St. Bernadette in Fuquay-Varina has grown from mission to independent parish

The other day, while reading through the online history of St. Bernadette Catholic Church in Fuquay-Varina, I was surprised to learn that Fuquay-Varina was considered part of the territory of St. Mary, Mother of the Church in Garner, after the latter was established in 1967.

This was years before Fuquay-Varina experienced a significant development spurt as the population and suburban reach of state capital Raleigh expanded in all directions. Twenty years later in 1987, when serious growth started happening in the southern Wake County community, St. Mary's pastor, Rev. Albert Todd, started celebrating weekly Mass in Spanish and English in leased space at Trinity Episcopal in F-V. 

The church chose to take its name from the saint known for her highly reported discovering of a healing spring that became a shrine to the Virgin Mary in Lourdes, France, reminiscent of when, in 1858, people started seeking out the reported healing mineral water of the Fuquay Spring in what today is Fuquay Mineral Spring Park on the southern fringe of downtown Fuquay.

Within 20 years after Rev. Todd's efforts to celebrate Mass at Trinity Episcopal, the F-V mission congregation had been gifted 10 acres of land, $100,000 anonymously to embark on its first building campaign. In 1990, it dedicated a parish hall and, in 2001, its first sanctuary at 1005 Wilbon Road. 

Still, it wasn't until 2004 that the congregation ceased being a mission church of St. Mary's and became an independent parish. But by then, the size of the church's congregation had outgrown its physical plant. So a new capital fund-raising campaign began, and by 2009, St. Bernadette had opened a new John Paul II Learning Center, and in the following year, expanded its sanctuary to accommodate more people.

The online history was kind enough to credit parishioner and longtime Fuquay-Varina teacher Myrtle S. Hopson for her donation of the land for the church facilities in the late 1980s and, after her death in September 2001, identifying her as the anonymous $100,000 donor to the initial building campaign, conditional on the raising of the church raising an additional $50,000 from parish members.    

When I contacted the church recently about doing a photo profile of the campus grounds, I was told that the parish would soon be remodeling its interior, and I was asked to hold off planning to get interior photos. But I was invited to photograph the exterior, which is what I on Thursday. A full gallery of images from the shoot can be found at the link in this sentence. 

While in Fuquay-Varina, I stopped at four other churches and took pictures of those, too. They will be presented here in the days ahead. 

Above and first four photos below: On the back side of the primary facility complex is this columbarium, an in-ground burial of cremated remains of parish members and a place for prayer and reflection. The statue of St. Bernadette (foreground) and the crucified Jesus (background) watch over the columbarium. The area also features a brick memorialization along the path around the statue where parish members can memorialize loved ones.    

The John Paul II Family Learning Center (above and two photos below.)

Above and first four photos below: The church has on the far east side of its property a reflection area that have the 14 stations of the cross, a solemn remembrance of the passion and death of Jesus, beginning with his journey to Mount Calvary, carrying the lumber that Roman soldiers would use for his crucifixion.