We know the first Pentecost happened in Jerusalem, but no-one knows where exactly in the city the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples. There’s a tradition, however, that it happened in the same Upper Room, the Cenacle, where the Last Supper had been celebrated. Whatever the historical fact may have been, there’s theological truth in this tradition. Holy Thursday and Pentecost Sunday may be separated in time, but they are parts of the single event of God’s self-giving. At the Last Supper Jesus gives the disciples the gift of himself in the Eucharist; at Pentecost Jesus gives the disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Symbolically, then, they happen in the one place; and this is why Christians through the ages have built churches. Because once the Spirit is breathed forth, the Upper Room is no longer back there and then; the Upper Room is always and everywhere. The event of God’s self-giving is not “once upon a time” but erupts into every time and place: it is ceaseless and limitless. It’s on offer here and now without reserve to every human being. That’s why we build churches in every time and place – buildings which point to the ceaseless and limitless self-giving of God to all human beings. That’s why in 1848 the Catholics of Brisbane began to build the first church which became the first cathedral now known as St Stephen’s Chapel. They built on the land of others, land by the river which the local Indigenous people had claimed as their own for thousands of years: that cannot be forgotten through this year.
In time, the Chapel became too small to accommodate the growing Catholic community; and the first bishop, James Quinn, shortly after his arrival in 1861, decided to build a new and much larger cathedral, which has become the building in which we now gather. His plans were grander than what we see now, in part because he wanted the new cathedral to announce the dignity of the Catholic Church and the Catholic people who gathered in the new city of Brisbane. But it was also the Church’s way of saying that here God gives himself to all, that here Jesus gives the gift of himself in the breaking of the bread and the gift of the Holy Spirit in the outbreathing of God. Here, far from what they called home, they built a temple to the Bread and the Breath, the Breaking and the Breathing; and in doing so they said that this was home, not just for them but for God.
They built a temple of stones and steel and glass, in that sense a building like any other. It rose by stages and has seen many modifications through its 150 years. The nave and sanctuary came first; then the façade; then the transepts; the windows and the vanished frescoes were gradually added; then came the great renovation of 1989 which saw a new sanctuary and Blessed Sacrament Chapel; and finally the organ with its pipes was added in 2000. All of which is to say that a cathedral is never finished; even in my own years there have been modest changes to both cathedral and chapel. But changes there will be until the end of time, because the self-giving of God has no end: it is ceaseless and limitless.
Yet there was more to this temple than stone and steel and glass, because it has also been a temple of word and music and sign. Within these walls, the word of God was heard, since God never ceases to communicate to his people. In the liturgy, the word of God was proclaimed with a special power as it has been today; but people also came here to pray at other times, which means they came first of all to listen to God, as they still do. But they came also to speak their words of faith to the God to whom they had listened, as they still do. Some of those words are spoken, others are sung; and what a tradition of sacred music has emerged over time in this place. Yet the place has been filled not only with holy sounds; it has also been filled with holy signs – windows, works of art, banners, candles – all speaking of God to the eye, just as the holy sounds have spoken of God to the ear.
But this cathedral has also become a temple of living stones, building up the faithful who gather here as a priestly people called out of darkness into light. People make buildings, it is said, and then buildings make people. That is true, and it’s especially true of churches. But it’s not just the building that has made people; it has been the God dwelling here who has shaped the Catholic people of Brisbane like a potter with his clay. Through all the vast changes since 1873, that has remained constant: the self-giving God has not ceased to mould a people for himself and for his mission to the world. If that were not true, these would be just dead stones; but because it is true these are living stones, and so are we.
This cathedral, then, is a temple of the living God who alone can make of us living stones. On this feast of Pentecost, as we look back 150 years, we say that this building has always been and still is a temple of the Holy Spirit, whose breath makes the bread the Body of Christ to feed the Church which also becomes his Body, broken for the life of the world. The building has changed and so too have the people walking through its doors, but that has not changed.
We have much to celebrate, then, in the sesquicentenary year that stretches before us. We have much to remember, many stories to tell, much for which to give thanks to both God and those who have gone before us. We begin the year of celebration on this Pentecost Sunday and we will conclude it on Pentecost Sunday next year. We recognise that this Cathedral of St Stephen and the community that has gathered here are the work of human hands, yes, but are above all the work of the Holy Spirit who not only gathers us in this space but sends us forth from here on mission, as he did the Apostles from the Upper Room at the first Pentecost.
I conclude, then, with the prayer which I have offered for this sesquicentenary year:
Down by the river, heavenly Father,
on this earth our mother,
where children of the Dreaming
long made a home before us,
our forebears in faith have built
this mother church of St Stephen,
a family home for you and us.
Stone by stone and prayer by prayer
they have raised this holy house,
familiar forms on foreign land,
a place where Brisbane could know
Christ’s sacrifice and feast,
where you could speak and we could listen,
where the tide of your mercy could flow.
Here saints and sinners have come,
bringing their young and their dead,
all their hopes and their dreams.
Through times of sorrow and joy
the stones have spoken of Easter,
of a life that is bigger than death,
of a love that has the last word.
Through one hundred and fifty years,
we have made the building
and the building has made us,
a temple of living stones.
Now we tell the story of your grace,
thankful as we remember.
By that same unfailing grace
may this cathedral never cease to be
a home for all at the heart of the city
and a house for you, God-with-us,
on this earth down by the river.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.