Chapel of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity to be Dedicated at Thomas Aquinas College
(February 18, 2009)
 SANTA
PAULA, CA - On March 7, 2009, Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity
Chapel at Thomas Aquinas College will be dedicated at an 11:00 a.m.
Mass to be offered by the Archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger
Mahony.
Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel is the 12th of 15 buildings
to be completed on the campus of Thomas Aquinas College. At a cost
of $23 million, it is 15,000-square feet in area and is the most
prominently situated and most elaborate of the structures on the
campus.
Designed by Duncan Stroik, a professor of architecture at the University
of Notre Dame and a principal of Duncan G. Stroik Architecture,
a firm that specializes in ecclesiastical design, the Chapel is
cruciform in shape and features a 135-foot bell tower.
 Although
the basis of its design is in the Spanish Mission style of Southern
California, Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel also incorporates
elements from the Catholic Church's long tradition of sacred architecture,
such as a dome that rises 89 feet over the sanctuary, floors and
columns of Italian marble, and an ornate limestone facade.
In 2003, before construction began, Pope John Paul II blessed the
plans for Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel, and just this
past fall, the cornerstone of the new building was shipped to Rome
to receive the blessing of Pope Benedict XVI. Says college president
Dr. Thomas E. Dillon, "Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel
will be a statement in stone, as it were, for our students and for
all who visit our campus that Thomas Aquinas College is resolved
to remain ever loyal to the Vicar of Christ and faithful to the
teaching Church."
The new chapel has permanent seating for 415 in its nave and transepts,
and its generous side aisles can be used to accommodate another
300 in temporary seating. The chapel's soaring vaulted ceiling,
while helping to lift the hearts and minds of the congregation to
God, will also provide outstanding acoustics for the college's student
choir and chant schola, which will provide the music at the Dedication
Mass with selections from composers such as Hassler, Mozart, Dubois,
and Palestrina.
Says college chaplain Rev. Cornelius Buckley, S.J., "The name
that has been chosen for our new chapel is fitting, since the entire
academic program at Thomas Aquinas College culminates in the study
of St. Thomas Aquinas' treatise on the Trinity." He adds, "And
Mary is our model par excellence in her relationship to the
Holy Trinity - the perfect daughter of the Father, the most admirable
mother of the Son, and the dearest spouse of the Holy Spirit."
Once dedicated, the new chapel will be the site of the College's
four daily Masses as well as the many devotions initiated and attended
by a large majority of its 350 students, who hail from across the
country and abroad.
Attendance at the Dedication Mass on March 7 and at the Alumni
Masses on March 8 is by invitation only, and access to the campus
will be limited to pass-holders during the Dedication Weekend.
For high resolution photos, click
here.
ABOUT THOMAS AQUINAS COLLEGE:
Ranked the #5 "Best Value"
in the country for 2008 and 2009 among all private institutions
in the United States by The Princeton Review, Thomas Aquinas College
is a four-year, Catholic liberal arts college with a fully-integrated
curriculum composed exclusively of the Great Books, the seminal
works in the major disciplines by the great thinkers who have helped
shape Western civilization. There are no textbooks, no lectures
and no electives. Instead, under the guidance of faculty members
and using only the Socratic method of dialogue in classes of no
more than 20, students read and discuss the original works of authors
such as Euclid, Dante, Galileo, Descartes, the American Founding
Fathers, Adam Smith, Shakespeare, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Einstein,
Aristotle, Plato, St. Augustine, and of course, St. Thomas Aquinas.
Graduates consistently excel in the many world-class institutions
at which they pursue graduate degrees in fields such as law, medicine,
business, theology and education. They have distinguished themselves
serving as lawyers, doctors, business owners, priests, military
service men and women, educators, journalists and college presidents.
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