R E S O U R C E S
R E S O U R C E S
RINCON INDIAN RESERVATION — When St. Bartholomew Chapel was destroyed during the 2007 wildfires, the Catholic community on the Rincon Indian Reservation set out to rebuild what it had lost.
The initial plan called for a faithful re-creation of the original structure, which had stood on the reservation and served Catholic tribal members for more than 70 years.
But the St. Bartholomew church committee, which was entrusted with overseeing the design and construction of a new chapel, ultimately pursued a different course.
Construction concluded Jan. 29. At 3,500 square feet, the new chapel is substantially larger than the 1,200-square-foot structure it replaced.
“What we wanted to do was to honor the past and look to the future,” said George Arviso, chairman of the church committee.
The chapel’s design, he said, pays tribute to the earlier chapel and includes several symbolic references to Indian culture and heritage.
For example, the previous chapel’s bell tower, which survived the fire and was later refurbished, was incorporated into the design of the new chapel.
The new chapel’s butterfly roof, Arviso said, evokes the tribal symbol of the dragonfly as well as the Holy Spirit, who is often depicted as a winged dove.
A curved wall inside the chapel is intended to recall a wampkish, a semi-circular structure constructed from willow brush and used as a place of worship during the tribe’s pre-Christian days.
Arviso said the “wampkish wall” in the new chapel serves “to honor and recognize that God, the creator of all peoples, knew us as Indian people even before the Church came and introduced God to us [as] the Trinity.”
The new altar was carved from an oak tree donated by the Santa Ysabel Indian Reservation. Arviso noted that the oak tree produces the acorn, which provided a traditional source of sustenance for the Indians. He said this made oak a fitting material for constructing an altar on which Jesus becomes their spiritual food.
Wood from the same oak can also be found in a new ambo as well as a new table in the chapel’s sacristy.
The eastern and western walls of the chapel, which are composed of native earth mixed with some cement, also serve as a nod to the past.
During the construction of the previous chapel, Arviso said, the imprints of wooden boards were left in the walls. In tribute, he said, similar imprints were intentionally left in the eastern and western walls of the new chapel.
St. Bartholomew Chapel is located within the geographical boundaries of Mission San Antonio de Pala. Its members are officially parishioners of the mission, and the mission’s priests and deacons also minister at the chapel.
The new chapel is the fourth to be built on the site. The Poomacha fire destroyed the previous chapel and its adjacent social hall Oct. 23, 2007.
In the fire’s aftermath, Arviso said, the Rincon Tribal Council announced that the chapel would be rebuilt and also provided the majority of the funds for construction. Kevin deFreitas Architects and Lusardi Construction Company were hired for the project.
On Oct. 16, 2008, Bishop Robert H. Brom presided at a groundbreaking and blessing of the construction site. Construction officially began July 27, 2009, and concluded Jan. 29.
In addition to the new chapel, a 2,385-square-foot social hall was built to replace the smaller one that had burned down in 2007. The hall is a multi-purpose building that includes a kitchen and classrooms. Between the chapel and social hall is a new meditation garden.
Bishop Brom visited the Rincon Reservation Feb. 14 to bless the new buildings and celebrate the first Mass in the new chapel.
Arviso said the construction of the new chapel, social hall and meditation garden shows that God can take “what could easily have been a tragedy and a defeat” and transform it into “something even better than what we had.”
“If you remain faithful to God and really seek to do His will, He guides you and He gives you the resources and He gives you the faith to carry through,” Arviso said. “So, the end product is, well, it’s here to be seen. And it’s from His hand.”
The Southern Cross
This article appears in the February 2010 issue of The Southern Cross.