Between them, parishioners Kathryn and Daniel Rusbarsky; Jeri and Jack Keefe, and Joseph and Eileen Kenney have shared decades of devotion in Holy Cross Parish.

It’s a feeling already experienced by newlyweds Jen and Corey Finan.

All are very much looking forward to worshiping once again in Holy Cross Church, as beautiful in their eyes as was the former church.

The Rubarskys have been members of the parish for 18 years. “All three of our children were baptized and received their first Holy Communion in the old church,” said Daniel Rubarsky. “To say it has a special place in our hearts would be an understatement.”

Kathryn serves as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion. Her husband is a reader, and daughter, Trinity, 12, is an altar server.

The couple served on the finance committee for the capital campaign and when the project was first announced in 2008 – the year the recession hit – it looked like an uncertain prospect to many in the community.

“Stock market losses and the uncertain future of the industry weighed heavily on people’s minds,” Daniel Rusbarsky wrote in an email. “Parish families were asked to look past the short-term difficulties and have faith.”

Father Manning, he said, emerged as a “steady leader through all the rough patches, showing faith and humility in the ongoing process.”

The new church, Rusbarsky wrote, is a “testament to the faith of this community as well as the vision Father Manning had to create something wonderful, bigger and fitting for our growing parish.”

The family anticipates the new church to be invigorating to the faithful. “Our parishioners have been attending Sunday Mass in our gym and weekday Masses in our small chapel. The beautiful church,” he wrote, “will remind us about God’s promise to always be with us, for us to look to him in our triumphs and troubles.”

“It will be,” he predicted, “an emotional dedication for our whole community.”

The Keefes have been members of the parish for about 11 years. Two of their three grandchildren graduated from Holy Cross School, the third will begin his third year at the school in a couple of weeks.

The couple regards the project as meaningful on many levels, not the least of which is the way the parish sought input from its members. “Even before we started, there were interviews on how we felt about the particulars – what was important in our eyes: statues; altar; meeting rooms; location of things,” Jeri Keefe said.

“No one can ever say they weren’t asked – parishioners were included in all the decisions,” she said.

The whole family will be at the dedication but they’ve already experienced the grounds and are so very happy with the setting, even the children. “Sunday after Mass, we were walking around the outside with the grandchildren showing them the pavers inscribed with their names and the oldest (John Keefe III), said ‘you know pop, this is really beautiful.’

“The flowers, the statues,” he said, “It’s a great place for people to gather.”

“For him, (the garden) was a continuation of Mass,” his grandmother said.

Not everyone will be at the dedication Mass, however.

Two postponements left the Kenneys with the exquisite dilemma of choosing between the Sept. 19 dedication and the game between Notre Dame University’s Fighting Irish vs. Georgia Tech’s Yellowjackets.

“I had been looking forward to the dedication,” said Kenney. Despite the two previous cancellations, he was optimistic that the actual date wouldn’t conflict with the Notre Dame – Georgia Tech football came Sept. 19.

Optimistic enough the Notre Dame alum made travel arrangements to attend the game where the couple’s granddaughter is a third generation student. “No question, the dedication is going to be embraced with a great deal of excitement,” he said.

The Kenneys moved to the area in 1964 as a young couple. “We joined the parish directly from the hospital with our first child” said Joseph Kenney, who noted that all eight of their children received their first Holy Communion in Holy Cross.

With some time out for a corporate transfer to Bucks County, they returned to Holy Cross just as the parish was completing the expansion of the school.

They are more than content with the way the project has unfolded.

“What I think is so unique…is that the new one reminds me of the old church.”

It has retained, he said, so much of the “warm environment. … It’s like going into a larger version of the old church. … Father Manning has done an unbelievable job.”

“It’s going to be very difficult” not to be there said Kenney.

No doubt about it, the newly married Finans will be in attendance.

Jen Wagner grew up in Holy Cross and went to school there. She and husband Corey, who came into the Church at the Easter Vigil in 2013, spent three years with the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults process. Since their wedding, they have become members of the Holy Cross RCIA team.

It was their deepest desire to be married in Holy Cross – in fact, they had hoped to be the first couple married in the new Holy Cross.

Knowing the dedication was set for June 20, they scheduled the wedding for July 10. When the dedication was postponed and it became clear that the church wouldn’t be ready in time, Jen did her utmost to try to pull it off anyway.

“We were going to rent chairs and have the wedding in Holy Cross,” despite the situation, she said. But if it wasn’t for a missing stair railing, she would have gotten her wish. With the stair rail missing, the church could not get the needed permit.

“We had just hoped and prayed, but it was not meant to be,” she said.

And here’s where Precious Blood Parish in nearby Monmouth Beach came to the rescue.

The neighboring parish had been helping out through this phase and graciously invited them in.

“Precious Blood is beautiful and everything turned out really perfectly,” said Jen Wagner. “Father Manning performed the wedding and it was wonderful.”

Still, the couple managed to have wedding photos taken inside the still unfinished Holy Cross Church.

To be sure, they’ll be there for the dedication. “It will be amazing when it happens,” she said.