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Feature News | Friday, July 21, 2023

Symbol of faith and freedom

Art at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School chapel, Miami

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MIAMI | The new chapel at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School blends several architectural styles, but it strongly carries forward the heritage of the Cuban priests who founded it.

Jesuits launched the original school in Havana more than 150 years ago, then were driven out by the aggressively atheistic Castro regime. But they re-established the school in Miami in 1961, and it has flourished ever since.

The 14,000-square-foot building, dedicated May 1, 2022, draws from several motifs. It uses both the “lateral chapel” design, popular in western Europe for centuries, and the “hall” structure developed by Germany for concerts and lectures.

The statuette of Our Lady of Belen looks dressed in fabric, but it's artfully carved and treated wood.

Photographer: Jim Davis | FC

The statuette of Our Lady of Belen looks dressed in fabric, but it's artfully carved and treated wood.

The overall structure follows the six-by-10 proportions of ancient Greek esthetics. The ratio was considered a “vehicle of beauty” by ancient Greeks, according to Jorge Hernandez, chapel architect and himself a 1974 graduate of the school.

Even the Old Testament gets a nod in the sanctuary design, with an open-sided baldacchino arching over the space. Hernandez said it was meant to recall the Tabernacle, the tent that was the center of worship as the Israelites wandered in the desert.

A distinctive is the gallery of 10 paintings along the side walls, depicting Jesuits who took the Gospel to the Western Hemisphere – five from South America, five from the North. Jesuit Father Willie Garcia-Tuñón, Belen's president, said he wanted the chapel to be a "catechetical experience" for his students.

Many of the subjects in the paintings were martyred for the stand they took for Jesus. One is St. Roque Gonzalez, killed with a hatchet in South America in 1628. Another is Blessed Miguel Pro, who stretched out his hands in cruciform position – one holding a cross, the other a rosary – as he faced a Mexican firing squad in 1927.

Presiding on a pillar is Our Lady of Belen, with the Christ Child on her lap. The wooden sculpture is treated to make her robes look like fabric. Their relationship is underscored by an inscription on the pillar: “Ecce Mater Tua,” Latin for “Behold Your Mother” from the Gospel according to John. Behind her, the blue wall shows Stars of David, emphasizing her Jewish heritage.

“Our Lady of Belen is always pointing to Jesus, sending him on mission,” Hernandez said.

The original school in Havana, the Colegio de Belen, was established in 1854 by a charter from Queen Isabella II. The school occupied a building of a convent and convalescent hospital, Our Lady of Belen, and adopted its name.

The Colegio expanded in 1925 with a donation of 60 acres and several buildings, in a colonnaded complex that became known as the “Palace of Education.”

A baldacchino, or shallow dome, arches over the chancel.

Photographer: Jim Davis | FC

A baldacchino, or shallow dome, arches over the chancel.

Fidel Castro seized the school in 1961 and ordered the Jesuits out of Cuba, even having his soldiers march them through the streets and onto a ship. He then turned the Colegio into a military academy. This despite the fact that Castro himself was a graduate of the school.

The Jesuits, however, saw it coming: Representatives from Spain had already met with Bishop Coleman F. Carroll in Miami. With his permission, they re-opened the school at Gesu Church.

“The closure lasted only three months,” Teresa Martinez, spokesperson for Belen, said with a smile.

In 1981, the school bought 30 acres in western Miami-Dade County, where it now occupies 34 acres.

Over the decades, Belen has expanded in several directions. It added language and computer labs plus classes in robotics and engineering.

The Arts Center, opened in 2003, houses a theater, an art gallery and a music rehearsal hall. In 2012, the school went digital, buying e-textbooks and giving its students Apple iPads.

Athletics, too, have gotten attention, with a track and courts for tennis and basketball. In 2012, Belen finished an artificial turf field for football, soccer and lacrosse. Six years later, the school built an Olympic-size pool for its swimming and water polo teams.

Amid all the scholarship and athletics, however, Belen has kept its focus of mission, service and spirituality. Among its latest additions has been a 2022 statue of St. Aloysius de Gonzaga. The 16th century Jesuit tended plague patients, then died of the disease himself.

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