New Chapel Dedicated at Thomas Aquinas College
(March 13, 2009)
 SANTA
PAULA, CA - On March 7, 2009, Thomas Aquinas College's new chapel
was dedicated to Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity at an 11:00 a.m.
Mass offered by the Archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony.
Joining Cardinal Mahony in the chapel's sanctuary was auxiliary
bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Bishop Thomas Curry. Also
on the altar was Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, the auxiliary bishop
of San Diego, Abbot Eugene Hayes, O.Pream., of St. Michael's Abbey
in Orange County, and Abbot Nicholas of Holy Resurrection Monastery
in Newberry Park. In addition, 14 of Thomas Aquinas College's alumni
priests took part in the Dedication Mass, along with over 30 visiting
priests from Southern California and beyond.
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 brought to Rome
to receive the blessing of Pope Benedict XVI.
Prior to the entering the Chapel at the Dedication Mass, President
Thomas E. Dillon greeted the faculty, students, benefactors and
guests gathered on the Chapel plaza for the historic event saying,
"Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel will speak to all
who come here, down through the generations, that Christ and His
Church are at the center of all we do, and that we intend to give
our very best to God."
Recalling the project's start eight years before, Richard A. Grant,
the executive director of the Dan Murphy Foundation of Los Angeles
that made a magnificent lead gift of $10 million for the chapel,
then said, "We stand here now before the reality of Our Lady
of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel, uplifted by prayers that have been
answered, and humbled by the realization that many hands and minds
went to work to create this beautiful house of God."
Design architect Duncan Stroik also spoke a few words, sharing his
hope that "this chapel of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity
will be a light on a stand that is placed here on this 'city on
a hill' that we know as Thomas Aquinas College."
During
the Dedication Mass, Cardinal Mahony, sprinkled the congregation
and the walls of the new chapel with holy water and anointed the
altar with chrism. In his sermon he commented that "This sacred
space…will provide an opportunity to listen to God's Living
Word inspired from the ambo…and enable all of those who comer
here to meet in person, in the Eucharist, Jesus Christ, Son of God,
Word of God….For we have present on the altar the real Word
of God - Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity."
The new chapel has permanent seating for 350 in its nave and transepts,
and its generous side aisles can 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, also provides
outstanding acoustics for the college's student choir and chant
schola, which provided the music at the Dedication Mass with selections
from composers such as Hassler, Mozart, Dubois, and Palestrina.
College chaplain Rev. Cornelius Buckley, S.J., had the privilege
of officially opening the Chapel doors before the Dedication Mass.
He commented, "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." Fr. Buckley added, "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."
 Though
unable to attend the event himself, the prefect of the Vatican Congregation
for Catholic Education Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski sent his good
wishes by letter to President Dillon and the college community.
"Dedicating the Chapel to Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity,"
he said, "reflects not only the high aspirations of your academic
programme, in which you strive as best you can to understand God,
but also the Catholic life of each one of you which is itself ordered
to God."
The new chapel is now the site of the College's four daily Masses,
daily Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and the many other devotions
initiated and attended by a large majority of its 350 students,
who hail from across the country and abroad.
ABOUT THOMAS AQUINAS COLLEGE:
Ranked the #5 "Best Value" in the country for 2008 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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