Father Damien Locke at Saints Mary and Joseph Cathedral Armidale

Father Damien Locke describes the marble carved high altar at Saints Mary and Joseph Cathedral in Armidale, October 2024.

Transcript

00:00So this is the the main altar or the high altar here in the Cathedral. The

00:06Cathedral was actually finished and consecrated in 1912 by Bishop O'Connor

00:12who was responsible for the erection of this beautiful Cathedral. He actually

00:17commissioned this Carrara marble altar which was not finished until 1919 and

00:24you can see why. I mean look at the wonderful detail in this altar. So this

00:28was not installed until much later and this high altar just has some amazing

00:35features. You've got the beautiful depiction of the Last Supper here down

00:40the bottom, the prominence of the the Irish Saints, St. Patrick over here and

00:47St. Bridget and then you've got the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

00:52and then St. Peter here and St. Paul and then we've also got our Blessed

00:59Mother, Mary and St. Joseph here. So there's a beautiful theology just in

01:05this wonderful piece. It's just wonderful. After the Second Vatican

01:11Council of the Church, obviously the the smaller altar in front here was

01:19placed, this altar, as the changes came from the Second Vatican Council which

01:27meant that the priests would offer Mass facing the congregation and in the

01:31vernacular and so on. But this this piece here is absolutely exquisite and just

01:37one of the many treasures that we have here in our beautiful Cathedral.