Elevated St. Genevieve rises to heavens

Rising dramatically above its grove of live oaks, the newly rebuilt St. Genevieve Church opened its doors to the joy of nearly 1,000 faithful Jan. 15, marking an official end to its time as a casualty of Hurricane Katrina for Catholics living in Slidell’s rural Bayou Liberty community.

“What an emotional day. What a beautiful day. God is truly good!” said Father José Roel Lungay, St. Genevieve’s pastor, addressing the standing-room-only crowd at the white-spired church’s dedication Mass. “I am almost very close to being speechless. I don’t know what words to describe how I feel today  – nervous, but excited at the same time, very much awed, and very much thankful.”

When their previous church, built in 1958, was leveled by Katrina’s 6-foot storm surge, parishioners began celebrating Mass under a 300-year-old oak tree marking the site of their parish’s first ecclesiastical structure – a brick chapel erected in 1852 that was enlarged in 1914 to house a mission church. Although St. Genevieve’s post-Katrina Masses moved indoors – into the parish hall – and remained there for more than six years, parishioners gathered beneath their beloved “chapel oak” before processing in to the dedication Mass.

“We remember those who have gone before us, who formed the foundation of St. Genevieve,” said Bob White, Pastoral Council president, flanked by the Mass’ celebrant, Archbishop Gregory Aymond. “French, Spanish, Creole, African American, Native American. (St. Genevieve’s founders represented) a community of many different races and cultures whosedifferences faded into their one love for our Lord.”

White marveled at how far St. Genevieve had come in the 6 1/2 years since Katrina, a journey made possible, he said, by the grace of God and the “blood, sweat and tears” of people determined to see their church rise again. Arriving home after the hurricane to a nearly “unrecognizable” landscape, and hit in subsequent years by “the worst economic times since the Great Depression,” parishioners dug deep into their pockets and miraculously exceeded their capital campaign goal of $1.5 million. More than 95 percent of parish families pledged money to the campaign and raised funds by holding everything from bake sales, to raffles, to a well-received original play on the parish’s history called “On the Bayou.”

 “This day, this moment, this church is the culmination of all of your efforts,” White said. “We are a family founded in faith. Welcome home!”

Built to seat 500-plus

The construction project, which broke ground in October 2010, was completed on schedule and on budget by Argus Architecture Engineering and Voelkel McWilliams Construction. The $4 million price tag included $3 million for the church’s construction and $1 million for its furnishings, including a new Allen organ.

The new church, which has a seating capacity of 500 and room for future expansion, is a larger replica of St. Genevieve’s original 1914 church – featuring the same cruciform design, but elevated on 7-foot-tall concrete piers to safeguard it from future floods.

The exterior of its grand portal, carved out of Honduran mahogany, boasts various scenes of St. Genevieve’s history, including a panel labeled “2005” that depicts parishioners celebrating Mass under the chapel oak. Scenes from Christ’s life are carved onto the portal’s inward-facing side.

The church’s interior evokes the feeling of a country cathedral, with soaring ceilings above the sanctuary, bountiful natural light and the lingering scent of freshly milled cypress. German-made stained-glass windows from the 1958 church, dating from the 19th century, are set against even larger windows, ushering in additional light and giving worshippers clear views of the surrounding landscape. Stained-glass windows of the four evangelists, perched above the center aisle, are also from the 1958 church, while two smaller windows depicting crosses were salvaged from the 1914 church and are set high above the sanctuary.

But the church’s most breathtaking architectural feature is one that was not included in the original plans: a 20-foot-high glass wall behind the sanctuary that perfectly frames one of the parish’s majestic oak trees. The stunning double crucifix hanging in front of the glass wall was made by joining St. Genevieve’s original crucifix with that of St. Linus Church in Bayou Vincent, the African-American-founded church that merged with St. Genevieve in 1968.

Furnishings have Gothic look

The sanctuary floor of reclaimed St. Tammany pine boards and pews of solid red oak add to the church’s woodsy feel, as do the cypress Stations of the Cross, which once hung in St. Lawrence the Martyr Church in Metairie.

New mahogany furnishings, including the ambo and the altar, incorporate the same Gothic style and trefoil carvings of St. Genevieve’s more than 150-year-old baptismal font. The ambo features silver, Celtic-style bas reliefs of the four evangelists, while the altar has two treasures embedded within: the original altar stones from St. Linus and St. Genevieve.

The church’s tabernacle is a replica of the one inside St. Eugene’s Cathedral in Derry, Northern Ireland, and features silver bas relief carvings of all 12 apostles, with Judas depicted without a halo and clutching his bag of silver. The tabernacle sits on yet another piece of Irish origin: a century old, hand-carved pedestal that was a gift from St. Mary’s Assumption Church in New Orleans.

Dedication Mass

During the homily, Archbishop Aymond said he was awed by the church’s beauty, adding that the generations who had received sacraments there made it sacred ground that not even “that unwelcomed guest named Katrina” could destroy.

“Katrina, with all of her power, and all of her destructive forces, has not and could not take away the faith of the people of St. Genevieve,” Archbishop Aymond said. “Even in that time of destruction and flooding, you as a people of faith believed that God had not abandoned you. Today as we look at the beauty and the productivity of human hands, we dedicate this building to God. This is your home! Welcome home!”

One big family

The day had both old and new parishioners dabbing their eyes.

“I’ve never had so many hugs and kisses in any other parish I’ve belonged to,” said choir member May Usannaz, who relocated to St. Genevieve Parish after losing her home in Our Lady of Lourdes in Slidell. “Look at the pelican. Isn’t that beautiful,” Usannaz said, pointing to the sky. “You see why we love it out here?”

Another choir member, Dorothy Whitehead, said she loves her parish so much, she commuted from her temporary home in Picayune, Miss., to attend Masses under the oak.

“The whites, the blacks, the Hispanics, all come together. Our pastor is from the Philippines. We just all love each other so much,” Whitehead said. “We’re just like a family,” she said. 

Alice Twillie, a third-generation parishioner, described her slice of Louisiana as “God’s country” – the type of place where oaks line both sides of the road and people can escape the summer heat of less forested stretches of Slidell. Twillie, who received her first Communion in the 1914 church, said St. Genevieve’s bayou setting would bolster her faith when all seemed lost.

“When we had those Masses under the oak, you’d sit there and cry, and then you’d look through the trees and see something that just made it all right – a bird or flowers,” said Twillie, adding that she once spotted bees around the altar wine. “But you know what’s amazing? We never had a rainy weekend that we couldn’t have Mass outdoors.”

Additional reporting for this story was provided by Christine Bordelon.

Beth Donze can be reached at [email protected].