Whether they were locals or tourists, people from across the religious and spiritual spectrum gathered together at the Chapel of the Holy Cross on the afternoon of Wednesday, April 4.

Drawing the crowd together were also two forces united — Marguerite Brunswig Staude, the visionary behind the chapel, and local sculptor James Muir, whose sculpture “The Christ of the Holy Cross” had recently been erected in the chapel and was honored and blessed that day.

There was a silence in the air as people wound east up Chapel Road toward the Holy Cross, and an energy that encompassed the site that was hard to dismiss. At the base of the chapel, people filled the seats, and just after 4 p.m. the ceremony for the chapel and sculpture began — led by Father Kieran Kleczewski, the custodian of the chapel. 

From a white tent behind the rows of seats emerged several children from the Immaculate Conception Grade School cloaked in pure white. Following behind them was Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, gracefully approaching the podium to address the people who had come from near and far for the celebration.

With a few words of greeting from Kleczewski, the ceremony began with an opening prayer and a first reading from Philippians 2:6-11. Songs, an alleluia and a reading from John 3:3-17 followed, and lastly Olmsted gave a homily, offering words of encouragement and affirmations of peace in that love trumps all evil before the procession to the cross up to the doors of the chapel.

“The cross of Christ is indeed the tree of life, as it has been called since the fathers of the church gave it that name in the second century,” Olmstead said. “Merciful redemption and new life enters our world through the love of Christ put forth in what we call the tree of life.”

When the bishop finished, he, Kleczewski and the rows of people made their way up the ramp chanting verses of the song “Jesus, Remember Me,” up to the chapel.

Kleczewski and Olmsted gave their prayer of blessing and incensation, followed by prayers of the faithful before concluding by giving thanks to all those who contributed to the project and welcomed up Muir and his wife to the front of the chapel to pay tribute and give thanks.

“It is [Muir’s] faith and his remarkable journey over the last two years and his amazing power that produced this wonderful cross, a gift to many, many generations to come,” Kleczewski said. “To all of you that are here, whether you are visitors of Sedona, members of the parish … we thank you for your dedication over these last two years for this project and helping us see it come to fruition. ”

Kleczewski and Olmsted led the way into the newly blessed chapel, with some in the crowd kneeling in prayer, while others lit candles or embraced one another.

Elijah DeLello, from Levine, Ariz., came with other members of his church to show their support.

“Being a part of the diocese, you just support each other and that’s what you do as a family and the church. We love to see the beautiful things that we’re building,” he said. “There’s really a lot of elements to [the statue], and it’s really beautiful. You can really tell the artist put a lot of thought and prayer into it, and it really tells a story in a different way what the cross is about. He is the tree of life, he feeds us in himself.”

Kleczewski said one thought that would not leave his mind was the humility that all people involved in this project demonstrated each and every day.

“James Muir is one of the most humble people I have met …. He has so much talent, but yet he is so very humble,” Kleczewski said. “One thing that amazed me was how everybody that has been touched by this project, to the model, to the foundry guys … everybody took it into their heart, and it just kind of grew. It was as if this was something God wanted done, and everybody that it touched came part of this. That to me has been the most moving thing, and the humility of all these people with such great talent. They just threw their whole heart, mind and soul into it.”

Reflecting on road’s end, Muir said he could see just in the ceremony alone that the chapel was being restored to its beginning in a small way and it will only continue to get closer to Staude’s original vision once again.

“It seems to be having the beginning of the effect that the Father and I and a lot of people actually hoped for up here and that it would help resurrect, the Chapel of the Holy Cross back to the original intent that Marguerite had, that had slipped away from that,” Muir said. “It is truly a holy place again.”

Makenna Lepowsky can be reached at 282-7795 ext. 126, or email mlepowsky@larsonnewspapers.com