Molokai History:
[from Hawaii Catholic Herald, December 23, 2011]
“A Welcoming Church for a Friendly Isle”
A new day for the parish
“It’s beautiful,” Bishop Silva said earlier that day after Father Guerreiro had given him a tour of the new church, the first he [the Bishop] has ever blessed.
“I like it very much. It gives you the feeling of people gathered close to each other, close to the altar,” he said. “It is bright and open. I like its openness to the outside.”
Designed by architect Frank Skowronski of Haiku, Maui, and built by the Oahu-based construction company Nordic PCL, the new church is shaped to draw people in – from the street to the sidewalk, to a broad courtyard fronting a wall of glass that opens into the worship space which angles down to an intimate sanctuary backed by a huge cross.
The cross, made of multi-hued mango wood, was still missing its “corpus,” or body of Jesus, which had not been completed at the time of the blessing. Illuminated, the cross was dramatically visible from the street outside during the evening ceremony.
Although the church is big enough to seat 250 people, twice the number as the building it replaced, it was designed not to require a sound system. The interior expands outward, like the inside of a megaphone, from the sanctuary, into a semi-circular interior, through the glass doors and windows in the back, naturally amplifying the voices of the celebrant, singers and readers.
[to be continued…]
Blessings, pono & pule!
Fr. Brian Guerrini, ss.cc.
Priest
Molokai