A renewed Heart

When parishioners of Sacred Heart of Ville Platte Catholic Church walked through the doors of the church for Christmas Eve mass, they caught a glimpse of the completed renovations that began back in June.
“Everybody was excited,” said the church’s pastor Father Thomas Voorhies. “They were gushing over it. They just loved it and were very surprised. They were pleased and happy and joyful.”
Fr. Voorhies expressed his own feelings about the completed work. “I’m very much pleased and happy to be in prior to our targeted date of Christmas Eve mass, which is pretty miraculous because how many six-month church renovations stay on time. We had been praying for it every Sunday in our Petitions, and God answered our prayers. That’s the greatest thing, but it is pretty with all the colors. They all work together, and it’s really nice.”
The completed work differs from the original proposed plans in a couple ways. As Fr. Voorhies explained, “they were going to be fancier and more expensive, so we just decided to simplify it to save money.”
The biggest variation from the original plans is that the mosaic depicting Christ showing his Sacred Heart to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque remains in place. Monsignor J. Maurice Bourgeois had the mosaic shipped from Italy in time for a prior renovation of the church in 1959. The mosaic was recently restored and preserved.
Fr. Voorhies described some of the simplified work that was done. “Overall we took out the asbestos above the ceiling, and we put in a new AC/heater system,” he said. “We put in new hanging lights. All the lights are new, but we hadn’t had hanging lights since before the previous renovations.”
The new ceiling is a drop ceiling that helps with acoustics and is the proper color. Also new are speakers and cabinets in the back of the church to house the new Mitsubishi AC/heater unit.
“We bought a new statue of Our Lady of Grace and put her up in the front,” Fr. Voorhies continued. “We had the old statue of St. Joseph repainted and put him also next to the mosaic. We will still have Our Lady of Fatima, and we’re painting her now. Then where old St. Joseph was, we’ll have a little miniature of the artwork that’s in front of St. Landry Church in Opelousas that is Fr. Verbis LaFleur pushing the man out to safety.”
According to Fr. Voorhies, the miniature of the artwork was already in the church. He said, “it was underneath the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, but now it’s going to have it’s own little section where St. Joseph used to be.”
The church’s pastor went on to explain why the move was made placing the statues of Mary and Joseph next to the mosaic. “That’s originally where they were before the renovation in 1959 when the mosaic was put in,” he said. “The statues of Our Lady of Fatima and St. Joseph were there, so we decided to keep Our Lady of Fatima where she has been and just get a different one of her.”
Aside from painting the statues of Our Lady of Fatima and St. Joseph, the Stations of the Cross that line the walls of the church are also painted as well as the four statues of the Gospel writers that rest in notches of the four pillars of the church. “They were never painted before,” said Fr. Voorhies. “It’s the same ones. They’re just painted.”
Fr. Voorhies stated that the Gospel writers and some of the Stations of the Cross are in different locations. The four Gospel writers “are a little bit lower so you can see them better,” he said. He added, “We redistributed the Stations, and we even used the north transept to put three of the stations there.”
He went on to explain why the redistribution was done. “Just because it seemed there were so many in the back of the church and just a few up front,” said Fr. Voorhies. “We wanted to have a more even distribution of them.”
Fr. Voorhies concluded with expressing his gratitude for the work being done. “I’m thankful to almighty God for helping us to be successful in this and on time,” he said. “And I’m thankful to previous pastors Fr. Joshua Guillory and Fr. Jason Vidrine who have started the planning for this. I’m also thankful to all the parishioners, and Phillips Contractors, and the architects, and everybody who had a hand in helping us to be successful.”