Gerald has a real nice page up of newly built St. Stephen Catholic Church, where Fr. Stephanos acted as liturgical consultant.
Beautiful modern churches are rare. Certainly, there are quite a few beautiful "NEO" churches being built, but it certainly is important to develop a contemporary architectural style that, while drawing from the past, is not a mere carbon copy. I believe that Fr. Stephanos has succeeded wonderfully with "his" church.
This church is a good example of what can be done in a more modern context, but still retain beauty. I have seen some good examples of this in my own dioces with more modern churches that at the same time did not become iconoclastic. Though some built within the last ten years have fallen into the church-in-the-round minimalism that is a divorce from the past. Meeting halls with no soul.
I recently found a picture of my own parish on a Tridentine Mass site while searching for something else. The picture is fairly recent since it shows the restoration done last year.
Though right now the stained glass windows are gone since they are being refurbished. No matter how often I go to my parish the interior once again hits me and reminds me why I am there. The whole church is directed towards worship and a reminder of the saints that went before us. My parish is also a liturgical oasis where I can easily leave at home my copy of Mass Confusion. In fact I sometimes go to other parishes just so I can commiserate with others over liturgical abuses.
7 comments
Wow, that is very nice indeed. Some of the walls look like they could use a little adorning still, but it’s a new building. Would that we had more churches like that!
lol…that’s my pic :). Nah, the church isn’t new..only restored…believe me..there are many stained glass windows and stations of the cross around the church so the walls don’t need anymore adorning :). You must have taken the pic from the Una Voce of Northeast Florida site that I maintain :). LOL..thats fine..anything to show how beautiful the church is 🙂
Now that is a church, beautiful
R,
Rjak wasn’t referring to the church in the picture – He was referring to the new Church in the article linked by the Curt Jester (on Fr. Stephanos).
As far as the new church construction, my one gripe is that the Blessed Sacrament is NOT in the Sanctuary – the parish may have had their reasons for this, but generally, unless it is a church of some great historical or architectural interest, there is NO reason whatever to build a separate reservation chapel.
24 hour Adoration means you need to think about security. It’s easier to keep a small separate Adoration chapel open and the church locked.
Which doesn’t mean the tabernacle should be hidden, of course.
My parish has the Tabernacle front and center where it belongs, but we also have a separate Adoration Chapel which was added a few years ago. That solves the security issue. Also, it’s much easier to heat and/or cool a separate chapel than to do so for the entire church.
In the church I helped,
http://www.closedcafeteria.com/ststephen.html
the Blessed Sacrament chapel has one section or alcove that is separated by a fixed wrought-iron grill.
People can enter that alcove 24 hours a day from outside the church. Inside the alcove, they have controls that allow them to turn on the lights for the alcove and the Blessed Sacrament at night.
Here’s a photo where you can see the alcove at the back.
http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n83/saintcrown/24HourVisiting.jpg
Comments are closed.