Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge led hundreds of students, teachers, clergy, religious, church workers, parishioners, dignitaries and guests in celebrating the 150th anniversary of the blessing and dedication of St Stephen’s Cathedral. Source: The Catholic Leader.
“In this sesquicentenary celebration, we tell the story of the shaping of a building – the creation of this cathedral – but we also tell the story of the ways in which it has shaped us,” Archbishop Coleridge said.
“Helping to create not only the Catholic community in Brisbane, but the City of Brisbane itself.”
The archbishop celebrated the Mass on Friday, assisted by Brisbane Deacon Michael My Van Tran, and concelebrated by Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Charles Balvo, as well as the bishops of Queensland, Brisbane Auxiliary Bishop Tim Norton, and cathedral dean Fr Anthony Mellor.
The Mass began with a guard of honour with students holding up their school flags to process in the message stick, which has been symbolically travelling to all the parishes of Brisbane Archdiocese in the 150th anniversary year.
Archbishop Coleridge said the cathedral’s story, from 1874 to 2024, was one of time, place and people.
“And what a time it has been,” he said.
He said cathedrals “are never finished”.
“To think that they are or can be is an illusion,” he said. “Like the Church, a cathedral is always a work in progress.”
He said if St Stephen’s Cathedral stood for anything, it stood as a monument to Easter and the self-emptying love of Christ.
“The Cathedral of St Stephen will always be, in Wendell Berry’s words, ‘the high restful sanctuary that keeps the memory of paradise’,” he said.
“But if the memory is kept here, so too is the promise of paradise.”
FULL STORY
St Stephen’s Cathedral celebrates 150 years (By Joe Higgins, The Catholic Leader)
