The Dedication of Holy Cross Chapel at Jesuit High School in Tampa

This past Tuesday, His Excellency Michael Barber S.J., Bishop of Oakland, California, dedicated a new chapel for Jesuit High School in Tampa Bay, Florida. The school’s president, Fr Richard Hermes, S.J., chose August 7th as the date of the dedication because it was the 204th anniversary of the restoration of the Society of Jesus after a 41-year suppression. He and Bishop Barber spoke of the chapel as an instrument of the restoration of souls to the mercy of God, and a restoration of the Society of Jesus in America as great patrons of art and architecture. The new building was designed by architect Duncan Stroik, and replaces a previous chapel built in the early 60s, (shown below); I am sure our readers will agree that the new one is vast improvement.

The new church’s façade. (Courtesy of Jesuit High School of Tampa)

Statue of St Ignatius of Loyola by Cody Swanson, who also did the Stations of the Cross inside. (Courtesy of Duncan Stroik)

The high altar; here the bishop is kneeling before placing the relics of Saints into the altar during the dedication ceremony. The paintings over the several altars are by Raul Berzosa. (Courtesy of Duncan Stroik)

The dedication booklet also contains Fr Hermes’ statement of vision and description of the chapel. “The new chapel, named in honor of the Holy Cross, draws from the spirit that animated the origin of the Society of Jesus. In the Formula of the Institute, the founding document of the Jesuit Order (1540), St Ignatius refers to those wishing to be members of this new Order as soldiers of God ‘under the banner of the cross’, serving the Lord alone and the Church, his spouse, under the Roman Pontiff. Thus, St Ignatius puts the whole Jesuit mission under the standard of the cross. These words from the Formula can be seen inscribed on the statue of St Ignatius that adorns the façade of Holy Cross Chapel. In addition, the central interior image that confronts the visitor to our new chapel, the painting placed above the high altar, is the famous image of St. Ignatius’s vision at La Storta. In this vision, St. Ignatius is placed by God the Father beneath Christ who carries the cross. From that moment, St. Ignatius knows that he and his companions will be linked intimately in name and mission with the Lord Jesus and His holy cross.

The altar of St Isaac Jogues. (Courtesy of Duncan Stroik)

The altar of St Paul Miki. (Courtesy of Duncan Stroik)

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Pictures of a Mural of the Crowning of the Virgin from Malaga, Spain

The artist Raul Berzosa has sent me the following pictures of his recently completed project. It is of the ceiling of the Oratory of the Brotherhood of Our Lady of Sorrows, Málaga, Spain. It took him a year to paint, the work, all in acrylic; the total size of the roof is 12.20 meters long and 9.62 meters wide, with a total of 130 square meters approximately. For moroe information, you can visit his website, http://www.raulberzosa.com/. This is a spectacular achievement, and it is good to see work of this sort being commissioned and executed. I hope there will be more. If I have one point to make, it is my usual one that my personal taste is to see more muted colour and shadow with the brightness concentrated on the principle foci of interest in the baroque fashion. However, I should state that I have seen only the photographs, and the work in situ. For a work like this the impact can be very different when viewed from where it is intended to be seen - this would be viewed ordinarily from a great distance away by observers looking up from the floor. The artist has no doubt designed it with this with this in mind.

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