Our New Church Structure

The Catholic Community of Saint Frances of Rome is in the planning stages of building a new church. The Ad Hoc Building Committee has completed the necessary preparation for building a new church. The communiity must now decide whether to make this committment to build for the future. If our parish wants to move forward, let us accept this challenge.

Renoun Catholic author Kathy Coffey comments upon the reaction of the followers of Jesus in the days preceeding His passion: He had recently told the people, "I am the bread of life." He had offered himself as balm for their deepest longings, promising, "Whoever comes to me will never hunger. Whoever believes in me will never thirst." What about us? How have we received this astonishing promise? What will we do?

Ms. Coffey also discusses a number of points, many of which are relative to building a new church structure.

1. We are the community which remembers Jesus.
2. We draw on a rich spirituality.
3. The Church is a family.
4. We have splendid heroes and heroines.
5. Catholics always seem to have something to celebrate.

With these points in mind, the Building Committee contacted Bennett Lord to present the parish with a viable option for constructing a true parish church to supplement the multi-use hall that now serves as the sanctuary. Bennett Lord responsed that there were two important design goals for organizing and creating the site plan.

The first goal was to place the sanctuary in a location where it would make a welcoming statement to the community and to the congregation. We wanted to tell Wildomar that St. Frances is extending an open hand to everyone. This was a challenge because the sanctuary will be such a large edifice. Fortunately, the southwest corner of the property served the purpose well.
The sanctuary will be placed at an angle just to the west of the existing multi-use hall that now serves as the sanctuary. A tall steeple at the start of the covered walkway system will mark the center of the parish campus.
The second design goal is to make the traffic circulation and parking secondary to the desire to have all the primary parish buildings gathered together around a common gathering space or plaza. When a visitor or parishioner visits the campus, we want them to be able to walk to any of the primary structures without having the cross a driveway or parking lot.
The large plaza will serve the parish as a place for fellowship, fiestas, gathering before the Easter Vigil, or simply enhancing the amazing social nature of the parish. The pre-school, which has its own traffic and circulation patterns, plus significant security concerns for the children, will be located on a separate section of the campus.
	The Sanctuary, like the overall campus plan, must call people to gather and worship. Covered walkways and large entry doors welcome every one to the shelter and calm of the sanctuary.
As one enters the sanctuary you will notice a space around a baptistery big enough for a few hundred individuals to participate in a baptism.
	Moving further into the interior, you will see that, while the building will hold approximately 1,900 persons, the scale and proportions of the design will hopefully not overwhelm the individual parishioner. The seating is broken up into three seating areas that each focus on the altar.
The Blessed Sacrament Chapel will hold a prominent place in the sanctuary and be easily visible from anywhere in the building. In the area adjacent to the altar, flexible space for a choir or other musical ensemble to support the liturgy is provided.
	The sanctuary also features a large work sacristy and a separate priest’s sacristy, plus an acoustically modified family seating area adjacent to the sanctuary for families with young children.
Finally, a large, attractively appointed, hospitality room is included. This room will serve a variety of functions, from bride’s room, to meeting space for RCIA candidates or just a quiet place for a family to gather before a funeral.

Sanctuary Exterior and Construction

Based upon a prototype technology selected in cooperation with the Diocese, the sanctuary is designed to be both attractive and economical to build. The building committee was drawn to an architectural theme of simple gable forms surrounded by shaded arcades. Even though this is a large building that will be assembled with 21st century technology, the goal was to evoke images of the early settlements in California that had basic geometric forms and a strong sense of shade and protection. The sanctuary will set a new standard that will be followed for all of the future phases of the parish development.
Front View	Rear View
Right Side View	Left Side View