Crucifix in the sanctuary

[Cheresse]

Our pastor removed the corpus from the large crucifix in the sanctuary of our church for Easter and left only the wooden cross draped with a white cloth. When Mass is celebrated, one of the servers carries a metal crucifix and places it on a stand at the back of the sanctuary, but it is carried out again after Mass is finished. At all other times, there is no crucifix at all in our church. What are your thoughts on this practice?

 

[buffalo]

Technically, a Crucifix must be present in the Sanctuary during Mass, so it is OK.

However, this points to a bigger issue. A big wooden cross with no corpus and a miniscule one with. HMMMMM!

I wonder what message he is trying to convey?

When people walk in will they know they are in a Catholic Church?

I would certainly pursue the question before it stays there much longer. These things have a tendency to stick around a long time.

To me it seems perfect symmetry to see the Tabernacle on an altar centered in the Sanctuary with a beautiful Crucifix above it. It doesn’t get any better than that.

 

[nerddad]

maybe they accidentally broke it when it was removed

 

[kaygee]

I recently asked a similar question on the EWTN website. Here is the response.

ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=537159&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=1&Author=&Keyword=&pgnu=1&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=6&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=

 

[VietCatholic83]

My parish always does something similar, that is replace the crucifix near the altar with a cross with some fake flowers on it during the entire season of Easter, and it really bothers me! As if the passion and death of Jesus has less meaning during Easter? If anything, it should take on even greater meaning. To me, it tells me that the liturgy people have a poor grasp of basic Christian theology. The GIRM does indeed mention that a crucifix is supposed to be at least visible during the Mass, but where I am, there is no crucifix in the sanctuary unless you count the 12th Station of the Cross along the wall as acceptable.

“resurrect-ifixs” kinda bother me too. I guess it’s fine if one wants to keep one in the home or in the church somewhere, but to have it in lieu of the figure of Christ crucified shows a lack of understanding for the sacrificial nature of the Mass.