Melbourne was dry,dusty and muggy,heading towards 32 degrees. Trams rumbled down Collins Street,clanging their bells as pedestrians strode briskly during their lunch break,talking to colleagues. As they hurried along,their conversations halted;they nudged each other and smiled,heads turning to peer through the imposing entrance of a city building.
Built more than 100 years ago as the banking chamber for the then prosperous Commercial Bank of Australia,333 Collins Street has a soaring Italian baroque dome,inlaid marble floorings,gilt-detailed columns and arches,but that is not what was slowing down the pedestrian traffic outside.
Christmas decorations adorn the entrance to 333 Collins Street.Jessica Shapiro
Beneath the ceiling decorations that blazed like suns was an impressive Christmas tree,decorated with garlands of what looked like red flowers,gold and red baubles and twinkling golden lights. The shimmering Christmas tree was not,however,the reason why city workers turned to stare as they passed the building.
Music was floating out into the street. Harmonising voices were raised in song. They belonged to a school choir,singing well-loved Christmas hymns about the birth of Christ,and they drew me inside the building as irresistibly as if someone had called my name.
In a city of busy,scurrying workers preoccupied with the deadlines that must be met before the Christmas break,here was a pocket of beauty,like a waterfall stumbled upon by chance on a hot ramble through the bush. The hymns – such asOnce in Royal David’s City andO Holy Night –swept around the foyer,spinning images of something precious that is sometimes lost in the pragmatic demands of the working day.
The words ofO Holy Night,sung in thunderous,electrifying harmonies – “Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices! O night divine,O night when Christ was born …” – resounded like a command or a rebuke,sending chills down my spine.
The soaring Italian baroque dome inside 333 Collins Street.Erin Jonasson
The words were truthful;we would fall on our knees,speechless,in the face of the reality of the extraordinary nature of God,both the creator of life and yet seemingly incongruously personal in His gentleness towards,and love of,the individual. The hymns resurrected another reality,characterised by a simplicity and grace.
They took the breath away and filled the eyes with trembling tears that could not be shed,not there,in the bustling business heart of Melbourne. Instead,I studied the shiny,patterned floor of that enchanting old building,mesmerised by the echo of something eternal that had found a voice and rung out across the city.