Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Lexington Park, Maryland concluded its 75th anniversary celebration with a two-hour liturgy Nov. 12 at which Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory dedicated the newly refurbished church and its new altar.

“I dedicate solemnly and for all times this house of worship … to make this forever a holy place,” Cardinal Gregory said as he blessed the renovated church. He told the nearly 300 people who attended the Mass that the church “will be an obvious living reminder of the faith of this community and a beacon for you to recall your dignity as God’s people and your duty to glorify God.”

“There is something to be found deep within the human heart that longs to designate a special place or a sacred location wherein to encounter the ineffable God,” Cardinal Gregory said.

He called the renovation of the church building “a sign of the love and generosity of this vibrant community,” and said “this building is the place where you will gather to celebrate your Catholic faith.”

Noting that “surely God will be praised and glorified in this marvelously refurbished edifice,” the cardinal told the faithful that “the building itself must also become a sacramental reminder that “you are God’s own temple … we ourselves are the Church, the structure that is most precious to the Lord.”

“The people of God are themselves an edifice of irreplaceable worth to the heart of God Himself,” Cardinal Gregory added.

The dedication of the church and new altar was “a wonderful once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for the faithful to share in the “amazing ritual” of consecrating the space to God, said Father Marco Schad, pastor of the Southern Maryland parish.

“This is a culmination of many years of work and fundraising and planning and re-planning,” the priest said. He said the $750,000 project included asbestos removal, new flooring, new altar, new pews, new tiles and mosaics and painting. Earlier, the parish replaced the church roof and upgraded the heating and cooling system.

Father Schad said he was “happy and pleased” by how parishioners responded to the call to refurbish the church.

“We had a number of parishioners who not only contributed financially, but did help with stenciling, painting (and) woodwork,” Father Schad said. “A lot of parishioners were involved directly, hands on. It’s not like someone else did this. We did this. We helped make this a reality.”

In addition, Father Schad’s mother, Sarah Olimpia Frometa, travelled from her home in the Dominican Republic to join parishioners in painting the church ceiling. She created a stencil and then painted a dove that figures prominently in the new ceiling.

During the solemn liturgy, Cardinal Gregory anointed the altar with chrism oil and enshrined within it first-class relics of St. Francis Xavier and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Church law requires every consecrated altar to contain the relics of saints, commemorating how early Christians worshipped in the catacombs and at the tombs of martyrs.

“The relics are meaningful for our parish, each in their own way,” Father Schad explained. “Francis Xavier was one of the first members of the Jesuit order, and our parish – as almost all the parishes in the county – was led by Jesuits in its initial stages. St. Thérèse, also known as the Little Flower, is the patroness of our regional Catholic school.”

After being consecrated, the altar was covered and lighted for the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

In recent years the parish has seen a shift in demographics with an increase in Filipino and Hispanic Catholics joining the parish. Father Schad noted that “we’ve always been a kind of racially mixed parish” with African American and Native American worshippers.

The priest noted that unlike most parishes in St. Mary’s County, his parish population “is a little bit more transient” because of its close proximity to Naval Air Station Patuxent River (Pax River) and the moving in and transferring out of military personnel and their families.

Linda Hidalgo, a parishioner for 15 years, noted the different ethnic communities who make up the parish and said, “we all get along, we are quite a mesh of people.”

Gregory Davie, who moved into the parish from Boston 16 years ago and now performs maintenance and groundskeeping there, called the parish “open and friendly” and said parishioners “like to talk to each other after Mass.”

Mary Stevens, the parish’s music minister who has been a member of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish since 1978, said “all the communities get along just fine because we are a wonderful parish and family oriented.”

The Nov. 12 celebration was originally scheduled to include the blessing of a new baptismal font, but its delivery was delayed due to the lingering effects of the pandemic.

“There’s still a few little touches coming,” Father Schad said. “Some of the original design choices did not work out because of the pandemic, and we had to make some changes, but I am very happy with how it turned out. God knew what He wanted, and it all worked out better with the changes.”

During the early months of the pandemic, the parish hosted Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament and a Liturgy of the Word in the parking lot. A parishioner who is a DJ set up speakers so that people sitting in their cars could hear.

Later on, Father Schad said, the parish acquired a low frequency FM transmitter and began broadcasting the Mass to parishioners who could tune in on their car radios. The parish continues to broadcast the Mass on Sundays and holy days.

He said that now that the church building has been refurbished, “it is time for a spiritual renewal of our parish.”

“We must figure out how to help people truly encounter Jesus Christ and grow a relationship with Him,” Father Schad said. “It is primarily about that encounter with the transcendent; it is about getting to know Jesus Christ and experiencing a relationship with Him in prayer, in the sacraments, in the Scriptures and in our interactions with each other; it is about knowing that we each have a purpose, and living that purpose.”

Cardinal Gregory thanked Immaculate Heart of Mary parishioners who participated in refurbishing the church for “turning this space into something beautiful for God, for indeed, God sees you as something beautiful.”

“People build and renew churches to serve not only as places where they gather, but as a visible symbol of the dignity that they enjoy as the people that God has called His own – for so you are indeed,” the cardinal said.