By Morgan Montalvo
WOAI News
San Antonio’s Roman Catholic community turned out by the hundreds last evening to witness an annual phenomenon that some say is an example of creative architecture, while others consider it a manifestation of faith: Mission Concepcion’s Double Solar Illumination.
The event takes place when sunlight enters each of two windows and, for a moment as the earth moves, rays simultaneously shine on a rendering of the Immaculate Conception behind the altar and a central point on the floor of the cross-shaped, centuries-old church.
Concepcion’ lay volunteer Ethel Rios said the visual leaves people in total amazement
“All you see is open mouths, dropped jaws, you know, and it gets completely quiet,” said Rios, who has witnessed ten of the events, “a quiet like you’ve never known. And it’s beautiful.”
Cynthia Solis and her son drove from Killeen to see the double illumination.
She considers the display an affirmation of faith.
“It humbles me to know that I’m a daughter of God, and that he loves me and that there are so many people here sharing in the fellowship of the one Christ,” Solis said
. A crowd estimated in excess of 500 witnessed the event, one of the largest in recent years, says Fr. David Garcia who manages the local missions one behalf of the San Antonio Archdiocese.
”When you see how it illuminates the different things, it really moves you spiritually,” said Garcia. “And that’s what the Franciscans and the Native Americans, when they built it, that’s what they wanted.
“It was a spiritual experience for people who would come,” Garcia said.
Mission Concepcion was completed in 1731 under the supervision of Catholic Franciscan friars by Spanish settlers and Native American laborers who converted to Christianity and is considered the best-preserved of the local missions.
Concepcion and its sister missions in San Antonio now are listed among United Nations World Heritage Sites.
The illumination, Garcia told the gathering awaiting the event, was a way the mission's architects could incorporate the Sun, an important celestial element in Native American worship and establish a common spiritual reference point.
The event also coincides with the church's annual Feast of the Assumption of Mary, celebrated as the day of her ascension into Heaven..
Garcia says Native American groups, many of them descendants of the church’s builders, continue to hold events on the mission grounds, testimony to lasting goodwill between European colonists and the area’s original inhabitants, as well as Concepcion’s historic, cultural and religious significance.