September 19, 2009
Parishioners joyful over completing church building
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Bishop Jaime Soto sprinkles parishioners with water as a sign of repentance and as a reminder of their baptism and to purify the walls and the altar of the new church during the dedication Mass for Divine Mercy Church in Sacramento. Cathy Joyce/Herald photo
Just 14 months after breaking ground for construction, members of Divine
Mercy Parish in the north Natomas area of Sacramento celebrated the dedication
and blessing of their first church building with festivities on Sept. 5.
Bishop Jaime Soto presided at the dedication Mass, attended by an estimated 900 parishioners and friends.
Standing with the community outside the church doors, Bishop Soto received the church’s architectural plans from Duane Johnson of Comstock Johnson Architects, and the keys to the church from John Jackson of Jackson Construction.
The bishop entrusted the keys to Father Cesar Ageas, pastor, who opened the church doors. The congregation streamed inside to a joyful Mass.
Divine Mercy Church, at Club Center and Banfield Drives, is the first Catholic church in north Natomas. The parish community itself was officially established in January 2005, becoming the 100th parish in the Diocese of Sacramento.
Divine Mercy parishioners spent their first 20 months together attending Mass in public buildings and in parishioners’ homes. It was very hard to do, Father Ageas recalled. Scheduling Masses and organizing various committee meetings was a continuing logistical puzzle, and having no settled home or office in the parish itself was exhausting. So Father Ageas did what priests do: he prayed.
He made a 30-day Ignatian retreat at the Jesuit Retreat Center in Los Altos in April 2006. He was considering whether he should ask to be reassigned to another parish and he needed God’s help to discern what he should do. Halfway through his retreat, he learned that the diocese had bought a house for the parish rectory.
After that, parishioners celebrated weekday Masses in the kitchen, Father Ageas said.
The parishioners converted three bedrooms to offices, the dining area into a conference room and the kitchen and adjacent area into the chapel. Sunday Masses were still celebrated at the local public school, Father Ageas noted, but all meetings and even choir practices could be held at the rectory.
For a priest who knows himself to be a shy person, creating a parish from scratch was a personal challenge.
“I had to face it, but I had no doubt that God would help me — and all of us,” Father Ageas said. God gave him the courage to meet the mayor, to meet city council members, to persevere and ask people for support, he added.
Just five years after a group of people met to create a parish, their church is completed on time and on budget during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. This is an extraordinary accomplishment, said Susan Wright, a parishioner and co-chair of the first church capital campaign committee.
A lot of people have lost their jobs and are facing serious financial trouble in the Natomas area, she said, and the home foreclosure rate is very high.
“Lots and lots of people who made pledges have lost their homes,” Wright told The Herald. Some people have made adjustments in their pledges, but most have continued to honor their pledges to the parish, she said. Having a church is even more important to people in difficult times, she noted.
“Just not having to set up chairs for everyone every time there’s Mass — that will give everyone some stability,” she said. “It’s long overdue.”
Ray Tretheway, the Sacramento city councilman representing the Natomas area, has been a supporter from the start, advocating for the parish community at council meetings. He said the parish community “never lost sight of their goal.”
“The leadership team, the builder, the architect, the consultants — they worked together perfectly,” he said. “They didn’t postpone it. They didn’t give up.”
Tretheway noted that the church building is not just a place to worship, but it draws youth and community members together. “It’s a blessing to the community,” he said.
Duane Johnson, a member of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Carmichael and an architect who has worked on parish projects in the diocese for more than 20 years, said the Divine Mercy parish campus is designed to foster community.
A plaza in front of the church allows for gatherings and processions and creates a space between the street and the worship space, he noted. The Mediterranean style of the church complements the buildings surrounding it — one of the requirements of the city council.
The church building itself will be converted to a parish hall with a high-school size basketball court in 10 to 15 years, Johnson said, explaining that this practical approach is the typical way of building new churches. When parishioners are ready to build a larger church, he said, they’ll transfer into it fixtures from the first church — hence the name — and have a ready-made parish hall.
The first church seats 550 to 600 people in a U-shaped pew arrangement around a raised altar platform and a suspended crucifix. The 7.6 acre master plan for the land includes a future 950 to 1,000-seat sanctuary, a K-8 elementary school and sports fields. Currently nearly five acres have been developed, including landscaping, parking, the plaza area and the first church itself.
Father Ageas said the parish community has more than 600 registered parishioners already and with the visible church building he expects more.
“For three years, we had 10 to 15 people at weekday Mass,” he said. “Then the first weekday Mass after the blessing, we had 50 people.”
In October, the parish will begin offering Masses in Tagalog for the vibrant Filipino Catholic community in the area. Father Ageas, who was born in the Philippines, doesn’t speak Tagalog himself, but he’ll have a priest at the parish who can, he said.
When he considers what the parish community has accomplished in only five years, Father Ageas says he feels very humbled.
“I’m grateful for all the parishioners and the support of people from other parishes, for their unselfish sharing of their time, talent and treasure,” he said. “What we have now is the fruit of our labor and sacrifice.”
