EVERETT — On Friday, the gymnasium at Archbishop Thomas J. Murphy High School was dark, lit only by tea lights. The assembled students sat around the edges of the room and in the center.
Then a spotlight flicked on, and there was Jesus, praying in the garden of Gethsemane before Judas entered and betrayed him to the Romans.
Actually, it was junior Brett Bean, portraying Jesus in the annual Good Friday dramatization of the Stations of the Cross, images of the last days of Jesus’ life, put on by drama students.
The production re-created all 14 stations, from the betrayal to the crucifixion and death, and the student actors walked a circuitous path around and through the audience.
The school has about 500 students, and the gym is the only space large enough to hold everyone at once.
Archbishop Murphy has been located just outside Everett, off 132nd Street SE, for 15 years, and it has grown significantly from the days when it was at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in downtown Everett.
As the only Catholic high school north of Seattle, it draws students from as far as Renton and the islands of Puget Sound, plus a few international students. It maintains an active home-stay program for those students.
The next stage of growth begins next month, when ground will be broken on a new standalone chapel.
“It’s going to be the center, the heart of our school,” said Eric Downing, Archbishop Murphy’s director of advancement.
With a narthex, a sanctuary seating 250 and a bell tower visible across campus, the $2.5 million chapel will also be a vast improvement over the current one: a small upstairs classroom in Holy Cross Hall that holds about 25 people.
The chapel is used for weekly adoration, plus occasional prayer services — for example, if a member of the school community is sick.
But it can get crowded, and large events have to be held elsewhere. Faith services before monthly staff meetings are held in a larger room in another building, and formal liturgical services for the student body occur in the gym.
Archbishop of Seattle J. Peter Sartain will lead a May 8 groundbreaking ceremony and bless the site. Construction will begin in the summer and last about nine months.
The new chapel will be large enough for almost anything, although it won’t be used for any non-religious purposes.
The school still will need to hold separate liturgies for different classes to fit everyone in. If the entire student body needs to assemble in one place, for the Stations of the Cross production, for example, there’s always the gym.
After the new chapel opens, the old one will likely be converted into a classroom or multi-use space, Downing said.
An earlier capital campaign funded the construction of the two newest buildings on campus, Grace and Heath halls, in 2003 and 2006, respectively.
The school hopes to raise $6 million in a current capital campaign. It’s raised more than half so far, including $1.35 million toward the new chapel, Downing said.
Another $750,000 was given by an anonymous donor to provide the school with a new athletic field, and $1.6 million has gone into the school’s endowment for professional development and tuition assistance.
“We’ve got such a wonderful faith community here and our students are engaged. It overcomes the challenges of having a liturgy in our gym,” Downing said.
He said that the next capital campaign, perhaps 10 years from now, would likely be to build a performing arts building and a new gym.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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