Dialog reporter
DOVER – Holy Cross School has taken an available classroom on its multi-building campus in Dover and transformed it into a chapel for individual class liturgies or other services.
Holy Cross principal Haydee Rosario said the chapel came about after discussions by school officials and parish priests. The school had room in its junior high school building after some grades were consolidated from three sections into two.
“As we were looking at the new school year and how to use our classrooms, that discussion came about,” Rosario said.
Father James Lentini was able to obtain an altar, tabernacle and pews from the Fatima Retreat Center in Dalton, Pa., which was closed recently by the Diocese of Scranton. The center had been home of St. Pius X Seminary from 1962 to 2004.
The new in-school chapel at Holy Cross, which contains an altar, tabernacle and seating donated by a former retreat center in Scranton, Pa.
Rosario said having the chapel will eliminate the need to use Holy Cross Church for every religious service. It also can be incorporated into classroom lessons or serve as a room where students or staff could stop to say a prayer.
“Even though each classroom has a prayer table, it’s more of a sacred space to pray or meditate,” she said.
Another change at Holy Cross this year is the relocation of the library from the elementary school building to the junior high. It has been moved to a room adjacent to the technology center, and a door was installed between the two rooms. Instead of having a librarian and a technology director, the school has hired a library media specialist, Kate Williams.
“That’s the new trend in education, the library and technology joined together,” Rosario said.
In addition, the music program is moving from a small room to the former library, which is much larger, she said.
Holy Cross enrolls approximately 420 students, from the Dover area but also from the Smyrna area to the north ranging south to Milford and Lewes, the principal said.
