Operations Director Michael Becker hopes that priests will be moving into the new rectory by this fall.SALISBURY — In signs of continued growth, Sacred Heart Parish is building a new, larger rectory and planning to more than double the size of its cemetery.
Sacred Heart is situated very visibly atop a hill, just off the busy thoroughfare of U.S. 601. The 50-acre campus on Lumen Christi Lane encompasses a 12,000-square-foot church which seats 760 people, Sacred Heart School, a parish hall and offices, a cemetery, a community garden, and Good Shepherd Gardens senior housing. Yet most of the site is undeveloped – ready to meet the church’s future growth needs.
A rectory being built
The 1,400-member parish moved to the site from downtown Salisbury in 2009, prompted by the growth of the local Catholic population. But its priests continued to live in a neighborhood several miles away.
The two-story, 5,000-square-foot rectory now being built behind the church will enable pastor Father John Eckert and parochial vicar Father Matthew Dimock to live on campus for the first time. It will offer a peaceful view of the woods nearby, and it will feature enough space to accommodate future additional clergy.
Father Eckert believes living literally next door to the church will help them better serve their parish. Instead of being in single-family homes ill suited to accommodate multiple adults with separate living quarters, they will be steps away from church – able to preside over liturgies and minister to people more easily and efficiently.
“It is going to be amazing to actually be on site to make sure we are overseeing things, and plus it is such a beautiful place,” Father Eckert said.
“It may seem paradoxical, but the move to the new rectory will allow us to be more intimately tied with the church, while also affording us a little bit more privacy,” added Father Dimock.
Sacred Heart Church’s architect, Gray Stout, is also designing the new rectory, and it will feature the same brickwork and roofing used in the church.
It will have multiple private living areas, workspaces, bedrooms and bathrooms to accommodate up to five clergy, as well as a chapel, two-car garage, brick fireplace, and space for a future elevator to increase accessibility.
The rectory chapel will feature sacred art including a stained-glass window of Mary with Child and a marble altar, both purchased from “From Europe to You.”
And the chapel already has a name: “Stella Maris” – “Our Lady, Star of the Sea,” one of the titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Explained Father Eckert, “There are ups and downs and storms and craziness, but Our Lady, Star of the Sea, leads us on the right path back to her Son and helps to provide a refuge for all of us.”
The chapel, he added, “is crucial” for the resident priests to nurture their spiritual life. “Without our prayer life we just fall apart. That is what keeps us going.”
The rectory will also have lots of natural indirect light, said Michael Becker, the parish’s operations director – something Father Eckert particularly requested from the parish’s building committee during its planning process.
They anticipate moving in by early fall or perhaps sooner, said Father Eckert, who is thankful for the project coming to fruition.
“It is a wonderful team effort, and so I am grateful for the people we have working on it,” he said.
The current Sacred Heart cemetery has 722 plots with only one plot left. (File photo)
Cemetery expansion planned
In addition to building the rectory on site, the parish is scoping out expansion of its cemetery, although start and completion dates have yet to be finalized.
Opened in 2007, the 722-plot cemetery is adjacent to the church and divided into four sections: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Only one plot is available.
Plans call for adding 1,688 plots on an additional 2.41 acres, in five new sections to be named under various popular titles of Mary: Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Knock and Our Lady of Czestochowa.
The plots will be 4 feet by 11 feet, with 3-foot mulch landscaping separating each. There will also be an 80-plot cremation burial area.
The area can easily accommodate the expanded cemetery thanks to Father John Putnam, who was pastor in 2009 and oversaw the move to the new campus and construction of the church and school.
“I think that it was good foresight from Father Putnam to acquire so much land so that we can have more burials at the parish,” said Father Dimock.
The cemetery is the final resting place of Sacred Heart parishioners starting with Paul Carlos Mendez, who passed away in 2007, as well as Charlotte Gardner, who served in the N.C. House of Representatives; the Moore family, who owned area pharmacies; and Wilhelmina “Billie” Silva Mobley, founder of the Te Deum Foundation.
Toward the back, there is a special place for the burial of babies and priests. Only one priest is buried there so far – Father Conrad Kimbrough, who died in 2011– but many more have reserved a place.
The cemetery is an important part of the Sacred Heart Parish community as it grows and thrives in Salisbury, said Father Eckert. “I am so grateful we can essentially serve our people from baptism all the way to burial.”
— Lisa Geraci
The new rectory includes a chapel that will feature a stained-glass window of Mary with Child. The chapel has already been named “Stella Maris,” our Lady Star of the Sea, in honor of one of the titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (Lisa M Geraci)