Tabernacle In The Church

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lizaanne said:
There is no reason for it NOT to be!

I’m still not getting this issue. Why is it that people feel it is totally appropriate and acceptable to shove Jesus off in a corner someplace? What is wrong with having the tabernacle on the altar as it has been for ages?

🤷

~Liza
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Perhaps because the GIRM specifically says not to put it on the altar:
  1. It is more in keeping with the meaning of the sign that the tabernacle in which the Most Holy Eucharist is reserved **not be on an altar on which Mass is celebrated.**128
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Consequently, it is preferable that the tabernacle be located, according to the judgment of the Diocesan Bishop,
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  1. Either in the sanctuary, apart from the altar of celebration, in a form and place more appropriate, not excluding on an old altar no longer used for celebration (cf. above, no. 303);
  2. Or even in some chapel suitable for the faithful’s private adoration and prayer129 and which is organically connected to the church and readily visible to the Christian faithful.
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If the bishop wants the tabernacle located directly behind the altar, he has the authority to make that decision. He also has the authority to have it elsewhere.

The original question in this thread was something like “is it allowed for the tabernacle to be located away from the altar.” The answer is yes. Beyond that, we can have preferences, but it’s not our decision to make…like so many things that have endlessly long threads. 🙂
 
I haven’t read the threads, but wanted to comment that on Fr. Benedict Groeschel’s live TV program on Sunday night, he had on as a guest the oldest practicing priest in the United States … 96 years old and pastor of a parish in Pennsylvania.

The guest priest said that in his opinion the problem or a major factor in the “decline” of the Roman Catholic (Latin Rite) Church is the removal of the tabernacle from the center of the altar in the main body of the church to a side altar or even worse to some converted broom closet in another part of the church building totally separate from the main part of the church.

The guest priest was an Eastern Rite Catholic priest.

In our diocese, Newark, NJ, we were in the middle of mass renovations, when the previous archbishop (Peter Gerety) retired a year early (at age 74) and was replaced by Bishop Theodore McCarrick. The first thing that the new Archbishop McCarrick did was write a letter to all pastors saying that the Blessed Sacrament is central to Catholic worship. He basically stopped the renovations that took the Blessed Sacrament away. His letter used the word “centrality”. *

I guess Archbishop McCarrick must have done something right. He quickly got moved to Washington DC and was promoted to Cardinal.*
 
lizaanne said:
So then - in a Church with an altar like this, are we to rip them out? :confused:
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No. But if the church were to be renovated or a new church were to be built, the bishop would have the authority to place the tabernacle elsewhere.

As demonstrated in the post following yours, the bishop is the one to make the decisions on this matter.
 
lizaanne said:
There is no reason for it NOT to be!

I’m still not getting this issue. Why is it that people feel it is totally appropriate and acceptable to shove Jesus off in a corner someplace? What is wrong with having the tabernacle on the altar as it has been for ages?

🤷

~Liza
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Actually it has not always been where you think for ‘ages’.

There were times it was in a cabinet in the sacristy or no Blessed Sacrament was reserved.
 
Eilish_Maura said:
Tearing it out is one option - as is sealing the old tabernacle and relocating the one to be used for reserving the Blessed Sacrament to another location.
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when will you get it. God is kept in there. Why shove God away? He is the point of everything we are suspose to be doing.
 
down_under said:
when will you get it. God is kept in there. Why shove God away? He is the point of everything we are suspose to be doing.
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I know that this thread has long since lost any point but I’m responding anyway…for the last time.

No one is shoving God away. DURING Mass the tabernacle takes the focus away from what is happening now on the altar. You could go and pray in front of the tabernacle at any time. You go to church Sunday at 9:00 because that’s when the Mass is taking place.

APART from Mass, there’s nothing wrong – and much benefit – from a chapel where people can pray undisturbed by anything going on in the church. Usually there are kneelers where people can pray directly in front of the tabernacle. What a wonderful thing that is!

If you don’t like it that way, that’s certainly your prerogative. But neither you nor I gets to make the decision on this so our likes or dislikes really don’t matter.
 
down_under said:
when will you get it. God is kept in there. Why shove God away? He is the point of everything we are suspose to be doing.
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It really worries me that someone thinks that Almighty God is confined to a little box and can be ‘shoved’ anywhere.
God is everywhere. He made the universe. He can be called upon when we’re in a boat,a plane or just in our back garden. As Catholics we believe that we meet with Him in a special way in a church.
But He can’t be confined to a box! And looking at a Tabernacle is not looking at God.
 
down_under said:
when will you get it. God is kept in there. Why shove God away? He is the point of everything we are suspose to be doing.
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God is always the purpose whether or not we keep any ‘left over’ (as in not consumed at Mass) Blessed Sacrament.
 
paperwight said:
It really worries me that someone thinks that Almighty God is confined to a little box and can be ‘shoved’ anywhere.
God is everywhere. He made the universe. He can be called upon when we’re in a boat,a plane or just in our back garden. As Catholics we believe that we meet with Him in a special way in a church.
But He can’t be confined to a box! And looking at a Tabernacle is not looking at God.
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Ah - now you REALLY don’t get it!!

Yes, God is “everywhere” - but He is PHYSICALLY PRESENT in the Eucharist, and therefore when He is in the tabernacle that presence is far more important than if I were in a boat somewhere.

I’m with down under - when will people finally get this? 🤷

I guess it will be when He finally comes on the clouds and asks why it was not found important enough to place Him front and center while under the appearance of bread. Or will we just ask Him to sit in the other room until we are ready for Him?

~Liza
 
lizaanne said:
Ah - now you REALLY don’t get it!!

Yes, God is “everywhere” - but He is PHYSICALLY PRESENT in the Eucharist, and therefore when He is in the tabernacle that presence is far more important than if I were in a boat somewhere.

I’m with down under - when will people finally get this? 🤷

I guess it will be when He finally comes on the clouds and asks why it was not found important enough to place Him front and center while under the appearance of bread. Or will we just ask Him to sit in the other room until we are ready for Him?

~Liza
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God’s presence is never less important no matter what form or what location.
 
Anyone here familiar with Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration.

Yes, God is everywhere.

But, visit a chapel devoted to Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration and you can feel His Presence.
 
Eilish_Maura said:
God’s presence is never less important no matter what form or what location.
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Then if this is the case, why do I genuflect when I pass the tabernacle, or kneel when I receive Holy Communion, or fast before receiving Him?

Or why don’t I just not go to Mass if God is everywhere in the same way and it doesn’t matter? I can just stay home and eat oyster crackers, because by your reasoning, God is there too, right?

There IS a difference. And the belief in that difference is what makes us Catholic.

~Liza
 
lizaanne said:
Then if this is the case, why do I genuflect when I pass the tabernacle, or kneel when I receive Holy Communion, or fast before receiving Him?

Or why don’t I just not go to Mass if God is everywhere in the same way and it doesn’t matter? I can just stay home and eat oyster crackers, because by your reasoning, God is there too, right?

There IS a difference. And the belief in that difference is what makes us Catholic.

~Liza
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I don’t understand why you are perverting what I have said (and what the Church teaches).

Some things we do because it is appropriate to a specific situation - that does NOT mean God is any less here than there. And that IS the Catholic belief - that God is everywhere. The Church does not teach us that there are levels of how much God is present (as if God is like the bars for cell phone coverage).
 
Eilish_Maura said:
I don’t understand why you are perverting what I have said (and what the Church teaches).

Some things we do because it is appropriate to a specific situation - that does NOT mean God is any less here than there. And that IS the Catholic belief - that God is everywhere. The Church does not teach us that there are levels of how much God is present (as if God is like the bars for cell phone coverage).
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actually the church teaches that God is physically present in the person of Jesus Christ body blood soul and divinity in the tabernacle in the blessed sacrament. That is a different level then when I am driving a car. or when I am eating dinner at mac’s. and there is a different and direct behavior required of me because of the different presence. so quite frankly you are dead wrong on this one and need to go back to sunday school and figure out where you got off track. we are not protesters. we believe that there is a reason to come to mass. and that reason is the reception of God himself into our bodies. without this I would not go to church. there would be no point. the catholic church becomes just another denomination. If I can recieve God the same way anywhere under any circumstances then there would be no point in priests or robes or any of it. A very slippery slop there. but one you seem ready willing and able to slide down this whole thread.
 
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