This month we give an explanation of the last major piece of artwork going into the Immaculata: the scene of the Paschal Lamb from Apocalypse 7 which will be painted behind the main altar.

And a reminder! Don’t forget that the five bells which just arrived from France will be consecrated on Saturday, September 10 – all are invited!

Donate Today

Transcript of the Video

Welcome back to the Immaculata Church Project here in St. Marys, Kansas. Today we have just received off of a shipping container our five liturgical bells. It was an exciting day here! These bells arrived just in time now, for our ceremony coming up on September 10 where we will baptize these bells, consecrate them, and make them fitting for liturgical use. His Excellency Bishop Fellay and Father Fullerton, our District Superior, will be here on that day. And here in front of the church we will set up the five bells and they will be blessed in an official ceremony. So for that ceremony anybody is welcome: September 10 at 10:00AM here at the Immaculata in St. Marys, Kansas. You are certainly welcome to come; we will all be standing here out in front of the church that morning. And as you can see, and we will talk quickly here about some of the progress, but you can see here in front of the church a lot of concrete has been poured over the last few days and weeks. This main esplanade in front of the church and the front driveway in front of the church has all been poured to make it possible for all the faithful to come in for that ceremony. So now we will walk into the church and look at a few quick building updates on our way to the sanctuary where we will talk about the last little bit of liturgical artwork.

So here on the inside you can see that they have been working a lot on these main Romanesque arches that will separate the main body of the nave from the side aisles. Remember, each of these is going to be wrapped in a limestone with a capital at the top. Also we haven't really mentioned much but you can see they are framing out all the confessionals now too. Remember we have four confessionals here on the south side and four confessionals on the north side, so eight confessionals total in the church.

That's kind of some of the main progress going on down here at the nave level. We’ll go up into the sanctuary and take a look at some work being done up there.

So here as we are coming up into the sanctuary from one of the side chapels, you can see tremendous progress with these beautiful green granite columns that have been put here in the sanctuary. For those of you who follow the project, you know that in some of the images we have a number of columns and pilasters going throughout the church. Those are all wrapped in Casablanca limestone, whereas we saved for the sanctuary this beautiful green granite that is wrapping all of the columns. So you have kind of a view here into the ambulatory, back behind the main altar area and we will take a walk back there and show you some of the wall space where the last bit of artwork is going into the sanctuary.

So now as we are going through the ambulatory, which is this walking space back behind the main altar, you can start seeing these big spaces on the wall with arches at the top. For those of you who, again, have been following the project, and especially those who were at the April event last year, where we gave you that triptych that opened up with all the artwork, now you begin to see how big these spaces are where the Lamb (which I’ll explain in a minute), the Elders and some of the artwork is going up behind the main altar, to help give emphasis to the sanctuary and draw your attention to the main altar. And we will describe for you that artwork here in a second.

So now we are going to talk to you a little bit about the last bit of artwork, at least the last major pieces of artwork that are going into the church. As you know, back behind the main altar on the walls we just described, we have a very beautiful scene that is painted and that will be placed on the walls back there from Apocalypse chapter 7. It’s the scene of the Paschal Lamb. The Paschal Lamb in victory who is slain and who has redeemed us, as well as the twenty-four Elders who are there giving worship to the Lamb. As I said in a previous video this whole book of the Apocalypse is a story of our redemption. This Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world is now the mediator between God and man, who is all things to us men. He is the alpha and the omega, He's the beginning and the end. So the scene back behind the altar portrays Our Lord's victory and you can see from the image the Blood that He has poured out for us into the chalice. And it's the perfect scene to put back behind the main altar because it is what happens on the altar, every Mass we know we have Our Lord's victory, but sacrifice. His victory is on display, shall we say, and His Blood is sacrificed for us. So it's a perfect scene to put back behind the main altar.

Surrounding this Lamb we have in the other arches the twenty-four Elders. They represent both the twelve tribes of the Old Testament and the twelve apostles of the New. So sort of a summary of all men, shall we say, of the Old and the New Testament. And what are they doing? They are giving worship to the Lamb. We see them with thuribles and incense rising; those are the prayers of the elect who are coming, and the worship of those who are already in heaven worshiping the Lamb, even the prayers of the faithful here on earth giving praise to the Lamb. The whole idea is the entire mystical body of Christ is there giving worship to the Lamb: the faithful on earth united with the saints in heaven.

Then up much higher above this whole scene we see a few other images of the artwork, there above the architrave there is a little frieze area. And we see in that space the book with the seven seals which, again, the Lamb of God alone has the power to open each seal. That sort of represents the different ages of mankind and so this Lamb of God has the power to open up each age with its difficulties and the help that He gives. We also see the lion; we know Our Lord is referred to as the lion of the tribe of Judah. Yes, He is a lamb but He is also a lion. He also expects us to fight for Him, and so He's the lion of the tribe of Judah because He has power over life and death. And then we have the angel up in the frieze section as well as the angels surrounding the Lamb. Again these angels are there to show that they are there to anoint the heads of the elect to welcome souls into heaven, and to stand around the throne of the Lamb of God to, shall we say, give Him praise and worship as well.

And then lastly up in the ceiling, and this scene is already painted and on the ceiling of the sanctuary, we have the Spirit of God. We have the Holy Ghost who as the book of the Apocalypse says: “And the spirit and the bride, the church, say come. They say come to the elect and they bring the elect through grace into heaven.” So all in all we have a beautiful scene here in the sanctuary. It’s a scene of sacrifice for the Mass, but a scene of victory for us who are united to the Mass. It's a scene of mystery; it's a scene of holiness.

“A perfect summation of everything that happens in the church. ”

And lastly, just as you probably remember up in a cupola there was a little entablature going around with words that describe the scene that happens up in the cupola, so similarly down here at the lower level, budding up to the sanctuary, we have an entablature as well that describes exactly this scene from the Apocalypse. I'll give you the translation of the words that are going to run around that entablature. The words are, “And they sang a new song saying: the Lord is worthy to receive the book and to open the seals because He has been slain and has redeemed us for our God in His blood. And from every tribe and tongue and people and nation He has made us a kingdom for our God and priests and we will reign upon the earth and we heard the voice of the angels.” A perfect summation again of the whole scene that's happening here behind the altar.

So that sort of wraps up our progress update for the month as well as the last description of our major liturgical art going in the church. Thank you for your interest in the project, as you know from our last financial update we have 93% of the funds for the project. So we have just a little bit further to go. Please continue to support the project and spread the word. And for those of you who can come to the September 10th event we will see you there, and for those who can’t we will certainly give you a video update of all those happenings next month. Thank you and God bless.