Church survives “many depressions and many wars”

Parish priest, Father John Knight, has invited the community to participate in a special mass of thanksgiving next month led by the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell. “What we’re celebrating this year on the 15th of August is the foundation day of the parish,” Father Knight said.

On that day in 1859, the church was dedicated and the foundation stone laid by Archbishop John Polding, the first Archbishop of Sydney.

The dedication is said to have resulted from a life-threatening trip undertaken by Archbishop Polding and his Vicar Dom Gregory. It is believed they were aboard a boat returning to Sydney from Perth when they were caught in a treacherous storm. They threw their scapulars (cloths believed to have protective powers) into the ocean and declared that if they survived the journey they would dedicate a church to Our Lady of Mount Carmel on the closest hill to St Mary’s Cathedral.

“The church that we see today on top of the hill in its present form hasn’t changed,” said Father Knight, who is in his tenth year as parish priest at Mount Carmel. “It is only the beginning of a much bigger church that was planned, but only the nave was built,” he said. The original plans, which included two transepts, a chancellor’s sanctuary and a 90-foot spire, were never fulfilled due to financial considerations. “If [the church] had been properly built, it would have been a magnificent sight,” Father Knight said.

In 1956 a fire threatened the sandstone and brick building, destroying its hand-carved wooden altars and sanctuary, as well as a painting of Our Lady of Mount Carmel given to the Parish by Pope Leo XIII. “What has come from that fire is a rather beautiful stained glass window of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Carmelite saints,” Father Knight said.

On March 25, 2002, Cardinal Pell raised the church to the dignity of a shrine, making it a place of pilgrimage. “It’s been a significant site, going back those 40,000 years to the Indigenous people known as the Gadigal people, and then as a site as a church here,” Father Knight said. “We’ve had Indigenous people living in this area, of course, and they still do,” he said. “We also have, of course, the Irish, Anglo-Celtic influence ... and now we’re very multicultural in our very many nationalities. Twenty or so nationalities live in this area here and are part of the parish.”

He said the church’s parishioners were increasingly resembling a “rich tapestry of life”.

Mr John Ireland OAM has been a parishioner of the church for more than 60 years. The 74 year-old regularly attends mass on a Sunday and plans to participate in the celebration mass next month.

“I think it’s a great significance, to be debt-free and have an excellent church like we have, and to last 150 years,” Mr Ireland said. “It’s only a poor parish and it’s always been a poor parish,” he said. “They’ve survived many depressions and many wars.”

Another parishioner was the late Eileen O’Connor, the co-founder of Our Lady’s Nurses in 1913.

More commonly known as the Brown Nurses, the group continues to care for the sick poor in their homes. The church has commissioned a stained glass window in honour of Eileen O'Connor and hopes to bless it at the mass next month.

Father Knight welcomes all members of the community to attend the thanksgiving mass on August 15 at 11am.

Source: South Sydney Herald July 2009 www.southsydneyherald.com.au