St. Bernadette Catholic Church - Scottsdale, AZ

     Truly sacred architecture should support the sacred liturgy and, through all the forms and symbols, assist us in worship and inspire us to heavenly thoughts and aspirations.  Archbishop Fulton Sheen said that when faith in the spiritual is lost, architecture has nothing left to express or symbolize.  One can not walk into a beautiful Catholic church and not be taken up towards the Divine.  That is how I felt this morning as we visited St. Bernadette Catholic Church in Scottsdale, Arizona.

    The parish of St. Bernadette was established in 1995 when Holy Mass was celebrated in a cafeteria at a local elementary school.  The parish established and built a school a few years later in 1998, yet it took until 2016 for the parish church to be built.  The church was officially dedicated on May 25, 2017 by Bishop Thomas Olmsted.  The church is built in traditional cruciform architecture, the shape of a cross.  Bishop Olmsted said in his homily, "Church architecture impacts the way we worship and the way we worship impacts what we believe", lex orandi lex credendi.  "What we believe shapes our personal relationship with the Lord.

     The parish had dedicated all available funds to building the permanent church, with the goal of designing and building an elegant church that would stand the test of time.  Upon completion of the structure, funding was unavailable for full decoration of the interior and the Romanesque-style church was left with bare, white paint, for five years.  

    Following an ambitious fundraising campaign, and months of planning, the interior of St. Bernadette was dramatically transformed.  There are nine large murals that adorn the ceilings of the church.  These murals are visual representations of events from the life of Christ and the lives of the Saints - placing a particular emphasis on Mary and her earthly life.

Visitation with St. Elizabeth

Espousal of Mary and Joseph

Nativity of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

The Presentation and Encounter With Simeon 

The Flight Into Egypt

    In the Apse behind the altar contained a large mural featuring all of the American saints with the Immaculate Conception of Mary at the center.  There is a baldicchino, a canopy over an altar, that features a large mural depicting the Holy Spirit in a heavenly gold with a blue background representing the sky.

The baldicchino over the Altar

Mural of the Immaculate Conception and North American Saints

Depiction of Holy Spirt on roof of canopy over the altar

    Artisans created thirty-four stained glass windows to enhance the traditional Romanesque architecture.  Each window is specifically designed for the space, featuring an image of a particular Saint, Archangel or representation of the Holy Theotokos.

St. Cecilia, patron of music

Pope St. Gregory, patron of 
musicians, teachers and students

    Looking towards the back of the church, a choir loft containing a 32 foot-tall pipe organ is found.  The organ was built by Peragallo Pipe Organ company and contains close to 3,000 pipes that make different sounds, from trumpet and strings to harps and bells.  Below the choir loft are various names for the Holy Theotokos, inscribed on the wall.  

Sancta Maria - Holy Mary, Sancta Dei Genetrix - Holy Mother of God
Sancta Virgo Virginvm - Holy Virgin of Virgins
Mater Christi - Mother of Christ, Mater Ecclesiae - Mother of the Church,
Mater Divinae Gratiae - Mother of Divine Grace, Mater Purissima - Pure Mother
Mater Castissima - Most Chaste Mother

    

    On the Sunday we attended St. Bernadette it was the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time.  From the beginning of the Mass to the end of the Mass, everything was as it should be in a Novus Ordo Mass.  There were 7 altar servers, all boys and young men, a deacon and a priest.  The choir chanted the Kyrie in Greek, The Gloria, Sanctus and Lamb of God in Latin, and the rest of the music was sacred.  In addition to the pipe organ, they had a violin that was used for sacred music at  times when things were taking a long time.  One of those times was Holy Communion.  St. Bernadette's uses a proper communion rail, and Holy Communion was distributed by the priest and deacon.  While I did not keep track of the time, I suspect this took approximately 15-20 minutes.  However, surrounded by the beauty of the church artwork, architecture and sacred music, there was no place I would have rather been at that time.