OCEANSIDE — Cardinal Robert W. McElroy has consecrated the Fray Junipero Serra Center at Mission San Luis Rey Parish. The building will now serve as the parish church.
The center was originally constructed in the mid-1990s as a multipurpose space. It was blessed and dedicated in 1996 by the late Bishop Robert H. Brom for that function. Since 2010, it has been enhanced through the addition of a large San Damiano Cross icon, statues, votive candle stands, an adoration chapel and various artworks, among other features.
Franciscan Father Oscar Mendez served as pastor of Mission San Luis Rey Parish until leaving July 28 to begin a new assignment. On June 19, he joined Cardinal McElroy at the consecration Mass “to dedicate this place for worship only.”
Father Mendez described the consecration of the center, which seats about 860 people, as a “special occasion” for the parish.
The Mass included the sprinkling of holy water over the congregation, a special prayer of dedication, and the anointing of the altar and the walls of the church with sacred chrism, a mixture of olive oil and balsam that was consecrated at the annual diocesan Chrism Mass.
“Just as priests, prophets and kings were anointed throughout the history of the Israelites and Christians, so is the altar, the symbol of Jesus,” explained Noreen McInnes, director of the diocesan Office for Liturgy and Spirituality.
She said that “an ordinary piece of furniture” became a symbol of Christ when the cardinal anointed the altar with five crosses representing the five wounds of Christ.
“This beautiful building is now, in its essence and its entirety, a house of God, a place of worship, a place of prayer,” Cardinal McElroy said in his homily.
“That’s what we are marking tonight, that you have transformed this parish in a way which demarcates a special sacredness continually … and entirely as a place of worship,” he said.
The cardinal said that, in a certain sense, the church had been consecrated twice before – first, by the sacrifices, service and preaching of the Franciscan priests and brothers who founded Old Mission San Luis Rey 226 years ago; second, by the community that has gathered in the Serra Center for almost 30 years for Masses and other sacramental celebrations.
“All of these sacraments which have taken place here for all of these years have marked this out already as a holy house of God,” Cardinal McElroy said.
Noting that non-religious, social events have also been held in the Serra Center over the years, he said, “God blesses all of these dimensions of a life of the parish community.”
