On Tuesday night last week (Oct. 13), a Vienna-area parish was nearly full, as local Catholics gathered for the first mass inside the church in six months.
Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church, located just outside of town limits at 8601 Wolftrap Road, recently completed a $12 million renovation that launched in late 2022 and culminated with a temporary relocation of church services to the adjacent chapel and fellowship hall after Easter this year.
Some of the new improvements include a white Carrara marble baptismal font at the central entrance, a new organ, statues of the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph at the front of the church, a statue of St. Francis de Sales (the patron saint of the religious order that staffs the parish) on the side, a relocation of the tabernacle to a central space, new pews, and a tiered area installed for the choir.
Additionally, earlier this year, stained glass was installed behind a new statue of the parish’s namesake holding the baby Jesus.
There were also less visible, yet crucial, updates, such as work on the parish’s aging roof structures and HVAC systems, wall reinforcements, and repairs on a cracking bell tower.
“It’s very proud day for all of you, and for our diocese, and at this mass, we give thanks to God, who blessed your work and brought us to this day,” Bishop Michael Burbidge told parishioners during his homily.
Despite the updates, traces of the old church remain. Two eight-foot crosses, made by a parishioner out of the prior pews, stand near the entrance; still more of the wood was used to make trays for liturgical items.
Two pews were moved to the Our Lady of Good Counsel School across the parking lot, while another two were relocated to the fellowship hall. Two were given to a school in Fairfax County, and other parishioners took some to furnish their homes.
“We tried to reuse as much as possible,” Cassandre Durocher, the church’s director of communications, told FFXnow. “… Anything that we could reuse, was reused, as opposed to buying brand-new things, and [we wanted] to be able to steward the money properly.”
For Our Lady of Good Counsel’s approximately 3,000 parish households, the end of the renovation “is not the end of your project,” the Rev. Mathias Kumar, pastor of the church, said during the mass.
“It is the beginning of a new chapter in the life of our parish,” he continued. “We have renewed our church, but now we must continue to renew our hearts. The walls will witness the baptism of our children, the marriages of our young people, the tears of those who grieve, and the joyful celebration of our parish family. Above all, this altar will remain the place where we gather around the Eucharist and encounter Jesus every time that we come.”
