Commissioned by His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Adam Cvijanovic’s expansive mural reflects St. Patrick’s Cathedral’s historic role as a sanctuary for New York’s diverse Catholic community. Drawing on the Apparition at Knock—an 1879 Marian vision central to Irish Catholicism—the mural reimagines this moment as a living source of comfort and belonging, carried across the Atlantic by generations of immigrants.

Cvijanovic’s immersive composition unfolds across four sections, weaving the sacred and the everyday. Contemporary immigrants stand beside saints and civic figures—Mother Cabrini, Felix Varela, Dorothy Day, and Archbishop Hughes—while monumental angels offer the city in symbolic protection. The figures of the Apparition appear above disembarking Irish families, linking divine presence to lived experience.

Rendered in oil on canvas with areas of hand-applied gold leaf the painting draws from Baroque drama, Byzantine iconography, and modernist abstraction.

The mural is both a tribute to Catholic tradition and a meditation on American pluralism. In blurring boundaries between past and present, it invites the viewer into a sacred and unfolding story.