How would you best describe the altar furnishings and sacred vessels used at your parish for Sunday Masses?

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Duesenberg

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How would you best describe the altar furnishings and sacred vessels used at your parish for Sunday Masses?
  • Quite fancy and ornate. Lotta gold.
  • Still a lot of gold but more restrained.
  • Even more restrained, but still very nice.
  • Nice baseline furnishings & sacred vessels
  • A lot of 1970’s brushed brass.
  • A lot of pottery and wood.
  • Strictly functional. Very inexpensive.
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I choose not to vote. My parish consists of three churches with various ‘styles.’ All are ‘fine’ as far as I’m concerned as the Masses are said, with very, very little deviation from the rubrics, correctly and respectfully.
 
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I grew up in a Pentecostal church built in the late 1970s, and it had bright red orange upholstery on the pews and probably matching carpet.

It looked like the fires of hell.
 
In a parish near me a white curtain was recently hung between the crucifix and the wall to make the crucifix stand out. That was ok. However, they have now added narrow tube flourscent lighting behind the curtain in a rectangle around the crucifix with the idea of changing the light color to match the liturgical season. So it is currently a light purple. It’s a bit…strange.
 
Anne1964 said:
In a parish near me a white curtain was recently hung between the crucifix and the wall to make the crucifix stand out. That was ok. However, they have now added narrow tube flourscent lighting behind the curtain in a rectangle around the crucifix with the idea of changing the light color to match the liturgical season. So it is currently a light purple. It’s a bit…strange.
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This may make me a bad person, but I kind of like the idea.
 
eagerbeaver said:
AGAIN - you are concentrating on external things - WHY ??
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There are few liturgical rejoinders in my experience that have been so thoroughly discredited in practical terms that their use has become absolutely taboo.

One of course is the so-called “spirit of Vatican II.” It’s still mentioned now and then as a lamentation, but I cannot think of anyone that would actually accept it as an excuse for liturgical misdeeds. It’s taboo in my world.

The other one is “but that’s an external.” Until the last day or so, I had not heard that excuse/justification in at least 15 years. Like it or not, “externals” are important, and attention paid to “externals” need not come at the expense of neglecting “internals.” That absurd false dichotomy has been so thoroughly discredited that it too is taboo these days.
 
Xantippe said:
I grew up in a Pentecostal church built in the late 1970s, and it had bright red orange upholstery on the pews and probably matching carpet.

It looked like the fires of hell.
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They probably got a real good price on it, a lot of diners were closing up at the time due to the rise of fast food and no longer needed their vinyl booths.

As far as the Catholic Church, they tell me that the Pittsburgh diocese has a warehouse full of decommissioned furnishings, stained glass, chalices, etc., and they reuse them in new churches and chapels.
 
The poll choices seem pretty subjective and overlapping/redundant, as well as requiring information unavailable to the person in the pew:

–“Quite fancy and ornate. Lotta gold.”

–“Still a lot of gold but more restrained”

–“Even more restrained but still very nice”

–“Nice baseline furnishings & sacred vessels”

–“A lot of 1970’s brushed brass”

“A lot of pottery and wood”

“Strictly functional. Very inexpensive.”

Now that you mention it, I think I have seen 1970s brushed brass chalices (I think that’s what our Newman Center had before the pastor spruced things up), but I wouldn’t have known that that’s what it was without being told.

But otherwise, I would struggle to draw the line between the first and the second, the second and the third, the third and the fourth. and the fourth and the fifth.
 
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Duesenberg said:
The other one is “but that’s an external.” Until the last day or so, I had not heard that excuse/justification in at least 15 years. Like it or not, “externals” are important, and attention paid to “externals” need not come at the expense of neglecting “internals.” That absurd false dichotomy has been so thoroughly discredited that it too is taboo these days.
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I don’t often agree with you, but I do here.

Our church was built in the 70s in a very utilitarian style, with the requisite ugly orange-red carpeting. We had a lot of people who wouldn’t hear of the interior being renovated, until our current pastor came to them and said that he wanted to do a major renovation to the church and sanctuary. He reminded us that when you are in a beautiful place, when you are swept away by beauty, your mind and your heart opens to God. Since then we’ve installed new lights, new carpets and tiles, changed the motif of the crucifix (which was designed to match the carpet) and are now completing work on the design of the sanctuary, and hoping to replace/refurbish the tabernacle and the sanctuary lamp.

That being said, I have difficulty criticizing any church for its furnishings or vessels. I have had the pleasure, over the last year or so, of learning the costs associated with church supplies. We are fortunate to have a skilled leader with strong financial acumen, and a relatively active parish community that can fund-raise effectively. Not everyone does. I would not want a church to feel they had to neglect ministry areas like serving the poor or creating faith formation programs in order to build a more beautiful space. Each church has many pressures pushing on them, and each must discern for themselves what is their priority.
 
casslean said:
That being said, I have difficulty criticizing any church for its furnishings or vessels. I have had the pleasure, over the last year or so, of learning the costs associated with church supplies. We are fortunate to have a skilled leader with strong financial acumen, and a relatively active parish community that can fund-raise effectively. Not everyone does. I would not want a church to feel they had to neglect ministry areas like serving the poor or creating faith formation programs in order to build a more beautiful space. Each church has many pressures pushing on them, and each must discern for themselves what is their priority.
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Yes, much as with a family budget, there are many important competing needs.
 
I knew a priest who had what I thought was one of the most beautiful chalices I have ever seen - and I have seen a whole lot.

The cup was gold and approximately 4 to 5 inches across, and around the exterior was the scene of the Last Supper in metal.
 
otjm said:
I knew a priest who had what I thought was one of the most beautiful chalices I have ever seen - and I have seen a whole lot.

The cup was gold and approximately 4 to 5 inches across, and around the exterior was the scene of the Last Supper in metal.
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I have a priestly chalice that I bought at an estate sale in the early 1990’s that has an example of every rock/gem mentioned in the Bible mounted around the exterior of the cup. I have never seen another. I was commissioned by the uncle of the woman who was behind the estate sale.
 
How is it that all of these chalices were available for you to purchase? They are left with the church or donated to the Chancery for other priests to use.
 
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