in Horseshoe Bay expands its spiritual view
CONNIE SWINNEY • PICAYUNE STAFF
HORSESHOE BAY — For more than 30 years, a Catholic church overlooking Horseshoe Bay has become a symbol of spiritual life as well as one of the most notable landmarks in the area.
Until the completion of a recent expansion project, not much had changed over the decades for St. Paul’s The Apostle Church, 201 Dalton Circle, with its signature stone-and-wood building sitting atop a cliff.
Barbara Shields, one of the original parishoners, recalled how, during its origins in the 1980s, the Catholic church shared services with Protestant worshippers.
“It was ecumenical. We would have our service, and then they would have their service,” said Shields, who participated in the Catholic church’s first communions, confirmation classes and catechisms. “Watching it grow over the years, and we just had this big expansion. That says a lot.”
The Protestants eventually built a seperate church, The Church at Horseshoe Bay, on a nearby cliff.
During the past several years, a growing number of parishoners seeking a closer relationship with God and a facility in which to practice their faith inspired church leaders to launch a series of expansion projects.
In 2013, crews nearly doubled the size of the church, increasing the seating from about 150 to 280 and constructing a facility with the potential for five classrooms for services such as Bible study and catechism.
With the blessing of the Diosese, church leaders purchased an adjacent lot and built the 7,000-square-foot Linda Finn Family Life Center. The name honors the late Linda Finn, a long-time devoted member of the parish, whose family provided seed money for the center.
“Our (original) center was a room that, honestly, couldn’t hold more than 20 people,” said Bill Bedortha, president of St. Paul’s Faith Church Council. “We needed places in the church for normal Mass and then for holidays like Easter and Christmas.”
Collapsable walls open the space for larger functions.
“We would get 500 people for a service,” he said. “Many times, we had to rent Quail Point (the Horseshoe Bay POA community center) if we were having a large meeting.”
Other work involved renovating the chapel, adding a confessional, converting other space into offices and constructing bay windows — inspired by the original church floor-to-ceiling windows — and a large balcony around the cliff-side perimeter of the center.
“You could not stand in our church or the life center without knowing that God is in the world,” Bedortha said. “Somebody had to do this. It was God.”
Over the years, the church has expanded traditional services to include outreach programs such as Knights of Columbus and St. Vincent de Paul that provide direct help (food, electric, rent supplement) to the poor in conjunction with St. John’s Catholic Church in Marble Falls.
St. Paul’s The Apostle hosts three Masses: 5:30 p.m. Saturdays and 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Sundays.
“We’re very close, friendly with each other. We’re really just a close church family,” Shields said. “Part of that is being so small for so many years. We have our gatherings. It’s always a good time for fellowship.”
To find out more about services, donate to the church, volunteer or join, call (830) 598-8342.
connie@thepicayune.com