New Catholic retreat center Terra Sancta dedicated

Benedictine Sister Therese Marie Furois walked the halls of her old monastery on Thursday and marveled at its transformation into Terra Sancta.

The nuns of St. Martin Monastery, who once called the sprawling 150,000-square building home, were back for a full day of prayer and public tours of the new Catholic retreat center and elementary school that began with a 9 a.m. Lakota blessing ceremony.

“There’s a lot of memories here. It’s a joyful day,” said Sister Florence McManamen. “It’s beautiful. They did a wonderful job.”

Thursday’s rededication events ended with a Catholic Mass attended by an estimated 500 people and con-celebrated by two bishops and priests of the diocese. Bishop Blase Cupich of the Diocese of Spokane launched Terra Sancta’s capital campaign back in 2007, when he served as head of the Rapid City diocese, with the purchase of the building and 200 acres from the Benedictine community. Cupich was replaced by Bishop Robert Gruss last year and he returned to Rapid City to see the nearly completed facility.

“It’s amazing what happens when people come together as a community and really get behind a project,” said Gruss. “I don’t know that we could have asked for a better result. It’s really quite beautiful.”

After nearly five years of planning and $16.7 million in construction costs, the Rev. Steve Biegler is thrilled with the end result, too.

“I may have been the lead, but this job was a team effort by a lot of very talented people,” Biegler said.

On Thursday, Biegler showed off some of the attention to detail that went into planning Terra Sancta.

Stone archways engraved with “Via Crucis” – the way of cross – lead into the Holy Cross Chapel, and its entryway boasts the New Jerusalem donor wall, designed to reflect that Terra Sancta donors are the “living stone” on which Christ built his church. The names of major donors are engraved above the names of numerous saints and others whose histories have significant ties to the Catholic Church in western South Dakota, Biegler said.

But the job isn’t quite finished yet. On Thursday, the front entrance to the renamed and reconfigured chapel still was in the final construction stages. A set of outdoor hiking trails, including a handicapped-accessible Stations of the Cross path, remain to be completed, Biegler said.

A new roof will be finished in the coming months, just in time for the 2012-13 school year to start at St. Elizabeth Seton Elementary School at Terra Sancta in August. The new school, for preschool through fifth-grade students, occupies the northern wing of the former monastery.

A retreat center, with family- and monastic-style rooms, is in the south half of the building and opens onto the Kateri Courtyard – named for the Native American woman Kateri Tekakwitha, who will be canonized as a Roman Catholic saint in October. On Thursday, Jhon Goes In Center of Pine Ridge stood in the center of the courtyard that had been smudged with sage and sang to his ancestors, asking the “Lakota angels” to bless Terra Sancta as the “holy ground” that its Latin name suggests.

“This idea of terra sancta is a metaphor that connects us to the reality that … all that we have comes from the earth,” Goes In Center said.

Bishop Gruss hopes Terra Sancta will provide an environment for people to grow in their love of the Lord, whether they are elementary school students or people from other denominations who utilize the retreat center.

“It’s a holy place for all holy people — and for people who want to become holy,” Gruss said with a smile.

Sister Carol Kovarik said the concept of holy ground may have different meanings to different people, but people have always found the sacred in this secluded spot on the northwest edge of Rapid City. They will find it at the newly renovated Terra Sancta, too, she said, as it continues the Benedictine mission of education and prayer that the religious community first brought to the Black Hills in 1889.

“The people helped to make this place holy … and there’s a lot of good people out here,” Kovarik said. “There’s a feeling of loss and a feeling of gain in all this.

“But anyone who has come here has always felt a sense of peace … and that will continue.”

Contact Mary Garrigan at 394-8424 or mary.garrigan@rapidcityjournal.com.