ANGELS RESTORED TO SAINT JOSPEHS CATHEDRAL

The Angels of St Joseph's Cathedral,

The Angels of St Joseph's Cathedral,Dunedin

Every parish has things it has almost forgotten about itself. Old photographs tucked into sacristy

drawers, records of benefactors whose names nobody recognises anymore, and occasionally,

objects of real beauty that have drifted out of sight. St Joseph's Cathedral in Dunedin had two of

those objects sitting in its bell towers for over a century angel statues, made by Mattei Bros.

of Melbourne, that had once stood at the high altar and would stand there again.

This is the story of how they got back.

What Was in the Tower

St Joseph's Cathedral sits on Rattray Street in Dunedin and serves as the mother church of the

Diocese of Dunedin, under Bishop Michael Dooley. It is a serious piece of architecture

designed by Francis William Petre and it has the kind of interior that rewards attention. For

most of the congregation, that interior did not include any knowledge of two large angel figures

stored somewhere above them in the bell tower.

The Mattei Bros. of Melbourne were well regarded makers of religious sculpture, and the

Dunedin angels were good work. At some point in the cathedral's history they had been moved

from the sanctuary into storage likely during a period of renovation or liturgical change

and there they stayed. Not lost. Not damaged beyond recovery. Just set aside, in the way that

things are set aside when the immediate need passes and the years begin to accumulate.

When the decision was finally made to bring them down, NZ Catholic was there to cover it, and

the community's response was warm. People were glad the angels existed. They were glad

someone had decided to do something about it.

The angel in the tower before restoration.

Getting Them Down Safely

Before any thought can be given to restoration, a piece has to be assessed and before

assessment, it has to be accessible. Lowering two large sculptural works from a bell tower is the

kind of task that looks straightforward on paper and is considerably less so in practice. The

figures had to be rigged carefully, moved without knocking against the stonework, and brought

down slowly enough that nothing was introduced in the extraction that was not there before.

Once they were down and could be properly examined, the full picture became clear. The bodies

of the angels were in reasonable condition given their age and the circumstances of their storage.

The wings and the candelabra they once held were another matter these would need to be

remade entirely. That is not unusual in restoration work of this kind. It is, in fact, one of the

more interesting parts of the process: understanding what the original maker intended, and then

making the missing elements in a way that belongs with the rest.

The Angles being lowered down

The Restoration

At the Studio of Saint Philomena, we begin every restoration with the assumption that the

people who made the piece knew what they were doing. The Mattei Bros. figures were well

constructed and, under the grime and the effects of a century in storage, still had their integrity.

The work was to recover that integrity, not to impose something new on top of it.

That meant careful cleaning, structural attention where it was needed, and then the making of

the wings and candelabra. Wings on a sanctuary angel are not incidental they are a significant

part of the figure's presence in a space, affecting how it reads from the nave and how it relates to

the altar it flanks. Getting them right takes time. In this case, they were not quite dry in time for

the November installation, which meant the congregation at the Solemn Mass on the 19th saw

the angels in place but not yet complete. The wings would follow on Gaudete Sunday.

November 19 The Solemn Mass

The angels were installed on either side of the high altar for the 10:30am Solemn Mass on

November 19, 2023. Fr Vaughan Leslie presided, and it was also on this occasion that the

Blessed Sacrament was returned to the tabernacle of the high altar where it had previously

been housed in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. Bishop Michael Dooley had hoped to be present,

as had the Apostolic Nuncio to New Zealand, but circumstances meant neither could attend on

the day What the congregation saw that morning was a sanctuary that had found its logic again. The

tabernacle at the centre, the angels to either side, the altar given back its proper weight andfocus. NZ Catholic reported that the changes were well received. That is, we think, something of

an understatement a full congregation gathering to witness a restored sanctuary is its own

kind of testimony.

Three weeks later, on December 17 Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent the

wings were reunited with the angels. The congregation arriving for the 10:30am Mass noticed

immediately. Comments passed between people as they found their seats. Nods were exchanged.

The account that circulated afterwards said the angels had grown wings overnight, as though

they had been celebrating their release from the tower. There was a lightness in the cathedral

that morning that had not been there in November.

That response was there was a sense that something had quietly shifted in the

sanctuary, this is what good restoration makes possible. It does not announce itself. It simply makes

the space more fully what it was always meant to be, and the people in it feel that, even if they

cannot always say exactly why.

After the mass

The Mattei Bros. of Melbourne produced religious sculpture at a standard that reflects the serious craft traditions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. That standard is not easy to find today. The Mattei Bros. collection is now held in the care of the Studio of Saint Philomena.

When pieces from that tradition survive in reasonable condition, even after a century in a bell tower, they deserve the attention required to bring them back.

Sacred art is not made to be stored. It is made to be present within a community, week after week, for as long as the building stands. The Dunedin angels spent a long time removed from that purpose.

They are now returned to the high altar of St Joseph’s Cathedral, doing what the Mattei Bros. made them to do, and what Fr Vaughan Leslie, Bishop Michael Dooley, and the parish of Dunedin worked to make possible once again.

We are glad to have been part of it.

Studio of Saint PhilomenaSacred Art & Religious Sculpture