Our Worship Center --
Dedicated November 1997
An on-line tour
A Worship Center that enables
the three languages of space, ritual, and word speak in harmony to us
The design of our Worship Center has one central focus; from the
Environment and Art in Catholic Worship document, we read, "Among
the symbols with which liturgy deals, none is more important than this
assembly of believers." the assembly, the people of God. And
further, we read this is the "domus ecclaise, that is, the house
of the Church."
With that much of an introduction, let's begin our tour.
COURTYARD AND ENTRYWAY
 You
reach our central courtyard from any one of our parking lot areas. We
wanted to relate the new Worship Center to our existing buildings, and
so, the creation of the central courtyard uniting all buildings and
serving as a gracious entry to our new Worship Center. The sidewalks
and greeneries lead from our parking areas to the central courtyards,
certainly the focus of which is Our Blessed Mother, the Mary Garden. A
contained, lovely, outside gathering space for the entire complex.
At the main doors of our Worship Center, there's a porch-like
overhang. It's the threshold to the Narthex. The overhang also serves
as a protected exterior entrance to the Chapel, where weekday Mass and
liturgies for small numbers are celebrated, as well as Children's
Liturgy of the Word. Within this entrance porch, stately doors are
provocative, unrevealing of the space inside.
Leading to the entrance doors and spotlit at night, an angled wall
bears an insert inscription stone. Given the depth of porch and the
size of the entryway, a bold, dynamic, asymmetrically set inscription
give great impact to the quotations from Saint John, handwritten by
Sister Barbara Chenicek, one of our liturgical design consultants from
INAI Studio.
The inscription plaque seen from a distance as writing, is somewhat
abstract. But only on close observation does it reveal its words.
"People approached Philip and put this request to him--Sir, we would
like to see Jesus. Philip replied, Come and See." The source reference
is simply stated the Gospel of John.
THE NARTHEX
 We
step inside the Worship Center into an area whose lowered ceilings
continue the height of the exterior porch. At first, the floor is a
thick walk-off matting. To the left, a floor-to-ceiling announcement
board is located beside the entry point to the annex. There is a
hallway, providing access to the liturgy coordinator's and sacristan's
office, the ministry sign-in room, and the vesting sacristy. But
quickly, we are drawn ahead into the narthex. Before us at an angle,
the ceiling steps upward from ten feet to eighteen feet. At this
threshold of the narthex, we step into a great space of green-gray
limestone flooring, whose 24x24-inch slabs set diagonally extend to a
skylit garden backdrop of this gathering space. There are areas of
seating that offer a place to sit and talk. Our processional cross is
affixed to the narthex wall. It awaits processional entrance for one of
our liturgies. Our processional cross waits for us, the community, to
bring it forward into our Worship Center.
This entire gathering space draws itself in light around a single
monumental column, a peeled-bark Texas tree centered on the skylit font
within. A slice of glass allows us to glimpse the baptismal waters, and
in deeper space, the altar, the holy table, with its backdrop of
seasonal liturgical color.
Approaching the narthex garden, the flooring is earth, the total area
naturalized with plantings, grass and a boulder set against the
roughness and sweep of a natural Texas stone wall. The stone of the
narthex garden wall matches the other side of the wall, the exterior
wall that is seen from the highway. The Texas stone of this wall, with
slushed grouting, is akin to the old slushed stonework in Texas mission
churches of San Antonio. Set high on the wall, a horizontal line of
wooden pegs in the stone allows the occasional positioning of single
focal elements. For example, in December to celebrate the Feast of Our
Lady of Guadalupe, an image of Our Lady with two candles beside it can
be positioned on the wall in preparation and celebration of the feast.
Two wall positions are especially designated for this usage and lit with
focused lighting. A third position focuses lighting on a great leveled
Texas boulder set forward in the garden near the edge of the narthex
flooring. Here, a spray of flowers can be placed on the day of a
wedding, or a tall container of palms on Palm Sunday, or a bowl of ashes
on Ash Wednesday. The narthex garden offers its plantings and greenery
as a space of peace, but it is also designed for singular and meaningful
symbols. The narthex garden offers the opportunity for us to develop
strong and simple rituals that may unfold as time progresses.
THE WORSHIP CENTER
 We
pass through glass doors into the Worship Center leaving the gray-green
limestone flooring if the narthex and stepping onto the flooring of the
ambulatory. The 13x13-inch tile is quiet, dark, greenish brown, with
the seasoned polished look of old stone. Light from perimeter skylights
and spotlit focal areas give the floor a soft sheen. The flooring
beneath the altar matches the ambulatory as does the central circle of
the space. In the assembly area, ramped aisles and seated decking are
carpeted with a densely woven carpeting flecked with gray-green golds,
beiges and browns of the landscape outside.
Proceed down one of the aisles to the centered tiled area. Now, look
up. The sweeping roof. Great arched beams. Walls of grillwork. They
are Douglas fir, slightly grayed, warm in tone. Light penetrations from
four upper skylights and a long horizontal run of clerestory windows on
each side of the space repeats the motif of grillwork in the surrounding
walls. Above the central space, the four major arches meet and cross in
a twenty foot central interior section, 35 feet above the floor. Above
this intersection, vertical grillwork rises until it meets the roof
forming a light-filtering screen to the floor below.
BAPTISMAL FONT
 If
you take a moment and look at the baptismal font steps and floor
surface, they are clad in a roughened gray-green porcelain tile. The
roughened surface prevents slipping when the tiles are wet from the
baptismal waters. The font surfaces carry the old stone feel and look
of the ambulatory and narthex flooring, but are lighter in color. A
conical skylight lights the baptismal waters.
To give height to the paschal candle, a stone pedestal is positioned
in front of the garden area, a simple cross is cut into its outward
face. This cross is the fourth signage cross of our space.
WOOD, METAL, GLASS & COLOR
 Throughout
the Worship Center, the presence of wood expresses the evolution from
dark, rough timbers which frame the perimeter skylights, through the
warm surrounding wood of Douglas fir, the slightly lighter wood of
assembly seating, to the culmination of the shining light oak of the
altar and ambo. Against these and against the lightly sand-textured
walls, the dark polished metal of candlesticks and the shine of white
candles step out in contract to our eyes.
The window glass carries the feel of polarized light allowing full
view of the outside and allowing the outside to enter, if you will, but
the polarized glass prevents glare to the Worship Center within.
Get a sense of the overall color of our space. The color in the
Worship Center is quiet. Cool with an underlying warmth. In feeling,
serene. Color brilliance occurs within the Worship Center in two ways:
in the liturgical color of the season as seen in the tapestries, and in
the color created by the community as it assembles to worship.
LITURGICAL TAPESTRIES
 Within
the quiet surrounding color, liturgical color comes to life. Persons
step into dimensional presence--the liturgical tapestries. Within each
liturgical season, each liturgical tapestry gives a sacred context to
time, the sense of change and flow of a year, the unfolding of newness,
renewal, and celebration. Within the year, eight changes occur for each
major liturgical cyclical season of the calendar year. Advent,
Christmas, Ordinary Time, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Summer and Fall.
Each tapestry is based on a scriptural text that underlies the entire
season. Three parts comprise the tapestry units of each season.
Greatest emphasis in the Worship Center is given to the large 10x10-foot
tapestry unity. Two auxiliary tapestries each 4x10-feet are positioned
across the space from each other on angled ambulatory walls. Seen
across the space, the interplay of color and texture evoke the feeling
of the season. Approached carefully, the tapestries reveal the careful
hand-stitching of the many hands of men and women of our parish
community. The careful hand-stitching brings the feel of human
presence--the gift of beauty, the care and consolation in times of
suffering. Also matched to the tapestry, liturgical color is brought to
then central sanctuary in a beautiful fabric altar band adding
solemnity, denoting the fact that this is Sunday, the day when the whole
community gathers. The cushions on the three presider chairs' backs and
seats are similarly changed with liturgical time and bring liturgical
color to the central sanctuary space.
THE RESERVATION CHAPEL
The ambulatory flooring flows from the central Worship Center into a
hallway leading into the reservation chapel. Within the walls of this
hallway, concealed cabinetry provides storage for votive candles used in
the reservation chapel. Two large mechanical rooms, unseen from the
Worship Center, are positioned to either side of this hallway.
Enter this small hallway. We enter the daylight of a glassed walled
walkway. To the west, a door opens to a pathway outside, which passes
through a landscaped chapel garden to the parking areas beyond. A
powerful presence of a recessed wall of flickering votive candles leads
us to the reservation chapel. We step into quiet space. Carpeting is
lighter here, gray-green with a hint of lavender. Lush plantings join
earth and greenery inside to bermed and naturalized landscaping outside.
THE TABERNACLE
The focus of the reservation chapel is toward the tabernacle. Beside
it, a vigil candle burns. In the tabernacle we have some eucharistic
food, the body and blood of Christ under the form of bread. The vigil
candle that burns next to it reminds us of the real Presence of Christ
in the tabernacle. In the devotion and piety of Catholic tradition,
members of the community come into this room for personal prayer. Also,
we save the eucharistic food to bring to our brothers and sisters who
are sick or homebound and unable to attend our Sunday eucharist. The
Live Oak tabernacle door is cut from the same tree as the altar, the
same presence. Beneath the tabernacle, tumbled travertine marbled
flooring bears the look of ancient courtyard stones.
The candle wall, easily seen from our Worship Center, where 28 glass
cylinders in staggered configuration are affixed to stone wall by simple
strap base plates. Votive candles are contained in sleeves that fit
into the glass holders. Beside the candle wall, a built-in unit holds
butane lighters, another unit is for offerings for the votive candles.
Notice the reservation chapel vigil candles near the tabernacle. This
singular witness to the reserved Presence carries a sense of flame, a
relationship of members, to the candles in the main space. Bolts
beneath the reservation chapel vigil candle relate to the altar and the
ambo.
ICONS & CROSSES
An icon of Christ and a festal icon of a particular liturgical feast
embrace our space. The icon of Christ serves to remind us of God's
loving gaze upon us. The icon of Mary or festal icon reminds us of our
rich liturgical and biblical tradition.
Four crosses, three embedded in the walls and one engraved on our
paschal candle stand, signify that this is a house of the universal
Church.
SUPPORT AREAS
As we leave the reservation chapel, on the wall directly opposite the
chapel, there are doors concealed by walled grillwork that open to the
work sacristy, housekeeping, liturgical tapestry storage, music supply
storage, and lighting control panels. These rooms in the support area
unify in feel with the worship space.
FURNISHINGS
The Altar
The Lord's Table. Distinctive in species, Texas Live Oak. It is
detailed with iron support straps beneath the heft of the altar top.
These terminate in bolt heads on sides of the altar legs establishing
iron as the basic vocabulary of metal in our worship space.
The Ambo
Our ambo, where the Word of God is proclaimed, matches the rift sawn
white oak of the other appointments, but repeats the iron strap bolts of
the altar. A Gospel book holder is affixed to the ambo. Close by, an
iron pedestal for incense stands ready for liturgical ritual.
Processional Candles
The base plates are square with iron shafts rising from them. A
simple forged curve of iron rises from the candle base and affixes
itself to a different side of the iron shaft from which it rose. We
have eight processional candles, seven are designed as a set. The
processional part of the candles which are identical in length are
brushed stainless steel. When carried or positioned into their bases, a
sheen of silver catches the light.
Festal Candle
The eighth candle is specific and unique; we call it the celebration
or festal candle. It's meant to be positioned to the side or to the
front of the altar on high festival occasions. The base shaft of this
candle stands at five feet six inches high. A curve of iron rises from
its base plate dimensionally ascending like a flame around the shaft to
eight feet four inches in height. The processional part of the
celebration candle is 36 inches long. It is brushed stainless steel.
It locks onto the base shaft. The person inserting it becomes
momentarily a part of the candle itself. Also notice our column
candles. They carry the forged metal theme, bringing the elements of
the candle unit upward or out into space.
The Ambry
The ambry is on the north wall where the holy oils rest. The bases
for our holy oil containers are cut iron openwork bases. The bases have
the feel of tendrils, or growth. The silver plates on each of the three
white oak shelves holding the oils provides identification--Oil of
Catechumenate, Sacred Chrism, and Oil of the Sick.
As you return to the narthex, you see our processional cross. The
processional cross is strong and slim. It is nine feet tall with arms
of three feet three inches in span. The iron processional cross is
positioned to the side of the altar. Iron roping wraps the juncture of
the shaft and arms. The iron roping trails into space beside the
upright shaft. This calls us to be present to the mystery of the
cross. When the assembly is not gathered to worship, there is a bracket
in the narthex on the wall which holds the processional cross until a
member of the community carries it amidst the community.
 Go
through the hallway at the southwest corner of the narthex to access the
support rooms and chapel. In the chapel, there are a cross, altar and
candle. The single standing candle space of iron and its processional
candle shaft of crushed stainless steel relates to but is not matched to
the worship space. It is matched to an open work cross in iron and
steel, positioned in a niche on the chapel focal wall.
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