The Church of the Little Flower in Coral Gables gives its new pipe organ its first full concert on Saturday, Oct. 24, at 7:30 p.m. Nathan Laube, a Grammy Award-winning concert organist, plays the dedication concert on the instrument, which the parish describes as South Florida's first mechanical-action pipe organ. A pre-concert presentation starts at 7 p.m.

The organ weighs 39,000 pounds and has 3,035 pipes. Archbishop Thomas Wenski blessed it at the parish's centennial Mass on Oct. 3, and it is the centerpiece of a full restoration of the church as Little Flower marks 100 years.

The instrument

The organ is Opus 166 from C.B. Fisk, the Massachusetts organ builder. It is a three-manual, mechanical-action instrument in the French Romantic style, modeled on the work of the 19th-century French builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, and it stands in the rear gallery of the nave. Each keyboard division uses a Barker lever machine patterned on instruments in two churches in southern France. The parish chose the style so the church would echo the sound of the organs St. Therese, its patroness, would have heard in France.

It arrived in February and its pipes were voiced one by one over the following months. The largest pipe is 16 feet long and weighs 150 pounds, and it was delivered just 10 days before the centennial Mass.

A restored church

The organ is one part of a $7 million restoration of the church. The work added a gold-colored mosaic of the Holy Spirit in the dome, cleaned and conserved the statues, repainted the walls in a warmer cream and replaced the pews with new solid wood ones.

The restoration is funded by a $13 million centennial capital campaign, which the parish says is now fully pledged. The rest of the money goes to a new multipurpose center for St. Theresa School, which the parish expects to break ground on soon. The parish counts more than 3,500 households.

A parish as old as the city around it

Little Flower's history runs alongside Coral Gables' own. City founder George Merrick donated the land for the church. Masses were first celebrated at St. Theresa School starting in 1926, and a temporary church opened in 1928 inside the parish center now called Comber Hall.

Msgr. Thomas Comber and architect Gerald Barry planned a Spanish Renaissance-style church, but money and World War II held it back. Construction began in April 1951, and the church was dedicated on Dec. 8, 1952.

The parish's history also records that Father Curtis Washington, identified in that history as Florida's first Black Catholic priest, celebrated his first Mass at Little Flower after his ordination in 1949. The Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles have staffed St. Theresa School since 1991.

At the centennial Mass, 97-year-old Louise Bennett, who graduated from St. Theresa School in 1946 and later taught there for more than 20 years, carried the gifts to the altar.

A decade in the making

Planning for the centennial project started in 2016 under former pastor Father Michael Davis, after music director Luis Cuza and parish manager Jorge Santibáñez began discussing how to mark 100 years. The current pastor, Father Manny Alvarez, moved it forward in 2021.

Hear it

The dedication concert is Saturday, Oct. 24, at 7:30 p.m., with the pre-concert presentation at 7 p.m., at the Church of the Little Flower, 2711 Indian Mound Trail, Coral Gables. The parish is at (305) 446-9950 and posts details of its concert series on its website. After Saturday, the organ accompanies the parish's regular liturgies.

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