Sacred Heart Wodonga

Looking down from the new alter.

In stark contrast to St. Patrick's, I will now share with you about Sacred Heart in Wodonga, my home town. This is a church built post Vatican II and since had major renovations and updates in the past five years.

This is the church I attended mostly growing up in a small-town Catholic family of eight. Almost without fail, we would be there ever Sunday with our own un-marked seat for our large family - several other big families would have their unofficial seat during a certain mass time also.

Church was once a big thing. We would have morning tea's after Sunday Mass, have "Family Group" meetings where families would get together and go on an outing as well as different youth groups. I loved my church, my family, my home. How things change, sometimes for the good but not always.

As Sacred Heart was built after Vatican II, it doesn't have the standard cruciform design that most other churches have. This is all to do with liturgical guidelines, customs, cultures and other differences which made the liturgy more in the mainstream in line with modern man.

The original altar wall.

The church building had thus changed, more so than any of the older traditional churches. After building them all to a set guide for so many years, it was hard for things to go wrong. When building a large, brick building, where does one place supporting beams and the like? Sacred Heart's original builders cut corners and certain things either weren't though through correctly, if at all.

Out front-side of original building.

By the mid-90's, the structure was showing too many signs of wear, tear and generally being built to a style that would change with the times, not a style that is timeless, like Traditional Catholicism. Changes were made within the Diocese of Sandhurst, including a vibrant young Bishop, now deceased, the Reverend Joseph Grech, and things started to change. After a series of priest changes, by mid-00's, things started to take place with restoration and renovation to both Sacred Heart and St. Augustine's Churches in Wodonga, part of a joint-parish combined of various other church parishes in small towns surrounding Wodonga.

After much help from the local parish community, the works were completed and the church officially reopened in 2010. It's great the sense of family that comes from people who truly do embrace the Catholic culture! It is one of the things I miss having not found a new parish, not knowing where I will be from month to month. I truly do miss the familiar faces, familiar names I used to see in Wodonga. After my car accident I would go to mass each Sunday with my parents which is how I got such a strong connection back to my God.

Out front of the new Sacred Heart Wodonga.

I was quite impressed by the outcome of Sacred Heart, which to me at least seems to incorporate design elements from an Eastern perspective, combining it with modern, contemporary Catholicism. A large cut-out circular design above the altar and the people and a wall-less feel with the whole main part of the church in a matching circular design, the computer and microphone cabling hidden behind the walls. Because of this new design, the supporting columns that one dotted around the main sanctuary could not be removed, creating a much cleaner look.

I don't expect Sacred Heart to change much now, though with time, with fashion, a new youthful church will one day take that opportunity to "renew the face of the earth" themselves! (Psalms 104:30)