Additional Spaces

In 1995 a small storage area to the right of the altar was renovated into a chapel where adoration of the Blessed Sacrament could more easily take place. Parishioners sign up for hour-long intervals of prayer before the Eucharist. The chapel contains modern stained glass windows and a crucifix icon, as well as a statue of the parish’s patron saint. The chapel was renovated in 2023-2024 in accordance with rules of the Historical Society, which provided some of the funding for the entire project.

One of the stained glass windows in the Adoration Chapel depicts St. Louis, King of France, patron of the twin parish of St. Francis in Staunton, the parish of St. Louis in La Gonave, Haiti.

A statue of the patron saint of the parish, St. Francis of Assisi, is located in the Adoration Chapel.

In the area behind the sanctuary wall is a sacristy, the room where items needed for the liturgy are kept and where the celebrant puts on his vestments. The photo shows the varoous colors of vestments for Mass used in accordance with the Church calendar, red for Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Pentecost, and feasts of martyrs, purple for the seasons of Advent and Lent and for funerals, rose for the Third Sunday of Advent and the Fourth Sunday of Lent, green for Ordinary Time, and white for feasts of saints who were not martyrs and for the major solemnities of the Church year.

The votive shrine of Christ the King in the new baptistry is a place of devotional prayer. Often those who pray light a votive candle as a reminder of the vigilant hope we have in Christ our Light. In 2008 two stained-glass windows from Dixon Studios in Staunton were added behind the shrine, one angel holding the “Alpha” sign, the other with an “Omega,” the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, signifying that Christ is the beginning and the end of all things.

Also located in the baptistry is the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who has been designated patroness of the Americas and of the unborn.

Outside the church building and near the entrance to the Adoration Chapel stands an Italian marble statue of the Virgin and Child (photo at left), dedicated in 2004. Parishioners bring flowers to this place of devotion at the crowning of Mary each May.

The parish grounds also include a garden with a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, a focus of prayer for prolife causes.

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