Samuel Sidney Metzger

He had been living in a retirement residence for priests in Plano since his retirement from active ministry in 2009. He was 83.

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland will celebrate Mass of Christian Burial Feb. 20 at 10:30 a.m. in St. Mark the Evangelist Church in Plano.

The graveside service will be at Calvary Hill Cemetery in Dallas at 1 p.m.

Rosary will be Thursday, Feb. 18, 6-7 p.m., in St. Mark the Evangelist Church in Plano.

Msgr Samuel S. Metzger, ordained a priest of the Diocese of Dallas on May 9, 1959, and a priest of the Diocese of Tyler from its creation in 1987, died Feb. 16.

He was born in Dallas on May 29, 1932, and ordained a priest of the Diocese of Dallas on May 9, 1959, by his uncle, Bishop Sydney Metzger.

He spent the early years of his ministry as parochial vicar at St. Patrick Church in Dallas; Christ the King Church, Dallas; St. Alice Church, Fort Worth; St. Cecilia Church, Dallas; and St. Elizabeth Church, Dallas.

He was pastor of Our Lady of Victory Church in Paris; St. Michael Church, McKinney; St. Edward Church, Athens; and St. Bernard of Clairvaux Church, Fairfield.

Msgr. Metzger served his longest tenure in East Texas as pastor of St. Edward Church in Athens, from 1984-1998, as well as its missions of St. Therese in Canton and St. Jude in Gun Barrel City.

He was serving in Athens when the Diocese of Tyler was created from the Dioceses of Dallas, Beaumont, and Galveston-Houston, and thus became one of the original 39 priests serving some 30,000 Catholics in 41 parishes and missions spread out over 32 counties.

“We were a real close-knit group, I guess maybe because there were so few of us,” he recalled of that founding cadre of priests in a 2009 interview with Catholic East Texas. “There were only 30-something of us at the time, and we were spread over a pretty big area. Of course, we also had to get to know each other, because we’d come from three different dioceses. Those of us who’d come from Dallas already knew each other, but we had to get to know the men from Beaumont and Houston.”

As one of those “original men,” Msgr. Metzger served the fledgling diocese on a number of councils and boards, including the Presbyteral Council and the Priests’ Personnel Board. He was dean of the West Central Deanery, director of the Apostleship of Prayer, and a diocesan consultor, helping to elect a diocesan administrator when the sitting bishop died or was moved.

Under his pastorate in Athens, St. Edward purchased a lot and house adjacent to the church and remodeled it into CCD classrooms. He oversaw the construction of an education building for St. Therese, and, ultimately, the construction of a new church in 1997.

He also saw St. Therese and St. Jude in Gun Barrel City, another mission of St. Edward, elevated to parishes.

In 1996, he was named monsignor and designated a prelate of honor by Pope John Paul II, one of five priests from the diocese so honored at the time.

For all his work in building parishes and missions, Msgr. Metzger said his two primary loves as a priest were working with converts and anointing the sick.

“I love working with converts,” he said. “Any time you can bring anyone into the faith, it’s always fulfilling. There’s a hunger for faith in this area, and we have to meet it. People need the Church.”

Anointing the sick, he said, gave another kind of satisfaction.

“I like being able to be with people in that situation,” he said, “people who are sick or dying, who are facing their mortality. As a minister of that sacrament, I can bring them peace. It’s satisfying knowing I’ve helped people prepare for whatever comes, whether that’s recovery or death.”

In more than a half century of priesthood, Msgr. Metzger saw many changes, both in the Church as a whole, and in the Diocese of Tyler.

“It’s been a good life,” he said in that 2008 interview. “It’s really been something else.”

Ted Dickey Funeral Home in Plano, Texas has charge of arrangements.