Building Beauty in the Bible Belt

Last updated on: December 30, 2014 at 8:38 pm by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Building Beauty in the Bible Belt 2014-12-30T20:38:26-05:00 Fr. Dwight Longenecker

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St Mary and St Alphege, Bath, England – one of the churches that inspired the new Our Lady of the Rosary in Greenville, SC

Beauty is the language of worship, and we’re determined to build a beautiful new church in our parish in Greenville, South Carolina

Readers of this blog will have learned that this romanesque style church will incorporate a set of fantastic stained glass windows salvaged from the church of St Mary Morning Star in Pittsfield MA. The windows, by the famed American craftsman Wilbur Burnham will teach the faith and add an air of mystery to the new church.

The lower church will be very special. Housing a shrine to the Divine Mercy, this sacred space will be available for Eucharistic Adoration, Daily Mass and will feature beautiful new images of Pope St John Paul II and St Faustina. The lower church will also hold the Divine Mercy Columbarium–where the ashes of loved ones can be reposed in dignity and reverence indoors where the Mass is celebrated daily.

The complaint one often hears when a beautiful church is built is “What about the poor? Shouldn’t the money be spent on the poor?”

The Burnham Rosary Window at the new Our Lady of the Rosary Church

For Catholics this should be a question of “both and” not “either or”. That is why our existing church–which is a simple warehouse type building–will be renovated to provide a new community center and early learning center. The vision is to provide a space for a low level elder day care drop in center as well as to provide added space for our parish school.

I’m pleased to say that my appeal for funds to readers of this blog has been very successful.

More than $10,000 has come in from generous readers to help us build this church.

Now at the end of the year the public phase of our fund raising is completed. We will go into a silent phase still raising funds, but the public appeal is just about to end.

With that in mind, are you able to make an end of year donation to help build this church?

Maybe you could make a large donation to help us purchase this image of Pope St John Paul II. If so your name or the name of your loved one in whose memory you give it would be included.

Would you like to help purchase this image of St Faustina for the Divine Mercy Shrine?

If you would like to help with either a small or large donation just go here to our website and make an instant donation. Your PayPal receipt will serve for tax purposes.

If you would like more information about the prices for these statues or information about other naming opportunities drop me an email at [email protected]

The next phase of the process is for our construction drawings to be completed. After getting diocesan approval we move on to the final estimates and bids. Then in the Spring we present our final financial plan and break ground in May or June. We plan to move in for the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary in October 2016.

This church is a great accomplishment for such a small parish as ours. We are only 525 families in the poorest part of Greenville.

Will you help us if you can?

God bless you and we’ll keep you posted as the progress continues.

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