A CHAPEL FOR JESUIT HIGH SCHOOL

 

“What House Will Ye Build Me?”

 

Building the North American Martyrs Chapel

By Betsy C. Stone (Todd ’75, Tommy ’10) ~ As printed in KEEPINGPACE Magazine Fall/Winter 2008

From the time he awakens in the morning until he collapses into bed at night, a Jesuit student’s day is a blur of noise and action: the morning scramble for dress-code compliant attire, the right books for the day’s schedule and breakfast on the fly; period after period of lectures, discussions and exams; boisterous breaks and hurried lunch-time co-curricular meetings; dashes to catch teachers before or after class; trips to the locker to get materials for the next class or the evening’s homework; quick calls to coordinate a ride or check in with a parent; after-school practices and rehearsals; study time, often connected to an ipod; and maybe, just maybe, a few minutes to connect with friends by phone or computer or just relax. Before doing it all over again the next day.

Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that students view the planned Jesuit High School chapel project as more than an auditorium for liturgies with classmates. “If you’re walking through campus and having a bad day, and you see this building, you’ll feel invited in by God,” imagines senior Kyle O’Connor. “It will invite prayer, and invite you in to be with God.”

“I think students need this chapel,” says Charlene Cardenas, member of Jesuit’s campus ministry team and chair of the chapel’s Liturgy/Ritual Committee. “Hopefully it is going to be a place where they find a spiritual home. If they need to go and light a candle and be in God’s presence, it will be a place they can go.”

Gilbert Sunghera, S.J., an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy and liturgical space consultant who works with Catholic churches to interpret the special requirements associated with sacred architecture, says, “With Jesuit High School, the design could really address the question of what is sacred space for young people today that roots them in a 2,000 year old tradition.”

Designing a church or chapel is never easy. Besides the usual dilemmas about where to place the building on the site, what style complements the surroundings and what materials achieve the design within budget, a chapel must function well for large liturgies as well as well as private devotions. Add to that the special environment of a college preparatory school that seeks to develop “Men For Others”, and you begin to understand the challenges that face the architectural firm, Hodgetts+Fung Design and Architecture.

Rather than being daunted, however, the firm’s design notes call the process “a journey of reverence, exultation, introspection, and self-doubt, but always supported by a fountain of belief and trust… a journey toward the essence of a community of faith.”

Designing through dialogue

Before the architects ever put pen to paper – or in today’s world, cursor to Computer Aided Design program – Jesuit began the process of design by holding “listening” sessions with students, faculty, parents, and alumni as long ago as Fall 2005. A Chapel Design Advisory Committee was formed to distill ideas from trustees, faculty, Jesuits, parents, alumni, faculty from theology, visual and performing arts departments, and campus ministry and liturgy leaders. After touring examples of sacred and secular architecture, and participating in a series of workshops, the committee landed on this project vision statement, which became the guiding light for the selection of the architectural firm:

The chapel, to seat 400, will serve as spiritual heart of the Jesuit High School campus. It will be a dramatic liturgical and devotional landmark that reflects the traditions of the school’s Catholic faith and Ignatian heritage and spirituality. While its interior design will allow for liturgical flexibility, the endowed chapel will be a campus space uniquely dedicated to worship, prayer, and spiritual enrichment. Its art and architecture, characterized by luminous warmth and intimacy, will invite and lead students and the larger Jesuit High School Community to an experience of God, the holy and transcendent, and inspire greater faith, hope, love and holiness.

From a field of 26 potential firms, the husband and wife team of Hodgetts+Fung, based in Culver City, CA, not only met selection requirements of competence, compatibility, and cost-effectiveness, but brought special qualities to the project. Fr. Sunghera explains, “Craig and Ming, having taught in many top architecture schools, had the inquisitive minds needed to explore this issue of contemporary sacred space rooted in tradition, and were able to challenge us to better articulate the vision for the chapel.”

After the firm’s selection, the real work of understanding Jesuit’s project began.

The architects observed and met with classes, including Liturgy Workshop, A.P. Art History and “Hero’s Journey”. They attended an all-campus liturgy and were moved by the energy that was part of the Catholic tradition. They met with Christian Life Communities, groups of 8-10 students that meet for prayer, spiritual community and mutual support. They also watched how students arrived to campus, wound their way through the narrow passageways between buildings, walked across expansive grass-covered quads, and eventually left the campus.

They saw first-hand why the design committee had decided to create a new entrance into the center of campus. The weekday traffic jams just before and just after the school day, and the availability of a parcel of land just north of the parking lot by the gym, had already led to a decision to relocate the main entry across the street from Arden Hills Country Club.

The architects envisioned a downward sloping entry boulevard that would gently bend through landscaped terraces before arriving in front of the new chapel. They proposed a building footprint that would optimize the campus topography and sight lines from various locations on and off campus.

The architects then began imagining the chapel design, and returned with three “gestures” – sketches of three very different responses to the Jesuit High School challenge. Then dialogue began in earnest, as trustees, Jesuits and various groups representing students, faculty and staff were asked to react to the three approaches.

Balancing the tension

When all was said and done, one design responded best to the long list of seemingly opposing needs and desires. The chapel should:

· Work well for liturgies of up to 400, ensuring that services can be seen and heard by all… and feel intimate to the individual, coming alone to the chapel for the relief of burdens.

· Evoke a sense of awe of God as the Transcendent One, inspiring with its size… and offer spaces small enough for clusters of people to come together in worship or in conversation.

· Be filled with light, lifting spirits and symbolizing Christ… and have corners of quiet shadow, providing rest and peace.

· Provide spaces that feel wide open and large… and places that are more confined, or amble to give a sense of journey into a sacred space.

· Speak to the school’s dedication to the North American Martyrs… and be relevant to 21^st century culture.

· Be immediately recognizable to anyone raised in the Catholic tradition as a Catholic sacred space… and welcome people of all faith traditions and cultures.

All of these ideas grew out of the dialogue between the architects, and the various individuals and groups who provided input. Asked to recall his reaction to the initial design approaches, Kyle O’Connor says, “When I put myself standing in front of the building, it’s like you know there’s something better than you. You’re going to feel like a small part of something bigger. You’re going to look at it and say, ‘This isn’t all about me; this is about God.’”

It’s that sense of the transcendent, of one’s “vertical relationship” with God, that has sometimes been lost in our contemporary culture, according to Greg Bonfiglio, S.J., president of Jesuit High School. “I was talking to a group of students about the chapel one day, and one said, ‘Father, when I walk into that chapel, I want to feel insignificant.’”

Fr. Bonfiglio explains that the student expressed a common desire for an encounter with God “who is big enough to get His arms around this student and his world. That’s a big part of what has directed the design of this chapel.”

The design solution

Approaching the chapel by car from Fair Oaks Boulevard, parents and students will descend the new entry boulevard into a park-like setting, arriving at the base of the contemporary building. The architects’ design notes describe the outside appearance of the chapel this way:

From the outside, the chapel presents a simple sheltering form, under which gather the outward expressions of the worship space, the chapels, and both a modest student entry and a dramatic public entry for ceremony and holy occasions. On the south side, a collage of transparent, translucent and colored glass will offer glimpses of the vestibule to passers-by, and scatter bright silhouettes with the passage of the sun. Above, a carillon tower will pierce the roof, to be surrounded by a simple, unaffected cross, which will be visible from both the campus and the surrounding area.

From the main entrance, large doors will open to the vestibule that will wind along two sides of the chapel, eventually intersecting with the entrance that students will use when entering from the main campus. “Likened to a path from which one departs to find renewal and discovery,” the architects’ description continues, “the vestibule of the chapel is dotted with devotional shrines. Slivers of light and soft shadows combine with a tall, curving wall to both guide and enclose the passage to the worship space.”

Openings along the interior wall will provide entry to the large, semi-circular worship space. A high ceiling will hover over the sanctuary, located near the north side of the chapel. Along the hallway, five smaller shrines and devotional areas – each with a distinct character – will be encountered.

The Martyrs’ Shrine, a small devotional space in the shape of an ellipse, will be crowned by an oculus that will cast the sacred space in ever-changing light. Fr. Sunghera explains that the oculus will be “open to the heavens, but rooted by the experience of the students.” Located to one side of the worship space with access from the vestibule, the shrine will function as a chancel once did in a medieval church, where choirs and groups gathered for small ceremonies centered around scripture, prayer and reflection.

Another shrine, sacred in character but less formal, will be located on the side of the chapel facing campus, looking outward to a new garden. A shrine to Mary and another devotional shrine will offer two more options for private devotions. Finally, a small niche, just big enough for one or two supplicants, will face a bank of devotional candles and a religious icon.

As versatile as the chapel’s design may be, what will be most noticeable is its beauty.

“As I’ve listened to members of our community over these past years, one of the longings is for a church that is really beautiful and clearly a sacred place. People want to be inspired to reverence, awe, quiet, and prayer,” says Fr. Bonfiglio. “The beauty and sacredness will be achieved through the design and the thoughtful use of art and light.”

Light as a central character in the play

Light is one of the most important tools that the architects are using to accomplish the vision of the chapel, according to Dave Bischoff, chair of the Chapel Arts and Furnishings Committee and Jesuit High School art teacher. “In Gothic churches, light equals Christ. Sometimes, depending on where you sit in a sacred space, light can affect how you feel. Light is also cost effective and it can be staggeringly beautiful.”

Besides the collage of glass and translucent material on the exterior of the building, canted walls inside the main worship area will admit soft light from behind the altar, and a north-south aperture will direct rays of sunlight across the platform and lead the eye upwards to the cross.

The architects are studying how light and shadows have been employed in the past to enhance a sense of the sacred. The size and placement of windows, even the materials themselves, are being considered. The architects will bear in mind not just what a window looks like, but how it animates the space.

Visiting Bourges Cathedral in France, for example, Mr. Bischoff was struck by how the stained glass windows and orientation of the church were arranged to take advantage of the winter solstice. As light streamed down during Advent, the shadows from the figures on the stained glass windows appeared to walk down the side wall of the church. He said the effect was breathtaking.

Similarly, the chapel’s art and furnishings, when chosen, will be integral to the building. “Art is more than decoration,” says Mr. Bischoff, “It’s something that serves a purpose.”

Telling the stories of St. Ignatius and the North American Martyrs

Art is one of the principal tools for bringing to life the mission of St. Ignatius, to whom the school is dedicated.

“We’ve talked about how to employ images of St. Ignatius,” says Mr. Bischoff. “But in his own writings, he makes it clear it’s not about him; it’s about Christ. How do you portray St. Ignatius in a way that is true to his vision?”

The chapel must also communicate about the life examples of the North American Martyrs, to whom the chapel will be dedicated. Kevin Leidich, S.J., cautions, “It’s important that the North American Martyrs be more than historical figures. They are examples of what we are called to do ourselves.”

Fr. Leidich explained that the Martyrs were eight 17^th century French Jesuit missionaries who came to Canada and what is now upper New York state so that, “God may be known, that God may be loved, that faith may be planted and enlarged,” according to The Ghost in the Mohawk Valley: The Life and Times of Rene Goupil, 1608-1642, written by William Breault, S.J., who resides at Jesuit High School.

What was particularly special about the Martyrs – something just as relevant in the 21^st century – was their commitment and ability to discern and interpret culture, further enabling them to spread the Word of God. They respected all cultural traits that were not contrary to the Gospel, and made it a point to learn the language, customs and beliefs of the people they were sent to serve. They did not believe in stereotyping but rather looked to individual traits – attending to “cura personalis” – the care of the individual person.

“Martyr”, according to Fr. Leidich, means “witness” according to the root meaning of the word. All Christians are called to be martyrs in the sense of day-to-day witnessing of faith.

It’s about time

So when will the chapel be off the drawing board and a welcoming presence for students and community members? If all goes smoothly, ground will be broken next summer, and the chapel should be completed 15 to 18 months later.

And it’s high time, according to several alumni parents who are helping to support the project.

“I never could figure out why they didn’t have a chapel,” commented Mike O’Donnell (sons Michael ’75, Pat ’78, Stephen ’84; grandson Josh ’12). “My wife and I would go by the school and we would say, ‘This school’s got a big future,’ but there was a big lack, and that was the chapel.”

Agnes Anderson (sons Tom ’72, Steve ’82) recalls what an important presence the Catholic Church has been throughout her life. When she was young and had a bad day, she remembers sometimes slipping across the street to say a few prayers of petition at her neighborhood parish church. She, too, thought it “disgraceful” that a Jesuit school lacked an appropriate place for worship.

“I think it’s time,” noted Helen Reedy (sons Jerry ’70, Mark ’74, Chris ’81; grandson Derrick ’99). “I think it should be primarily for the students, in times of happiness and sadness, and when they are making important decisions in their lives. For me, also, it would be a very meaningful place to go.”

This fall, neighbors and others who are interested will be brought up to speed on the project. The school has submitted an application for a use permit and design review to the County Planning Department for approval.

God moves through the process

Beyond the attention to architectural detail, a hallmark of the chapel project has been rigorous consideration of process. Dozens of students, parents, trustees, benefactors, faculty and administrative team members – perhaps as many as 100 individuals – have contributed insights to the project.

Why so many? Fr. Bonfiglio answers, “I believe that the longings for the chapel by students, alumni, their parents, and others I spoke of earlier are among those placed in our hearts by God. Because they are all holy and unique, each being a piece of the whole of what God wants for us, it made sense to me to involve lots of people, knowing that all those different hopes and ideas for the chapel are facets of that single human desire for communion with God. Each voice in the process helped us discern more fully and more clearly what God wants for our chapel.”

The chapel will become the newest resource – and one of the most important – in supporting Jesuit’s commitment to spiritual and religious formation. When combined with academic excellence and co-curricular involvement, Jesuit continues its dedication to its mission of “developing conscientious leaders and agents of change who are intellectually distinguished, morally courageous, and compassionate in service to others for the greater glory of God.”

“It’s great to be number one in soccer,” concludes Mrs. Cardenas, “but we also need to be number one in Ignatian spirituality.”

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Author’s note: When asked to write an article about the chapel, I expected the emphasis to be on architectural style, liturgical requirements and perhaps changing tastes in sacred spaces. Instead, research for the article unfolded into a conversation about the challenges – even burdens – faced by today’s young men, and the role that a chapel could play in their lives as a place of serenity and reflection. It was a privilege to write about the hopes and desires behind this addition to the campus – and I am grateful for it. – Betsy Stone