When I first read the words “Westminster Cathedral” in my London guidebook as I prepared for my recent trip to England, I thought I was looking at a typographical error.

Or perhaps the famous Westminster Abbey had undergone a name change.

Of course, neither guess was right. There is a Westminster Cathedral in London. It's a major London landmark and, once you're in the city, it's all but impossible to miss — let alone mistake as any kind of tag-along to the similarly named (but unconnected) abbey.

I recall squeezing off the subway — make that the Tube — at Victoria Station and making my way along the crowded sidewalk toward the cathedral. I didn't have to go far until all that stood between me and the Byzantine-style church was a broad piazza.

Crossing the piazza toward the west door, I admired the unusual stripes formed by the stones used to build the church. At 8 o'clock in the morning, the cathedral was already filled with parishioners stopping for a quick prayer or hurrying to Mass in one of the chapels. I was one of several visitors who paused to stare at the soaring nave (the highest and widest in all of England) before heading further inside to see the magnificent main altar and stunning side chapels. There are 12 of these, each more spectacular than the last.

For example, the Lady Chapel, whose centerpiece is a bright mosaic of the Madonna and child, radiates Marian faith with rare beauty. Above the mosaic, against a gold-leaf background, Mary stands before the Tower of London and London Bridge. Opposite her, St. Peter, the patron of Westminster, stands before the cathedral itself. Between them is a cross, now converted into the Tree of Life. Atop it stands Christ. The window recesses are crowned by mosaics of Sts. Lucy, Agatha, Justine, Catherine and Cecilia. A frieze depicts events in the life of the Blessed Mother. It's evident the chapel was a labor of love for the artisans who contributed to its creation between 1908 and 1935.

The other chapels are likewise filled with splendidly symbolic artworks that incorporate multiple mediums and celebrate numerous “supporting” saints. In the Chapel of Sts. Gregory and Augustine (of Canterbury), for example, you'll find some of their contemporaries — Sts. Laurence, Mellitus, Justus, Paulinus.

For its part, the high altar is an example of cathedral superlatives. The altar itself, for instance, measuring 12 feet long and weighing in at 12 tons, is the church's greatest monolith. Above it hangs a massive, dominating San Damiano crucifix. This bears the words of Revelation 21:6: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.”

Blood of the Martyrs

Like Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral is the final resting place of some prominent individuals. But, unlike the abbey, the cathedral holds the remains only of those who died marked with the sign of heroic faith.

Under the 12th Station of the Cross lies Cardinal John Heenan, the eighth archbishop of Westminster. His successor, Cardinal Basil Hume, died in 1999 and is buried in the Chapel of St. Gregory and St. Augustine along with Bishop Richard Challoner, whose revision of the Old and New Testaments was the standard English translation for two centuries. The first two cardinal-archbishops of Westminster as well as the fifth, sixth and seventh also repose here.

Impressive as all this is, what most attracted my attention was the Chapel of St. George (the patron of England) and the English Martyrs, where the body of St. John Southworth is visible inside a glass sarcophagus. Sheltered in gold and draped in priestly robes, the saint provides the kind of spectacle I have not often seen — and a different perspective on the English martyrs I heard so much about on my trip to England.

Father Southworth did much of his parish work in Westminster during a time when the Catholic faith was proscribed in England. He was publicly hanged, drawn and quartered for his faith, and his dismembered body was smuggled away by the faithful. It was enshrined in this chapel in 1930.

It is fitting that the persecution of the Catholic Church in England is remembered here, in a church built on the site of prison, no less. This is a relatively young church as European cathedrals go. The foundation stone was laid in 1895 and construction was only completed in 1903. Yet it recalls the long and storied history of our faith, with special homage paid to the faithful Brits who died over the centuries for love of it.

Not least among these, incidentally, was St. Margaret Clitherow, the “Pearl of York,” who was pressed to death in 1586 for hearing Mass and harboring priests. Ask her intercession for the English faithful on March 26, her feast.

Potent Pilgrimage

Today the cathedral works together with other area churches for major celebrations. On Good Friday, the cathedral, abbey and Westminster's Methodist Central Hall have co-hosted “The Crucifixion on Victoria Street,” a procession through London.

And the cathedral has hosted Pope John Paul II and welcomed Queen Elizabeth, the latter event marking the first post-Reformation visit by a British monarch to a Catholic liturgy.

Impressive as it is, Westminster Cathedral got only a cursory mention in my guidebook. Perhaps that's because it's so much more than a tourist pit stop. It flies below the sight-seeker's radar even though it dwarfs, literally and figuratively, many lesser attractions.

Don't let the brush-off stop you from gawking. In fact, once you get that out of your system, you'll feel all the more at home: primed for pilgrimage, prayer and contemplation. And all the more closely connected to the ageless, timeless Body of Christ.

Elisabeth Deffner writes from Orange, California.