A church building is in an important way a living thing. First, it is living in that it holds within its walls a liviing community of faith that prays and worships there. It is the people of faith and love, in communion with the Lord, that makes a church a living thing. But a church is also living in the sense that as a structure symbolizing the church family within, it also is a growing and changing reality. Medieval cathedrals demonstrate this well in that many of them took hundreds of years to build, and then the architects and artisans kept working on them hundreds of years more, adding, subtracting, refining, finishing.
So it is with our own beautiful Sacred Heart Church. In one sense, as a building it was finished in 1969, but in another sense, it has continued to "grow" as new elements have been added, sometimes replacing temporary elements that were never quite completed. In recent years, we have seen the addition of a new ambo (pulpit) and presider's chair, as well as a revised processional cross. Before that, a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was added and a new "Centennial Garden" to adorn the entry of the church.
In early 2021, an important new feature will be added to our church, a permanent baptismal font made specifically for our church that incorporates some traditional elements that go back centuries, if not millenia, as well as contemporary elements typical of a "mid-century modern" building. The new font will not be portable or "store-bought", but will be an integral part of the church expressing in a permanent manner the great mysteries of faith represented in the first great sacrament of welcome into the Body of Christ, Baptism.
It is being constructed of "Altissimo" marble, a white marble that is the same as that used in our altar. It comes from the same quarry that Michaelangelo used to carve his famous David and other great pieces of art. Among its ancient features will be its octagonal shape, eight sides representing the perfection of time, the "Day Beyond all Days", the First Day", the "Resurrection Day", into which the newly baptized is initiated. The column holding up the great bowl is both octagonal and curved to echo the soft round shapes of our church, and the magnificent bowl atop will dramatically transform from a simple bowl into a flowing stream of new life that carries the believer across the nave of the church and into its sanctuary, flowing still across the face of our altar, ambo, and even the presidential chair.
One additional feature of the new font is that it has been donated to the church in memory of one of our great pastors, Father George Haspedis, who died last year. As a loving pastor not only at Sacred Heart, but many other parishes in Spokane over many years, the new font will remind us often of the manifold ways he touched so many with the hand of Jesus and led them to deeper faith.
The new font has been carved from the marble by an extraordinary machine at
Mario and Sons and is now being hand-worked by co-owner and resident artisan,
Joey Marcella. It should be ready for delivery to the church in late-January or early-February.
We are deeply grateful to Joey and his staff and Mario and Sons for their extraordinary work on this project and to the donors who have made it possible.
One question remains: who will be the first to be baptized in this magnificent new font?