St. Mary in Spirit Lake to dedicate new church

By KENNY KEANE, Globe staff reporter
July 17, 2003

SPIRIT LAKE - For those parishioners at St. Mary Church in Spirit Lake who may have felt a bit squished in the pews for the last several years - particularly from April to October - relief has come in the form of a new, larger worship space.

A Mass of dedication, led by Bishop Daniel N. DiNardo, will be held at 2:30 p.m. on July 20 for the new St. Mary Church, which will accommodate a congregation more than twice the size of the old church's capacity.

"Right now we have five Masses that for maybe six months of the year are just overflowing," said Mary Alice Connor, a member of the planning committee for the new church. "The need has been tremendous. I think being able to have room in the church for everyone to be in one place and be able to celebrate the Mass in one area together, that's the most beneficial.

"Also, we're going to have room where we never did before for gatherings. I just think it's going to be so much more welcoming to everyone - to the people who live here and to all the people who come during the summer months."

The larger crowds that flock to the lakes' area during the summer increased the number of people attending Mass, which prompted the decision to start planning for a larger church.

"We wanted a worship space that would fit both the regular congregation at normal times and that would be able to accommodate the large groups, and that's what we've been able to do," said Mike Brenny, chairman of the fundraising committee for the new church. "The new worship space will be able to accommodate twice as many people, but you will be much closer to the altar in the new worship space then you would have been with the old worship space with half as many people. So it's going to be very intimate, and that's one of the things that we wanted to make sure that we got across in the new church."

As far as getting what they want out of the new church, Brenny said the entire parish was involved in the effort.

"It's been very collaborative effort on the part of both the parishioners and also the service provider that we've been working with," he said. "We've had a excellent relationship working with RDG (Renaissance Design Group) - the architects out of Omaha. Also, we had a very good, close, working relationship with Sioux Falls Construction, who are the general contractors for the project.

"Early on we involved a lot of parishioners in this, in terms of getting input about what they felt as though they wanted the feel of the worship space to be. Once we got the general guidelines, we took it from there, but we had a lot of input and a lot of different meetings with parishioners."

Father Albert O. Grendler, St. Mary pastor, said the most significant part of the whole process were the meetings of the planning committee and the pastoral and finance councils, facilitated by the architects.

"Those were probably some of the best-shared, decision-making sessions that I have ever experienced as a pastor," he said. "There was a lot of input. There was a lot of discussion and prayer, and the consensus was just phenomenal. I felt that we ended up with a very beautiful product, and it was the result of a lot of people being interested in it."

Groundbreaking for the new church took place on April 8, 2002, and the whole construction process - from the first grading to the finished product - was quite a treat for the parish's liturgist, Karen Arnold.

"The construction went on outside the music room window," said Arnold, who was also a member of the planning committee. "You work, but at the same time you've got one eye out those blinds. It has really been interesting watching it - from the base - just fall together."

As for the main artifacts from the old church, Father Grendler said they are being transferred to the new church, but there will be a few new furnishings in particular that were designed by RDG, such as the altar, the ambo, the baptismal font and the tabernacle stand. The corpus from the old crucifix has been hung on a new cross, also fashioned by RDG.

The old church itself will be renovated into a social hall, and some of the present social areas will most likely become classrooms, according to Father Grendler, because more classroom space is needed for the parish religious education program.

On the dedication weekend, Father Grendler will celebrate the 5 p.m. Saturday Mass and the 8:30 Sunday morning Mass in the new church, but a portable altar will be used because the new altar cannot be used until it's consecrated by the bishop.

The liturgy of dedication will begin in the old church, with a procession formed outside leading up to the front entrance of the new church, where the plans for the new church are handed over to the bishop along with the key, and then he unlocks the door. The procession comes into the new church, and the Liturgy of the Word is celebrated.

"Then the altar and the new church are anointed and blessed with beautiful symbols - sprinkling of holy water; incensation; the anointing of the four pillars of the church, which are symbolized by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; and the lighting of the dedication candles, which incidentally are lit every year on the anniversary of dedication," the pastor said. "Then the rest of the Mass will be celebrated.

"Invitations have been sent out to all the priests and deacons and all the trades' people involved in the building of the church. We're hoping for a large crowd."