Saint Stephen Catholic Church

31020 COLE GRADE ROAD
VALLEY CENTER, CALIFORNIA 92082

DEDICATED 10 FEBRUARY A.D. 2006

Completed under the direction of the pastor,
Reverend William Kernan,
Diocese of San Diego

Architects:
Michele McLain, A.I.A., with McGee/Behun Architects

Liturgical Consultant:
Fr. Stephanos Pedrano, O.S.B.
Prince of Peace Abbey, Oceanside


A Description by Fr. Stephanos


The most basic description of a “liturgical consultant” is that he serves to guide architects and artists in the requirements for building a Catholic church. That’s the least he does. Some such consultants also do actual design work, but that is not their essential function.

As the consultant for St. Stephen Catholic Church in Valley Center (in the county and the diocese of San Diego, California), I helped the pastor, architects and artists with the design work of many elements. Our own diocese of San Diego also requires the consultant to provide the people with catechesis about the liturgy, the theological significance of a church building and the rite of dedicating a church.

San Diego’s coastal climate is mild and Mediterranean. However, further inland the climate is increasingly dry and warm, eventually turning into full desert. Valley Center is about thirty miles from the coast of San Diego County, and about sixty miles north of downtown San Diego. August is the hottest month in Valley Center, with an average high of 91 degrees (and practically no rain from April until October). Valley Center’s economy is largely ranching and agriculture. The parish has five American Indian reservations within, on or near its boundaries.

The people, the pastor— and the liturgical consultant— of St. Stephen Catholic Church all wanted a building that was visually related to the Catholic architectural traditions of the Mediterranean and the Spanish mission churches of California.

Although the California missions are adobe (mud brick) painted white, we chose a stucco finish with the color of adobe. Since adobe usually is made with local soil, the color of our stucco harmonizes with the local granite boulders and soils (clay and decomposed granite).

There is no municipal sewer system in Valley Center, so everyone has septic tanks or leach fields. (Leach fields have deeply buried porous pipes that allow sewage to decay underground.) The law forbids any construction on a leach field. The leach field for St. Stephen Catholic Church takes up a large part of the property. Because of the field, the hall, the office building, necessary parking areas, and a slope on the property, we had to limit the size and shape of the church that we completed and dedicated this past February 10. The diocese of San Diego normally requires new churches to have a seating capacity of at least 850 persons. The pertinent county offices, after reviewing the particulars of the property for St. Stephen Catholic Church, limited our building’s seating capacity to 650.

We made a nearly square building plan, with the sides of the square facing directly north, south, east and west.

1. Door

2. Narthex

3. Baptistery

4. Shrine of St. Stephen

5. Tabernacle Lamp

6. Tabernacle

7. Apse/Sanctuary/Altar Area

8. Holy Family painting

9. Pews


I’ll first describe the basic sections of the church, and later go into greater details.


NOTE. If you click on the photographs, some of them will open up to larger versions. Various person took the photographs. You may view an online album of all the photographs (with no explanations) by clicking on HERE.


Looking at the eastern face of the church, you see the main door to the left and the tower of the Blessed Sacrament to the right. The main door of the church is on the southeast corner; however, the door faces directly east.


Immediately inside the door is the “narthex”— an entry hall or lobby. Due to our size-and-configuration restrictions it’s more like a broad room than a hall. In the following photograph, you are looking past the Baptismal Font, through an arch and the narthex towards the inside of the front door.


All the flooring inside the church is stone.

After walking straight through the narthex, you enter the “baptistery,” the place of the Baptismal Font. We enter the Church sacramentally through Baptism; for this reason a baptistery belongs architecturally at the entrance of a church. As a reminder of this, Catholic tradition usually places free-standing or wall-mounted “miniature substitute baptismal fonts” (holy water) near all the doors. At St. Stephen Catholic Church we made sure the side of the church facing the parking lot has only one door, the main door. That arrangement “herds” or directs all the people to walk from the parking lot towards the main door and through the baptistery, so we avoided placing “miniature substitute baptismal fonts” near the other, smaller entrances around the church.



The main or central aisle of St. Stephen Catholic Church starts with an open arch at the baptistery (the southeastern corner of the church) and goes straight to the altar area (“sanctuary”) at the northwestern corner of the church.

Besides the main or central aisle, two other aisles start from the baptistery.

To the left of the main aisle, the “St. Stephen” aisle goes along the southern wall of the church and ends at the shrine of St. Stephen— in the southwestern corner of the church. The shrine has a stained glass window depicting the martyrdom of St. Stephen and, below that window, a stone-lined wall-niche displaying a documented first-class relic (a particle of bone from the body of St. Stephen).


To the right of the main aisle of the church, the “Blessed Sacrament” aisle starts at the baptistery (the southeastern corner), goes along the eastern wall of the church, and ends at the tabernacle lamp in the northeastern corner of the church. The tabernacle itself is closer to the altar and is visible from all points inside the church. However, the sign that the Blessed Sacrament is actually present is not the tabernacle but the lamp.

If the lamp is blown out or removed, it means the tabernacle is empty. For this reason, we wanted people to be able to see the lamp directly from the baptistery. Once they leave the baptistery to go down any of the aisles, they also have an unimpeded view of the tabernacle.

So, after entering the door of St. Stephen Church, and passing through the narthex, you are in the baptistery from where you can directly see the Altar, the Tabernacle Lamp and the Shrine of St. Stephen.


More details. [Remember that if you click on the photographs, you will see larger versions of some.]


THE OUTSIDE OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT TOWER

We wanted the location of the Blessed Sacrament inside the church to be somehow “recognizable” from outside the church, and the tower permits this. The pastor, Fr. William Kernan, wanted a “Eucharistic” stained glass window in the tower. During the day, the details of the window are not clear to people outside the church. However, at night the lights inside the tower illuminate the window so that people driving by the church see that the window depicts the Eucharistic Host and Chalice. The top of the tower is topped by a cross that has a “circle” at its center, echoing the basic shape of a Eucharistic monstrance.


THE DOOR

The first physical “encounter” or contact with a church is the door. St. Paul coined the expression “in Christ.” Christ himself said “I am the gate”; “I am the Way”; “No one comes to the Father except through me”. The “Mass for the Rite of Dedication of a Church” begins outside the closed front door, with the bishop “claiming” the empty building as a church in the name of Christ and opening the door for the symbolic first time. Then, the processional crucifix is the first to enter— Christ leading his people into the resurrection, bringing/making them into his Church, the Body of Christ.


We designed a bronze Greek cross to serve both as a monumental “Christ-marker” of the door, but also as a real door handle. You actually grab the cross to pull the door open. The cross of Christ is the door to the resurrection. The vertical and horizontal beams of a Greek cross have the same length, and they intersect at the center. The circle we added behind the cross is symbolic of eternal life, and it also adds a visual echo of a Eucharistic monstrance.

We could have had the door face southeast so that it would have been in a straight line with the altar. However, since the door is meant to lead people into the church, facing it southeast would have meant that the door would not have been clearly visible from the street or to the people walking to the church from the parking lot. So, we put the door on the exact eastern side of the baptistery. That also lets the door directly face and open to the rising sun, another natural reminder of the resurrection.

Fr. William, the pastor, is on the right in the following photograph, and I am on the left.


THROUGH THE DOOR, INTO THE NARTHEX

In the following photograph, you are looking from the narthex straight through the baptistery and the arch leading towards the St. Stephen stained glass window. The arch towards the right in the photograph opens to the central aisle leading straight to the altar.



In the following photograph you are still looking from the narthex through the baptistery. The arch on the left leads to the St. Stephen stained glass window. The arch in the middle opens to the central aisle of the church. The arch on the right opens to the aisle leading straight to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.



THE BAPTISTERY

Ancient baptismal pools or fonts, and entire baptismal rooms or baptisteries, were often eight-sided. The ancient Fathers of the Church saw the number eight as a symbol of the resurrection, the new eternal day that surpasses the seven days that God first established. The polished black stone Baptismal Font of St. Stephen Catholic Church is wide enough for full-immersion baptism even of adults. It has a natural rock pillar jutting up from one side that has a small basin at its top out of which water slowly flows down into the baptismal pool. This rock has not been sculpted or smoothed by tools, except to make the small basin in its top and to drill a channel down through this basin in order for water to flow. The basin also is used for scooping, pouring and catching water, in the case of infant Baptisms. Leaving this rock in its natural, uncut and unpolished state recalls God’s command that his altar of the covenant be built of piled stones uncut by any tools— stones that were left “just as God made them.” It also recalls the miraculous, water-giving rock in the desert that saved God’s people from dying of thirst.

The baptistery is an eight-sided tower with a domed roof covered with copper shingles. High on the inside walls of the baptistery are niches for statues of twelve saints. During the Rite of Baptism, the Church calls upon the saints in heaven to pray for those receiving baptism on earth. From the baptistery you can also see directly the enshrined relic and stained glass image of the church’s patron, St. Stephen.

The statues in the baptistery are of hand carved wood from Guadalajara,
Mexico, and are painted in a traditional Spanish Colonial poly-chromate. They depict the following saints.

Michael the Archangel

On either side of St. Michael the Archangel, two statues are not installed, because they are of persons who are not yet canonized saints) Pope John Paul II, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. [Our bishop asked the Vatican for permission to set up statues of Blessed Teresa inside local churches and chapels. She visited our diocese more than once, and was also once hospitalized here. The Vatican allows statues of the “blessed” (beatified) only in churches of their home dioceses, and, like Blessed Teresa, in the chapels of their own religious orders.]

Three religious order saints who served in the western hemisphere:
Diego, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Martin de Porres

Three male martyrs:
Lorenzo Ruiz, John the Baptist, David Galvan Bermudez
[The pastor wanted a “wild-man” gone holy. We researched. This St. David fit the bill. To read about him, click on: HERE.]

Three laywomen:
Gianna Beretta Molla, Mary Magdalene, Monica


Inside the baptistery, on either side of the arch to the central aisle of the church, we made two niches that hold the vessels for the two oils used in sacramental initiation: the “Oil of Catechumens” for the spiritual strengthening of those who are about to enter the waters of Baptism; and the “Sacred Chrism” for the sacramental Confirmation of those who have just come out of the waters of Baptism.


THE NAVE

Legal building restrictions dictated the size and shape of St. Stephen Church. Our layout of the rows of pews puts all the focus on the altar. It also keeps the whole congregation relatively close to the altar. While the seats and backs of the pews are a light-colored wood, the end-panels of all the pews are a dark wood. This outlines the aisles of the nave, and gives additional emphasis to a sense of movement towards the altar.

At the top of the walls of the nave are mostly-blue stained glass windows bearing the names and traditional symbols of the twelve apostles.


The following photograph shows the priest's view over the altar and out over the pews.

The Anointing of a Church

The word “christ” is from the Greek word meaning “anointed”. The Hebrew word “messiah” means the same thing. Since the Church is the Body of Christ, a church building is also a “christ”, an anointed. In the Rite for the Dedication of a Church, the bishop sprinkles the walls with holy water, incenses them and finally anoints them with Sacred Chrism.

Inside St. Stephen Catholic Church, four wide stone piers (square pillars) stand at north, south, east and west in the nave. They hold up the central roof over the nave. In dedicating a church, a bishop uses Sacred Chrism to anoint the walls in twelve places (twelve for the apostles … “One, Holy, Catholic and APOSTOLIC Church”). However, the dedicational anointings may be reduced to no fewer than four places. The liturgy requires that each anointing be memorialized permanently by a cross and a candle. We chose to have these dedicational anointings be on the four piers that support the central roof. The dedicational crosses are engraved into the stone piers and the dedicational candles are mounted above them. After the dedicational anointings, the bishop then lights the dedicational candles.


THE ALTAR AREA

The Bible reveals that God’s Messiah (Hebrew “anointed”) is a king first of all, but also a priest or a prophet. Jesus the Christ (“the Anointed” in Greek) is all three— King, Prophet and Priest. In the Rite of Priestly Ordination, the Church speaks of all three roles as the mission of the ordained. During the Mass, Jesus Christ serves in all three roles through the ordained. The “chair” points to Christ serving as King. The “ambo” (permanent or monumental stand for the Scripture readings) is where Christ serves as Prophet. The altar is where Christ offers sacrifice as Priest.

Inside a church, the area (often a raised platform) that has the altar, the ambo (permanent lectern) and the priestly chair is traditionally called the Sanctuary. It can simply be against a flat wall. It can also be an “apse”, a sufficiently large alcove set into the wall. The floor plan of the sanctuary in St. Stephen Catholic Church is eight-sided, with half of the sanctuary space in an arched apse. The sanctuary platform is three steps above the floor of the nave. The chair, the ambo and the altar all have polished black stone bases. The chair and the ambo have wood for their upper portions. The altar has no wood, but a thick, stone block as the “tabletop.” The top surface of this stone is flat and smooth. The sides and bottom of the block have been cut by flame so that they are very rough. The cutting torch also partially melts the surface of the stone so that while it remains very rough it has a slight gloss. The altar is forty inches tall.

Since the altar is another “anointed one”—a “Christ”—the bishop at the Rite of Dedication of a Church anoints the altar with Sacred Chrism. Then the altar receives its “priestly vestments” for the first time: at least one linen cloth. The anniversary of a church dedication becomes an annual solemnity in that church, meaning that the anniversary supersedes a coinciding Sunday, replacing the readings and prayers for that Sunday’s Mass that year. If for some reason a church needs to replace its altar, there is a separate Mass for the Rite of Dedication of an Altar. Then the anniversary of that altar also becomes an annual solemnity outranking a coinciding Sunday.

The three steps leading up to the altar are each seven inches tall.


The crucifix of St. Stephen Catholic Church has a wooden cross and a cast bronze corpus. The sculptor of the corps is Johnny Bear Contreras, a member of the San Pascual Indian Reservation that is in the parish. The pastor, Fr. William Kernan, wanted Christ’s face to appear realistically swollen from beating. (Because of the swelling around the eyes, some people wonder if the intention was to make Christ appear Asian. No, it was not.) Christ is also still alive on this crucifix, looking up to the Father and offering himself in sacrifice. Accordingly, the crucifix does not show the wound he received in his side after death.

We wanted the sanctuary to be strong and assertive. So, instead of neutral or light colors, we had the apse walls finished in dark red and golden yellow Venetian plaster. The lower walls are in the dark red (like the blood of St. Stephen’s martyrdom and Christ’s sacrifice). The upper walls up to the peak of the apse are in the golden yellow (recalling the gold that expresses glory, heaven, eternity or holiness in traditional icons). The sanctuary’s red and yellow plaster, together with the blue windows of the apostles above the nave, assert the three primaries of the color spectrum, and serve as visual anchors of color in the church.

The Priest's Chair


The Ambo



THE BLESSED SACRAMENT AISLE, LAMP, TABERNACLE AND CHAPEL

A special aisle or hall leads straight from the baptistery to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. The word “hall” may be misleading here, because it is separated from the main body of the church only by a line of pillars, not a wall. We gave the ceiling of this hall special treatment by having it rounded or vaulted along its full length. The hall and its curved ceiling end at a rounded arch that is an entrance to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. The vaulted ceiling and the arch pull your eye quickly, smoothly and strongly toward the Tabernacle Lamp, the sign that Christ is present in the Tabernacle. The “pull” is not only visual, but also psychological. It “calls” you towards the Lamp.

[At one point in this aisle, there is a side alcove intended for a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The statue now there is from the parish hall. It will go back to the parish hall after the completion of a newly commissioned Marian statue.]

As you leave the baptistery and walk down the aisle towards the Tabernacle Lamp, you can also see the Tabernacle itself off to the left of the Lamp. The Lamp hangs from the center of the ceiling of the “Blessed Sacrament Tower”. Once you arrive at the Lamp, the Tabernacle is immediately to the left on an eight-sided stone pedestal that is thirty-three inches tall. It stands in an eight-sided alcove that is also open to the main body of the church.

The pedestal is in the same materials as the altar in the sanctuary. Since the Tabernacle reserves the Eucharist so that it can be taken to the sick who are not able to attend the Mass, we also placed in this chapel (in its western wall) the niche holding the vessel for the “Oil of the Sick”.


The north-northwest corner of this chapel is an alcove separated by fixed metal grills. You can enter this alcove from the outside of the church, but you cannot open or pass through the grills. This allows visits to the Blessed Sacrament twenty-four hours a day even when the rest of the church is locked up.


The following photograph was taken from inside the alcove looking into the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.


The following photos show the "Eucharistic Window" in the eastern wall of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.


The Tabernacle is visible from from all points in the nave. The next two photographs show the Tabernacle seen from the southwestern and southeastern corners of the nave.


The original and primary reason for reserving the Eucharist in a tabernacle is so that we can take the Blessed Sacrament to the sick who are not able to attend Mass.

Originally, bishops and priests reserved the Blessed Sacrament in any place they determined to be safe, even in their own homes. A “sacristy” is a place for keeping “sacred things”. The earliest sacristies were places for reserving the Eucharist. The next historical stage was to reserve the Eucharist in precious containers hanging on chains from the church ceiling, or in small chambers high up on the church wall or atop pillars. Eventually, the tabernacle was combined with the altar. However, both ancient and relatively younger basilicas in Rome have the tabernacle and the altar as separate entities. For instance, St. Peter’s Basilica has its (extremely large) Tabernacle of the Blessed Sacrament to one side of the basilica, rather than on the high altar.

The intention of distinguishing the tabernacle from the altar is simply to give each its own autonomous identity, nobility and function.

During the Mass for the Dedication of a Church, the new tabernacle starts off empty, and the tabernacle lamp is not lit. It does not receive a special blessing, nor do any of the prayers in the dedication rite mention it.

After the distribution of Holy Communion at the Mass of Dedication of the Church, the Eucharist that remains is placed in a covered ciborium or pyx on the altar. Then the bishop goes to sit in the chair to pray briefly in silence. Next, the bishop stands and prays aloud the “Prayer after Communion”. He then returns to the altar, kneels down, incenses the ciborium, rises, and takes the ciborium in procession from the altar to the tabernacle. As he leaves the altar the people are to sing suitable songs during the procession.

The bishop places the ciborium in front of the tabernacle or inside it, but leaves the door of the tabernacle open. He then kneels down and incenses the Eucharist. He remains kneeling. Once the singing has ended, the bishop remains kneeling for a brief period during which everyone prays in silence.

Then, the deacon puts the ciborium inside the tabernacle and shuts it. One of the servers now lights the tabernacle lamp.

The bishop now stands, goes directly back to the chair, gives the final blessing, dismisses the people, kisses the altar, bows to the altar and departs.


ROSE GARDEN OF OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE

On the north side of the church, just to the west of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, is a walled garden. The western wall of the garden has a mosaic of Our Lady of Guadalupe and an altar. In the following photo of the garden, the stone pavement is the same as inside the church. All the stone is the same, though it has rich variation of color.



SOUTHERN PLAZA

The next two photographs show the view from the southwest looking towards the southern side of the church.


BLESSED KATERI TEKAKWITHA

Because of the presence of five Indian reservations in or next to the parish boundaries, the bishop has given legitimate permission for St. Stephen Church to display a statue of the first beatified Native American Indian. The sculptor of the crucifix is making a bronze statue of Blessed Kateri that will be set up somewhere on the church grounds.


GARDEN OF OLIVES (“Gethsemani”), STATIONS OF THE CROSS, EASTER FIRE

Directly east, in front of the church, a small grove of olive trees has been planted. A low wall to enclose the grove has yet to be built. Stations of the Cross are going to be put into the wall. In a clearing at the end of the grove nearest the church, we have designed a permanent, raised firepit for the Easter Fire on Holy Saturday. Our intention is to let the annual fire permanently mark or blacken its firepit as a kind of symbolic testament to the power of the Lord’s death and resurrection.