Building Our Future Home ~ Together

Thank you, Jesus!
For the blessings you have so generously bestowed upon us.
For this opportunity to give you praise, honor, and glory.
For the faith, courage, and ability to meet the challenges ahead.
For being with us at every step in our journey. – Fr. Liam

For – “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.”

Plans for our new church have been ongoing since establishment of our new parish in 1999. Two years earlier, our sixteen acre site was purchased in Oro Valley, Arizona with a complete new parish campus in mind.
The current multi-purpose church building, completed in October 2001, was only designed to accommodate worship, meeting, and social needs until our permanent church could be built – and for the immediate future thereafter, to serve as our religious education and social center. We are thankful for the 83 families that formed the nucleus and provided generous financial resources for this vision of growth.
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Fr. Liam Leahy, named as our Parish Administrator earlier in the year, was assigned as our Pastor in November 2001. By February 2002, we had 258 registered families, and increased to 450 by the summer of the next year.
St. Mark’s Catholic Family of Faith and Friends was blessed to have over 700 households. The largest debt, for the building, was paid off. While we have confronted occasional challenges, we continue to move forward.
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In 2002, a Development Committee of lay parishioners and our parish staff was formed to plan and chart a path to develop a Master Plan for our parish community over several years of committed volunteer efforts.
The committee worked hard, in cooperation with the Diocesan Team to identify key people and designers that would enable the successful completion of this project and meet the spiritual and social needs of our community.
Many months passed, with review of architectural firms, meetings of committees and eventually town hall meetings of parishioners.
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In 2006, we completed a comprehensive parish pew survey, which demonstrated an overwhelming support of the parish to proceed on the development of a Master Plan for St. Mark’s.
We established a master planning process with over 80 parishioners serving on eight core committees, selected and retained a noted liturgical architect, BCDM Architects, David Beringer, AIA, who has developed a phased parish plan beginning with the site development and design for our inspiring new church.
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After much thought, discussion and prayer, in the Spring of 2007, we decided to proceed with the new site plan in three phases. Based upon our parish survey, demographic studies, and a sound financial plan, our goal is to:

• Phase 1 – Build our new Church, as well as reconfigure the existing parish facilities for classrooms, meeting spaces, and other social hall activities.
• Phase 2 – Construction of our Social Hall Building
• Phase 3 – Construction of Religious Education & Parish Offices Building

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Through the grace of God, we have marked another milestone in the history of our new parish. Therefore, we must stand upon our proud past and look courageously toward the future and rededicate ourselves to the Mission of St Mark’s Catholic Community:
- Exist for the purpose of helping its members develop a personal relationship with our loving God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
- Through parish life, as we build community and foster faith and spiritual growth, we seek to serve God and each other.
- Inspired by God’s Word, Nourished by the Holy Eucharist and Guided by the Holy Spirit, we go forth to LIVE THE GOSPEL, through lives of prayer and humble service to others by:

• LIVING as JESUS LIVED
• LOVING as JESUS LOVED
• TEACHING as JESUS TAUGHT

Throughout our brief history St. Mark parishioners have responded with generosity whenever a parish need arose. As we look forward to the Third Milennium in Christ we give thanks to God and confidently pray that today’s parishioners will continue the work of those who came before us to give us what we now enjoy.
As a Catholic Family we are indebted to those who worked so hard in the past to leave their legacy for us to enjoy. Now it is our turn. It seems we are constantly contributing to our parish and its needs and, indeed, that is our responsibility. But it is, in fact, the rare opportunity that allows us to do something that will make a lasting difference in our parish. This is just such an opportunity. We need the enthusiastic commitment and willingness to endow future generations with quality facilities to continue carrying out the St. Mark mission.
Together we can enable a St. Mark Catholic Church legacy to meet head-on and take advantage of the opportunities this project offers our faith Family, our Church and our community.