The Liturgy of Interment and Blessing of Vestments, Sacred Vessels and Crypt at St Mary’s Cathedral on December 5 also illuminated the rich traditions of the Church. Archbishop Barry Hickey’s executive secretary Fr Robert Cross talked Anthony Barich through it.
In a church, symbols are everything. They help people give meaning to mysteries of the Faith.
Much of the symbolism in a church reflects the fact that we are all on a journey towards God, who becomes present in the Eucharist on the altar. The church, therefore, is the boat, so to speak, in which we travel towards God.
Thus, the devotion of a separate, special occasion to the interment and blessing on December 5 of vestments and sacred vessels used in Holy Mass, and of the crypt, is a teaching moment for the Archdiocese of Perth.
So says Fr Robert Cross, Archbishop Barry Hickey’s executive secretary, and the archaeologist who helped remove the remains of Bishops Martin Griver and Matthew Gibney from beneath the floor of the Cathedral in 2006.
The blessing of the vestments is significant, he said, as the chasuble – the outer garment the celebrant wears – symbolises the vestment of the priest who stands In Persona Christi – in the Person of Christ.
The material and seamstresses who made the vestments for the opening and re-dedication of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception that were blessed during the December 5 event were sourced by Debra Talbot, wife of Bateman Deacon Bruce Talbot, and made locally.
They have a cross on one side – a design picked up from one of Archbishop Hickey’s Pectoral crosses which also appears on the apex of the new extension to the Cathedral and is carved on the ends of each of the new pews.
The chasuble, Fr Robert said, dates back to Roman times, when the garment – originally a round piece of cloth with a hole in the middle something like a poncho – was commonly worn. People would ‘put on their Sunday best’, so to speak, when they celebrated the Eucharist in their homes during the early era of Church.
In time, the celebrant’s chasuble became more ornate, elaborate, heavy and expensive. Things got to the point where they didn’t function well for celebrating the Eucharist as the celebrant would have to pull the cloth up his arms to carry out his duties.
Oddly enough, among the liturgical reforms in the 1970s there was a push to return to that round garment, but priests quickly redicovered how dysfunctional this was.
In order to save on weight, cost and function – and improve functionality – the chasuble evolved as the arm segments were cut out of the way. Still, one of the functions of the deacons in the early Church – which is still exercised at important events like ordinations – was to hold the cope (a chasuble with the front cut open) back so the celebrant could perform his duties.
By the 17th century the chasuble was more refined and had become more rectangular in shape, hanging over the back and the front and even taking on a fiddle shape tapered in at the waist to minimise cost. The more elaborate decorations were on the back because the priest faced the altar rather than the congregation, as in the current Tridentine Mass.
Such symbolism is common throughout every church. The new altar and sanctuary is, unusually, octagonal in shape, but this also symbolises aspects of the Christian faith.
An octagon is a circle and square brought together. The eight sides symbolise the incarnation of Jesus, who is God and man. The circle is symbolic of God, the square is symbolic of earth. God comes to earth in the person of Jesus Christ, and in the Eucharist.
While octagonal altars are not common, octagons are often present in churches in either the drum of the dome (as in St Francis Xavier Cathedral in Geraldton and St Peter’s in the Vatican).
Many churches built over 1,500 years of Christian history prior to Vatican II were filled with symbolic meaning because in an age when most or many people were uneducated and illiterate it was symbols such as the religious art of stained glass windows and statues that helped teach essential truths of the Faith.
The Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome, for example, has one of the 12 Apostles on each pillar on each side of the nave, then the 12 prophets above them.
“The Church loved playing with those types of things in its building,” Fr Cross said.
Entering a church, the first part one steps into is the nave – navis in Latin, for ship. Thus, the people of God are likened to passengers on a ship, journeying up to the sanctuary and the apse, symbolic of heaven, which is our final destination, Fr Robert said.
“Similarly, when a priest enters the church, the people stand not to welcome the priest, but to symbolise that they’re one in that journey towards God, what we’re all hoping for,” he said.
“That’s why you ordinarily shouldn’t have in a sanctuary art about an historical event or the act of a saint. It should ordinarily be images of heaven, or what one considers heaven to be.”
An example of this par excellence, he said, is Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement on the wall of the Sistine Chapel because “that’s where we’re going”.
“That’s essentially what a church is all about – the house of God, of God’s people, and we people are journeying into God’s house which is heaven.”
The function of the chalice is to hold the blood of Christ, and the paten to hold the body of Christ. Just as the vestment is worn by the priest who represents Christ, standing in Persona Christi, so, also, do the paten and chalice hold the precious material of the body and blood of Christ.
“They hold something precious in our faith, so we try to reflect this in the material [used for] the paten and chalice, or anything associated with liturgical practice, usually gold or silver,” Fr Robert said.
“We must respect the Precious Blood, we shouldn’t spill it.” The chalice, then, should be made of impermeable material so it does not absorb the blood of Christ, which is why wood or clay are not used. In the early Church, pewter was often used.
To those who are scandalised by the Pope, for example, using elaborate chalices for major events rather than using the money on the poor, the answer, Fr Robert said, comes from Christ Himself: “You’ll always have the poor with you, but I am just here for a while.”
“We go out of our way to give our riches to people we respect, and a gift that doesn’t cost us is not really a gift, is it? Anything of value gets its value by virtue of the work that has gone into it,” he said.
“I can understand the concern, though – one could say that Christ is there in the poor, as it says in Matthew 25. But the belief is that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ, and while I’m sure Christ wouldn’t demand it, and doesn’t ask for it, we as human beings are more than purely functional people. In this way, form can start going beyond function to express something that is in our belief.
“That’s the nature of us as human beings – we’re creatures with an appreciation of beauty and art. That’s in my opinion.”
People have written letters to the Archdiocese questioning the spending of millions on the Cathedral which could be used to help the poor.
“Well, we are helping the poor,” Fr Robert said, “and as the Archbishop said, the Archdiocesan budget for helping the poor has not decreased but increased. I don’t think you could get a more giving person than the Archbishop in terms of care for the poor – he cares for them on his very doorstep.”
Both the existence of a crypt, and the practice of burying the dead in a church, is historically linked to the concept of the church being the boat in which we’re journeying to eternal life.
The church is where Christ becomes present in His body and blood and His presence is reserved in the Blessed Sacrament in the Church, which is God’s home.
“So, in death we hope to be one with our God,” Fr Robert said.
“The notion of being buried in churches reflects that notion of wanting to be close to our God, so in English churches and elsewhere there are burial grounds around churches, and people of importance, like Bishops and kings, are buried inside churches.”
In St Mary’s Cathedral, he helped ascertain the precise location of the remains of foundational Perth diocese Bishops Matthew Gibney and Martin Griver buried just inside the altar rail.
Usually, they’d be buried in a manner reflecting their function in the church, with their feet towards the congregation in the west and their head towards the altar to the east – facing the Resurrection. This is a scriptural reference to the second coming of Christ – “he’ll come from the east where the sun rises”.
One of Archbishop Hickey’s predecessors, Archbishop Patrick Clune, is buried with fellow Redemptorist clergy at Karrakattta Cemetery.
Archbishop Hickey asked the local Redemptorists for permission to transfer Archbishop Clune’s remains to the new crypt but this was eventually refused.
One of the 16 spaces in the crypt has been reserved for Archbishop Clune’s remains if the Order changes its decision, while another has been reserved for the tumultuous first Bishop of Perth, Bishop John Brady, whose remains are buried in France.
As many as six ossuaries can be put into each of the 16 spaces, meaning that almost 100 Bishops could conceivably be buried in the crypt.