It had been a long time coming. After about thirteen years of active fund-raising, planning, prayer, and hope, the new church of St. Mary’s in Fontana, California, was consecrated on January 1, 2026, by Bishop Alberto Rojas, bishop of the San Bernardino diocese. Around 3000 people were there—1200 inside the new building, many more in the old church/warehouse building and in the plaza. Hundreds and hundreds of members did all kinds of jobs getting ready, coordinating all the details, and feeding everyone with pozole and menudo and beans and rice after the three-hour Mass. It had been raining for days, but the rains stopped and all were dry. God is so good.
I was the pastor at St. Mary’s for thirteen years and worked with our people getting to this point. Fr. Eulices Godinez had taken over as pastor six months before the dedication, and he had the difficult and thankless task of overseeing all the last-minute details. In preparation, a building committee and I had done a seminar at the diocese on how churches function to combine space with liturgies—Masses, Sacraments, meetings, social gatherings, etc. We had worked with the architect for over a year on the plans, which were based on a standard model used by other churches in the diocese. San Bernardino is one of the few growing dioceses in the United States.
The people of the parish are mostly Hispanic and Filipino. We wanted a bell tower, and Our Lady of Guadalupe had to be prominent. As construction moved along, we had to remove an ancient walnut tree that had been growing there for over 100 years with no maintenance at all, no water, intense summer sun and heat, and it kept producing thousands of nuts that the crows loved. The trunk, over four feet in diameter, would make a great altar. The branches, not very straight but so strong, would make a beautiful cross. Then another tree on the lot had to be removed, a Brazilian Pepper tree. Two feet in diameter with three branches extending upwards. Wouldn’t that make a majestic tabernacle! And so, we used what God had given us, created by God and fashioned by human hands. As we proceeded, the theme of the “Tree of Life” evolved in my mind.
In Genesis chapter two, God puts two trees in the middle of the Garden of Eden. One gives the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil—original sin. The other is the Tree of Life. Too often, we get tied up in the first tree and original sin, and sin in general.
We are always trying to escape from sin. Our energy goes into fighting sin. We lose sight of the Tree of Life and the life that trees give us. I am a fan of Pope Francis and his encyclical Laudato Sì. Life is the greatest gift that we have from God. Not just human life, but the life of everything — all the animals, plants, bacteria and fungi, air and water, soil, everything. We are all here because God said, “Let it be.” That is, God breathed His Spirit into all that is. We are all the concrete expression of God’s Spirit. And these days we hear over and over how important trees are in the process of taking our carbon dioxide and returning to us oxygen. Trees are instruments of life, trees of life, a gift of God. And so, we incorporated trees centrally into the new church. The altar is the tree where the sacrifice of Jesus is renewed to give us life. The cross is the tree where He suffered and died to give us life. The tabernacle is the tree where Jesus, the life of the world, is kept in the Eucharist for those who cannot join us in the Mass. For good measure, instead of a fountain or statue in the new plaza in front of the church, we planted a Camphor tree, medicinal, for shade on the hot summer days, where people can rest and pray or talk and be refreshed. It is another Tree of Life.
We kept the gold and silver and marble to a minimum. The church is close to the natural world that God has given us to live in, that we may have life to the full. May the faith of all our parishioners grow in simplicity and humility and generosity. May we welcome all who seek comfort in difficulties, rest in distress, and peace in a world made ugly by greed, “me first,” and desire to control everything. May we appreciate the Tree of Life and live freely in harmony with all of Creation.
Columban Fr. Al Utzig is the regional director in the United States.
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