Melbourne, Australia

Sunlight pours into St. Patrick’s Cathedral, bathing sanctuary and pews in a warm yellow glow. Light footsteps pierce the silence, their rustle reverberating through the nave and echoing off majestic stone pillars that support an arched ceiling of carved wood.

The altar is broad and long, its marble punctuated by gold accents — a podium, candlesticks and, elevated above the rest, a gold-embossed tabernacle. An enormous pipe organ dominates one side of the church, pipes of all sizes stretching to the ceiling. Memorials for the deceased line the back, each beneath a biblical scene, split between two stained-glass windows.

Such are the sights and sounds I remember best after my recent visit here: First impressions last.

Later I learned that the cathedral was consecrated on Oct. 27, 1897, 40 years after the Diocese of Melbourne was formally established in the Australian state of Victoria. This week I’ll be thinking of my visit again as Pope Benedict XVI draws teeming masses to the land Down Under for World Youth Day. (Melbourne is a 15-hour drive south along the Gold Coast from Sydney.)

The first Catholics to inhabit Australia were convicts sent from Ireland, England and Scotland in 1788. They were brought to the continent as prisoners aboard a convoy of ships known as the First Fleet. Of the convicts, a 10th were Catholics, mostly of Irish descent.

Criminals were steadily sent from Europe and, by 1803, there were more than 2,000 Catholics in Australia. The isolated community rarely had a chance to partake in the sacraments, as priests were scarce in the colony. Despite this, in 1828, out of 10,000 Catholics, nearly 400 had been born in Australia. They were brought up with limited opportunities to celebrate Mass or participate in the usual traditions of the Catholic faith.

These trials ended in 1829 when Britain reformed their restrictions on Catholics. Seven years later the first Catholic church was completed in Sydney.

Around this time, Melbourne was settled and plans were made to erect a Catholic church for the new settlement. The first church built on the site where this cathedral now stands was a small place of worship. It served the Catholics of Melbourne until it burned down in the 1860s.

Immense Gift

The arrival of a respected young architect named William Wardell coincided with the calamity. Wardell came to Australia from England, where he had completed several notable projects and made a name for himself. Shortly after arriving, he volunteered to design a grand cathedral to be the principle church in the Diocese of Melbourne. On March 17, 1870, the first stone was laid.

The cathedral was to be one of the largest churches in the world, bigger even than the grand St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. Wardell oversaw the project from beginning to end, ensuring that construction went according to his meticulous plan. He was present on the day of the consecration and died two years later, leaving behind an immense gift for the people of Melbourne.

The finished cathedral is surely as breathtaking today as it was on that October day in 1897.

St. Patrick’s was planned on an East-West axis, a cruciform design, in the tradition of most cathedrals. The windows are an unusual feature; rather than the stained-glass typical of European cathedrals, these windows are famous for the quality of the light obtained through the use of specially imported amber glass — a touch that was an afterthought and not a part of Wardell’s original design.

All the stone used in the building of St. Patrick’s is local. This touch was based on the philosophy that the cathedral should be of “the earth from which it rises.” A statue of Archbishop Daniel Mannix, leader of the Archdiocese of Melbourne from 1917 to 1963, stands outside, 15 feet tall. His name is inscribed beneath the feet of his likeness.

Archbishop Mannix is responsible for the finishing touch of the cathedral: the spires that make the cathedral visible from great distances. As archbishop, he visited St. Patrick’s daily and promoted solemn worship.

Humanity and Divinity

The successor of Archbishop Mannix, Archbishop George Pell, has also made an addition to the site — the Pilgrim’s Path. This is a channel of sorts, positioned between two walkways and inscribed with biblical passages pertaining to the journey of a pilgrim making his way home to God. A film of water flows over the emblazoned words from one end of the walk to the other. Beneath the water, the channel quotes Jesus from John’s Gospel: “Anyone who drinks the water that I shall give will never be thirsty again.”

Farther down the channel is a passage from Psalm 23 — “The Lord leads me by quiet waters to revive my drooping spirit.” At the end of the walk, the pilgrim finds a basin, inscribed with Apocalypse 22:1, “The angel showed me a river / whose waters give life / it flows as clear as crystal / from the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

Beyond the path, two great wooden doors, customarily symbolic of the divinity and humanity of Jesus, lead inside.

Sitting in the cathedral, I was aware with a rare and precious clarity of the depth of the tradition of the Catholic Church. In the chiseled stone, the vaulted ceiling, the magnificent organ, a sense of ordinance and solemnity resonates. As I sat in this colossal space, I felt small but also safe — and bathed in something just as warm and real as the yellow light that illuminated my skin.

Joanna Stover writes from

York Springs, Pennsylvania.