Demolishment of Altar Rails

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Why are you insisting on separating and ranking Catholic practices? I don’t believe that is at all helpful. Nor do I think that there’s a ‘one-size-fits-all’ practice.

You speak of ‘loving one’s neighbor’. Well and good. Now suppose you’re an older person with limited resources and limited contact with ‘one’s neighbor’ in the physical sense.

Yet since you have time, you can pray (those outmoded rosaries) and you can, from your limited resources, use the money you would have spent on meat to abstain on Fridays (and sometimes other days) to donate to your local parish’s St. Vincent De Paul society. You can knit prayer shawls which volunteers pick up and deliver.

Such a person might not appear to be doing the ‘hard work’ or the ‘face-to-face’ work, but that prayer, abstinence, and sacrifice of time in creating for the poor is just as valuable.

But how often do we judge when we hear a person say something like, “I do my best to pray, that’s how I serve God” (in the situation above, and other similar ones) and start snarling at them, “Why don’t you get out and DO something instead of taking the easy lazy way of ‘just’ praying?”

Too often, I fear, and this kind of ranking and judging and insistence of ‘one thing’ being ‘better’ is just. . .not helpful.
 
Jesus reminds twice in scripture( to emphasize how important it is)
God desires mercy not sacrifice. He then admonishes to go and find out what that means.
So God does not abhor " sacrifice" he just doesn’t DESIRE IT.
YOU can interpret Jesus very clear teaching as you choose of course.
I would suggest die to self has another meaning. This meaning does in fact include a component of ego.
A sacrifice has an entierly different dynamic of ego ( or self) than an act of mercy.
 
Maximus1 said:
have lived long enough to conclude that many of the older Catholics I know, and that is a lifetime of people, believe to their core that eating fish on Friday is a fundemental marker of a true Pius Christian while at the same time their authentic and actual reaction to" love your enemies" is some mixture of you weren’t really serious about that were you?
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Wow, the insults against our grandparents know no bounds on this thread. Everyone who was a Catholic before 1970 was simply evil.
 
I didn’t rank and judge I hope but I did perhaps identify where Jesus did.
My quote was love of enemy. And I cited it because I think this is not just a problem for the elderly for certain.
Jesus also speaks about, if you only love those who love you, what reward shall you have. So love of enemy is a very distinct type of neighbor.
I am not a believer in giant Christian acts or bust. Saint Therese’s " little way" is more than adequate. More than enough to shoot at. We are I think charged with acting christian to those we come in contact with. We sometimes fail. We sometimes are the Pharisee who passes at a distance at the far side of the street. We need to recognise this and be mindful to improve. Otherwise what really are you praying for? We are here to transform into Christians.
 
Maximus1 said:
I didn’t use the word equal. I pretty much quoted Saints and church fathers. Which tells you really how important the doctrine is and how radical it is.
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Quotes that many of us are familiar with, and strive always to better understand, but we do not equate ourselves with Christ, which is exactly what you started out doing :
Maximus1 said:
Why would there be a divide with myself?
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What harsh teachings? I am sure each can be explained as an act of love.
Why don’t you pick one of these statements I made because I would like to know which one I got wrong.
 
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JimR-OCDS said:
And right on cue for CAF, the last three Pope’s are heretics and removing the altar rails was part of a satanic plot. 🤫

Not going to take the bait !
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What bait? Your the only person saying this, stop trying to make everything negative.
 
Fear not, they are making a return. I travel a lot and went to Mass where the altar rail was re-installed, every one knelt to receive communion and the altar server was there with a plate to hold underneath your jaw so not one bit of the Lord’s body could fall on the ground.
 
What Jesus said twice was clear. It says the same in several OT passages.
Of note is factually, in one passage he says it in regard to his Apostles being questioned for not fasting. ( The sacrifice)
You must understand the dynamic of sacrifice to understand what Jesus said , “go and learn what it means.”
A sacrifice begins with a mindset. I am going to engage in an act. That act is not something I prefer to do in the first instance. It involves the mindset that I will substitute something either I don’t want to do, or it is something in the nature of a deprivation I rather not have.
The sacrifice mindset invariably is an interaction and/ transaction between God and sacrificer. With an expectation of transactional reciprocity. The beneficial is often incidental in a true sacrifice.
An act of Mercy is invariably interpersonal with the object of that mercy. AND GOD DESIRES THIS MINDSET and practice.
You can identify anything you want. There are of course alternate explanations
 
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If you do not understand the quote from Saint Augustine, fine. Perhaps reading Gregory of Nyysa, the ," father of fathers," will provide a clearer understanding. Good luck
 
To address the OP’s original question. The places where altar rails and high altars were destroyed was generally out of a false or misguided sense that this would attract people to the Church. In some cases, underhand tactics were used to commit this act of vandalism. I know one Dominican Church that used to have marble altar rails and a huge marble altar and reardos. The brothers who would have opposed the changes were sent on holidays and a community meeting was held where all present voted to remove these works of art. They were bulldozed and the altar was replaced with a big wooden table. When the brother who was responsible for the sacristy duties returned he was reduced to tears. My own local church has a similar story. This was nothing more than vandalism.
Fortunately the current superior of the Dominican church is restoring everything to the way it was.
 
Jesus doesn’t say anything like “Come and learn what it means,” unless you are using an extremely weird translation. “Come and see” is about as close as I can find.

He does say things like, “How can the sons of the bridegroom fast, when the bridegroom is still with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”
 
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I am out if this thread. Other people make insulting statements about our grandparents generation and my posts get removed for being offensive.
 
Go and learn the meaning of the words," I desire mercy not sacrifice."
Why guess.
 
Wow, really? Way to read in a whole lot more than is there. Have you never seen anyone who came across as so extremely holier than thou because of the outward signs they practiced that would turn around and foreclose on a widow the day before Christmas? Those are the people I am talking about, not the bulk of people just trying to do the best they know how.
 
Why are you assuming the worse about your brothers/sisters who have a pious devotion? Is it true a few do it because they are hypocrites, definitely. Do all do it to be “Holy than Thou”? No. Could they be doing this to show love to the King of the Universe, Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. If you see someone doing something that confuses you to why they are doing it or their motives try to get to know them.
It confuses me that in this era the dichotomy (false) that is told is either one shows a pious act that should be seen as false or we should not do these acts.
We live in a time when the majority of people don’t believe in the True Presance. We need to show what it means to us by our actions and our words. Instead of tearing eachother down we need to remember that we are all sinners and people are trying to build a relation with God.
 
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