LEWISTON — As Mary Charpentier described her candlelit wedding ceremony here at St. Patrick’s Church, her voice choked to a whisper and her eyes blinked away tears.

A few feet away, priests and altar servers readied for the final Mass in the century-old church.

“It’s like a family here,” Charpentier’s daughter, Darlene LaBonte, said Tuesday.

Though the church is grand — with its sculpted columns and striking stained glass — the closure of St. Patrick’s means more than the loss of a building. It means the scattering of a particular cluster of people.

“You see all these families week after week,” said Barbara Bouchard of Lewiston. “You sit in the same seats most of the time.” The children in the next pew grow up. Over the years, children become parents. Parents become grandparents.

Bouchard, who was baptized at St. Patrick’s, recoiled when asked about the likelihood that these people may never gather again. “I don’t think about it,” she said.

Others did.

The final Mass — celebrated by Maine Bishop Richard Malone — filled the narrow pews of the last Irish Catholic Church in the city. The other, St. Joseph’s Church, closed on Oct. 13.

Both churches were squeezed by ongoing financial pressures within the Catholic Church in Maine. Congregations are shrinking and collections are down. The parish could no longer afford to keep either church open, said Monsignor Marc Caron, who leads the Prince of Peace Parish.

A decision to sell the churches is likely to come by the end of the year.

During Tuesday’s Mass, Malone tried calming emotions over the closure with assurances that the church lies in people rather than buildings.

“It may be a hard truth because churches are so precious to us,” he said. “It is the people with the risen Lord in our midst that is the church.”

Malone said it was his first visit to St. Patrick’s, and he described the church as “beautiful.”

Monsignor Charles Murphy, who grew up in the parish and served there as a priest, delivered the homily. He spoke of St. Patrick’s in terms of 1940s Hollywood, referencing the Bing Crosby classics, “Going My Way” and “The Bells of St. Mary.”

“My heart is filled with gratefulness for the grace I have felt in this place,” Murphy said.

Minutes later, the church’s three-ton bell tolled the end of Mass for the last time.

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A group of nuns, from left, Sister Maura Murphy, Sister Mary Denis Schwartz and Sister Mary Gemma Connelly, wait for the Mass to begin at St. Patrick’s Church on Tuesday.

Helene St. Hilaire directs the choir during the last Mass before the closing of St. Patrick’s Church on Tuesday.

Maine Bishop Richard J. Malone enters St. Patrick’s Church in Lewiston on Tuesday to celebrate Mass for the last time.

Normand Charpentier, right, sits with his daughter, Darlene LaBonte, center right, and his wife, Mary Charpentier, in the front pew of St Patrick’s Church to observe Mass for the last time on Tuesday.

Barbara Bouchard, a parishioner at St Patrick’s Church in Lewiston for more than 50 years, takes a photo with her cell phone as a remembrance. St Patrick’s closed its doors after the Mass on Tuesday.