By Thea Jarvis

Manuel Rios stood outside St. Joseph’s new church building off Lacy Street in Marietta and watched the procession moving before him.

“That’s Father O’Donnell,” he said, pointing to a diminutive Marist who stood in line with Bishop James P. Lyke, OFM, and fellow priests who had come to celebrate the dedication Mass February 10. “He was here in 1947,” when St. Joseph’s was just a mission church.

Rios beamed as a robed altar boy moved across the newly paved courtyard connecting St. Joseph’s antebellum rectory with the church.

“There’s my grandson,” the 25-year parishioner said proudly, explaining that his sons had been altar boys at St. Joseph’s as well.

“St. Joseph’s was the first Catholic Church in this area,” Manuel Rios continued as early afternoon sun washed the crowded courtyard with light. “People call it ‘the mother church’ because it branched out to all the other Catholic churches in the area.”

Indeed it did. From St. Joseph’s modest beginnings as a mission of the Marist fathers in the early 1900s, five surrounding church communities were spawned. The octagonal explosion of copper, glass and pale stucco walls is a natural outgrowth of the parish’s unique spirit and history.

Liturgical design consultant Father Richard Vosko, who guided the church through a planning process of education and consultation that allowed for parish-wide input and decision-making, said St. Joseph’s new church was “the most spectacular Catholic building around.”

Moving softly through the crowds on dedication Sunday, taking photos and noting how the worship space accommodated the congregation and facilitated the liturgy, he observed that the structure “can serve as a very nice model for other Catholic communities in the area. It has everything the (Vatican II) documents call for.”

Within the church, elements of Southern colonial, monastic and contemporary themes blend easily. A double-tiered cinderblock font is a rustic reminder of baptismal beginnings. To its right, a reservation chapel with a glass-block wall and deep clerestory holds a tabernacle of copper and glass.

The colonnade of white pillars staking the rear of the church interior follows the building’s octagonal cues. Descending rows of pews converge on a simple, raised altar bathed in natural light.

Above the altar, three narrow, contemporary panels of vividly colored faceted glass depict the parish’s patron in his roles as spouse and father. A rose window at the main entrance displays the Holy Family gathered at St. Joseph’s workbench.

Unfinished wood and whitewashed walls suggest light and space without coldness. Bronze Stations of the Cross dot the walls in handsome counterpoint.

“It’s a fulfillment of a long-term plan,” said parishioners Philip Mahoney, who attended St. Joseph’s school from 1960-65. “It took 30 years to build a church. We’re all very pleased and proud it finally came about.”

An unpretentious brick building dedicated in 1957 was to have been a temporary church, parishioners are quick to explain. With a seating capacity of only 450, it was slated as an interim home for parish worship, an appropriate descendant of its sister precursors: the early church off the square on Atlanta Street that had been the old Marietta Opera House; the small brick building on Church Street originally known as the church of St. James that was changed to avoid confusion with a local Episcopal congregation of the same name.

As the parish base moved and shifted over the next 30 years, as Cobb County grew in astonishing numbers, St. Joseph’s watched as hoped-for construction was delayed and parishioners continued to use the temporary space.

St. Thomas the Apostle in Smyrna, Holy Family, St. Ann and Transfiguration in Marietta, St. Catherine of Siena in Kennesaw, carved out of St. Joseph’s boundaries, all reflected the growth. St. Joseph’s waited patiently, like a mother who foregoes a new dress so her children will not be without.

The “new dress” St. Joseph’s is currently wearing can seat 750 and is pretty enough to wear on any occasion.

“I think it’s great,” said Caroline Serra, who volunteered in the church nursery during dedication festivities and has been in the parish 11 years. “I’m tired of standing in the aisles!”

Bishop Lyke, in his first public liturgy since surgery in January, echoed the parish’s lighthearted mood.

Acknowledging the community’s “sense of stewardship” during opening presentations, Bishop Lyke said facetiously that he knew “all of (pastor Father Robert Baker’s) problems are over” now that the new building is completed.

In his homily, he told the congregation, “Today we open a new home for Christ on earth, a beautiful and inspired temple where we may come to meet Our Lord in the precious gift of the sacraments, and in the reflected love of God which we see in the eyes of all our brothers and sisters here gathered.”

With a phalanx of 19 priests gathered with him around the altar, the bishop led the congregation in the Church’s ancient rites of dedication.

Blessing the assembly and purifying the church’s interior with waters from the baptismal font, the bishop reminded the congregation of their baptismal promises and call to repentance. Anointing and incensing the altar and walls of the church, he indicated that the space was holy, a place of prayer given over entirely to Christian worship. The post-communion inauguration of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and lighting of the vigil lamp meant the Eucharist reserved there was a visible sign of God’s presence in and among his people.

“Today’s dedication ceremony truly celebrates the past as we begin to rejoice in the future,” Father Baker had written in a letter to parishioners and friends of the church.

“This new church is the consequence of a long process of collaboration and consultation. The end result is a beautiful...simple structure we can be rightfully proud of handing on to future generations.”

Architect David Roberts, who was responsible for the design, building and site development of St. Joseph’s new facility, agreed that “this project was a model of how well a parish can work with an architect.” He found the process “inclusive” of all parishioners. “We got our spirit and direction from the parish,” he said.

Roberts’ firm, Roberts and Collins Architects of Atlanta, worked closely with Commercial Contracting Corporation of Smyrna, which constructed the building.

Parishioner Betty Kearney, whose six children attended St. Joseph’s School, is happy with the result of the parish’s long effort.

“I like the space. It’s about time,” she said while looking through parish scrapbooks with her daughter Tish and granddaughter Katherine before the post-dedication reception began.

“I like the different Jesus pictures up on the wall,” said young Katherine, herself a kindergartner at St. Joseph’s School.

Back in the courtyard, the sun still shone and tables of punch and cake beckoned the crowds that streamed from the shiny glass doors of St. Joseph’s new church.

“I think it’s very well done,” said the seasoned Father O’Donnell Manuel Rios had been quick to say earlier. “We’ve gotten a lot of very favorable reports. We’re very happy with it – and we were in great need of doing it!”