The Sydney Morning Herald reports this morning that when Anthony Fisher was presented to Pope Benedict on Ash Wednesday a few weeks ago, the Holy Father called him ” “my friend from Australia” and told him “I have every confidence in you, my brother.” So do we!
Here is a gallery of pictures from last night’s enthronement and of St Patrick’s Cathedral. Click on the pictures for a larger view.
I wanted to get a good record of the night for the sake of Cathy and the kids who couldn’t be there, so I took lots of video too. What I didn’t realise, but should have, was that due to the design of the building, I was rather more conspicous than I thought I was. I was speaking to our IT man in Melbourne today, and he said “I saw you on the live XT3 internet coverage – couldn’t miss you – you were jumping up and down like a rabbit with your camera.” Groan… I hope I wasn’t too distracting to the others who viewed last night’s events on the live stream. I was in fact seated behind the Knights and Dames of Malta. They were seated on the last and highest row of seats on the south side, so I was seated behind them on a row of seats about 10 inches lower than they were. To see anything, you had to stand up, but when you did, that put you head and shoulders above them. Thus was produced the “rabbit” effect. Really very awkward and embarrassing.
-
- The assembly
-
- “Ecce Sacerdos Magnus” (or whatever that is in the plural)
-
- Cardinal Cassidy (in the red) and Bishop Manning (in the pink)
-
- +Anthony OP enthroned on the Cathedra with Mr Curly the crozier
-
- +Anthony greets a family from Paramatta
-
- The Opening Prayer
-
- The Congregation inside
-
- The Bishops assembled – all Capital Cities of Australia were represented by their Archbishops
-
- Deacon Paul OP chants the gospel at the lecturn at the entrance end of the Cathedral
-
- +Anthony preaches the Word
-
- Not everyone had a good view – you needed a ticket to get inside.
-
- Colin and Gloria Fisher present the gifts
-
- The Table prepared for the Supper
-
- Anthony is incensed with the billy-can…
-
- +Anthony communes his parents Colin and Gloria
-
- The Alar, currently set up facing East (ie. toward the entrance away from the big crucifix)
-
- The Crucifix. Note the free floating cross bars. A bit Dali-esque.
-
- The Seven Branched Lampstand??? (on a nest of Barbed Wire)
-
- The Crucifix and Cathedra
-
- The Pipe Organ
-
- The “Barbed Wire” Crown of Thorns above the Altar
-
- One of the Stations of the Cross
-
- The Interior of New St Patrick’s from the north side. The Crucifix and Cathedra are against the Western Wall
-
- The walkway from New St Patrick’s into Old St Patrick’s (looking East)
-
- The Blessed Sacrament Chapel
-
- The Easter Egg Tabernacle with antennae. Mork: “Fly! Be free!”
-
- A view of the interior of Old St Patrick’s which is now the Narthex with the Baptismal Font and Pool (with Paschal Candle stand reminiscent of the Amnesty International Candle) and the Blessed Sacrament Chapel
-
- A friend’s son calls this statue of St Mary of the Cross “The Dalek”
-
- A view of Old St Patrick’s along the north wall of New St Patrick’s (aka St Bunnings
-
- Anthony and his fellow Dominicans
Seriously, whoever designed that basketball court should be shot.
The worst of it is that it’s almost impossible to ‘re-do’ and have it look half-way decent to remotely look like a church.
I am rather pleased that +Fisher is there, but what is it with Melbourne people being purloined to join the Sydney throng?
Not fair!
Well, Mrs Doyle, we have a vacancy for bishop in Melbourne – any Sydney priests you want to see sent South? And don’t forget that +Anthony is actually a Sydney boy originally after all.
As for St Bunning’s, I guess that we will have to wait and see how it “evolves”… One good thing is that it does mean that – as it was set up last night – it IS actually ‘east facing’. I guess one thing they could do is shit it closer to the western end where the Cathedra is. Lot of work thouugh.
Holy crap it was Halloween at the senior centre. Looks like something that might have once been a Catholic church is appended to it.
Well, I don’t know about shifting anyone to Melbourne, but if they could continue a bit further south to Tassi, that would be a good compromise.
The scandal with these new monstrosities is first and foremost the waste of money to construct them, and then the added funds to then change them to make them actually look and work like a Catholic Church.
Actually, I think all the Cathedral needs to be perfect is the introduction of a large, weighted, metal ball on the end of a chain. At speed. Repeatedly. To make doubly certain the architect (and every artist he collaborated with) should be inside at the time to supervise the work. ;)