Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The Cathedral of the Holy Name: III

More pictures.

A stole worn by the Blessed John XXIII. The letter reads:
"To His Eminence Cardinal Gracias and the Cathedral of Bombay: as a remembrance of Pope John of holy memory, and the solicitous love he bore for the church of India, and for the large and dear Indian people, during the days of the Council!" -- Archbishop Angelo dell'Acqua, Substitute of the Secretary of State of His Holiness _________ [The name is blank]
The Anglican Cathedral of St. Thomas, the church of the former rulers of India, was lined with plaques of the war dead, a kind of Stations of the Cross of its own. The Catholic Cathedral has the proper Stations of the Cross (in faded pastel prints enclosed in elaborate wooden frames. I didn't take a picture, sorry!) along the walls of the nave. However, a few marble plaques from a different time still adorn the walls in the narthex.

 

This one is of the widow ("relict") of a Portuguese "Commendadore" -- "very loyal to the Royal House of Portugal." The Latin at the bottom is from the Vulgate Ps. 62 (63 in the modern reckoning), from verses 1 & 7. "Sitivit in te anima mea et in velamento alarum tuarum exultabo." ["For thee my soul hath thirsted and I will rejoice under the covert of thy wings" in the Douay-Rheims rendering]

 

This is the foundation stone, dated 1902, laid by the then Jesuit Archbishop of Bombay, Theodore Dalhoff. [The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia entry for Bombay lists the various foreign missionaries who served here.]

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I should not forget to add that the frescoed interior of the Cathedral (see photos below) was painted by an Italian Jesuit, Br. Antonio Moscheni SJ.

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