The altar

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Thank you. That is a lovely video. I so wish we could do that at our parish.

We have a risen Christ behind our altar. The only time there is a crucifix aside from the processional crucifix is Good Friday. It is a beautiful wooden crucifix which is kept generally in the parish school assembly hall.

Speaking of that, on Easter Wednesday my 5 year old grand daughter and I went to Church to pray in the adoration chapel. Standing near the doorway in the narthex we saw the beautiful large wood crucifix surrounded by lilies. Surprisingly she dropped to her knees, crossed herself and prayed the Our Father, a hail Mary and a Glory Be. Then she got up and we went on into the Church. I did not prompt her to do so. I did not question why she did it. I know why. She was moved to do so by the Holy Spirit.
May we all be so moved.
 
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estesbob:
…I just wonder which altar was closest to resembling the table Jesus celebrated the First Eucharist at?
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“As circumstances and the needs of Christians warrant, public worship is organized, developed and enriched by new rites, ceremonies and regulations, always with the single end in view, ‘that we may use these external signs to keep us alert, learn from them what distance we have come along the road, and by them be heartened to go on further with more eager step; for the effect will be more precious the warmer the affection which precedes it.’ (Saint Augustine, Epist. 130, ad Probam, 18) Here then is a better and more suitable way to raise the heart to God.”
Pope Pius XII, ****Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947* *

Like so many of the past forty years or so, you have chosen to disregard the Holy Spirit’s guidance through the centuries of the Church’s liturgy. Organic development and all that stuff is just nonsense I suppose.
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JKirkLVNV:
…And one could make the subjective argument that the altar should have been further improved by tying bows onto it. I don’t think it would have been and I doubt you do, either.
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You know, ridiculing people with snide comments - people who genuinely have a zeal for the glory of God and long for reverence to be brought back into our churches and beauty back in church architecture - isn’t doing anybody any good. And beauty is not entirely subjective…just rare these days.

[Edited by Moderator]

Lord have mercy,
DustinsDad
 
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DustinsDad:
Like so many of the past forty years or so, you have chosen to disregard the Holy Spirit’s guidance through the centuries of the Church’s liturgy. Organic development and all that stuff is just nonsense I suppose.
Estesbob, I’m unsure what the table looked like on which Jesus celebrated the first eucharist - it was probably very ordinary however, and possibly made out of wood. Still I see no problem in using the traditional altars.
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I sincerely doubt that Estesbob was disregarding the Holy Spirit’s guidance, but merely expressing his opinion that a less ornate altar is nevertheless a most sublime table of sacrifice.
With that, I agree … it is not the external pomp that renders it holy, but the action that takes place upon it. Witness the mundane portable ones used in war zones. Many of our servicemen would welcome the opportunity to worship and receive the Eucharist, whether or not the altar is highly decorated.

God blessed me with the opportunity to visit the Upper Room in Jerusalem where the first eucharist took place. Nothing ornate, to be honest with you. And I truly doubt it was any different in Jesus’s day, for the structure remains in tact. Let’s not forget the ceremony Jesus initiated was a Seder meal of Passover, which many good Jews celebrated in their homes on ordinary tables. The table is not the important part that sanctifies it.

Not saying here, that altars TODAY should be ugly. FYI, I sew altar frontspieces for our parish, and have a deep love for the sacredness of the sanctuary. Let’s just keep a good perspective. 🙂
 
DustinsDad said:
Like so many of the past forty years or so, you have chosen to disregard the Holy Spirit’s guidance through the centuries of the Church’s liturgy. Organic development and all that stuff is just nonsense I suppose.

Lord have mercy,
DustinsDad
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Perhaps our differences are that I believe Christ came to earth to save us and found his Church. You seem to believe he primarily came here to found a Mass.
 
estesbob said:
Perhaps our differences are that I believe Christ came to earth to save us and found his Church. You seem to believe he primarily came here to found a Mass.
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Do you think we are saved without the Mass?
 
estesbob said:
Perhaps our differences are that I believe Christ came to earth to save us and found his Church. You seem to believe he primarily came here to found a Mass.
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Our salvation was won for us by Christ on the cross - the mass is that salvation won for us by Christ on the cross because it is that very sacrifice. Therefore, it is the source and summit of the faith of the One True Church, the One True Religion given to us and established by Our Redeemer.

To disregard the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as secondary, as some mere commemerative “play” by wich we merely reinact some interesting “past” event out of nostalgia is condemned by the Church and demonstrates a grave lack of understanding of the faith Christ gave us.
Council of Trent, Session 22, Chapters 1-2
…He, therefore, our God and Lord, though He was about to offer Himself once on the altar of the cross unto God the Father, by means of his death, there to operate an eternal redemption; nevertheless, because that His priesthood was not to be extinguished by His death, in the last supper, on the night in which He was betrayed,–that He might leave, to His own beloved Spouse the Church, a visible sacrifice, such as the nature of man requires, whereby that bloody sacrifice, once to be accomplished on the cross, might be represented, and the memory thereof remain even unto the end of the world, and its salutary virtue be applied to the remission of those sins which we daily commit,–declaring Himself constituted a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech, He offered up to God the Father His own body and blood under the species of bread and wine; and, under the symbols of those same things, He delivered (His own body and blood) to be received by His apostles, whom He then constituted priests of the New Testament; and by those words, Do this in commemoration of me, He commanded them and their successors in the priesthood, to offer (them); even as the Catholic Church has always understood and taught.

…And forasmuch as, in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, who once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross; the holy Synod teaches, that this sacrifice is truly propritiatory and that by means thereof this is effected, that we obtain mercy, and find grace in seasonable aid, if we draw nigh unto God, contrite and penitent, with a sincere heart and upright faith, with fear and reverence. For the Lord, appeased by the oblation thereof, and granting the grace and gift of penitence, forgives even heinous crimes and sins. For the victim is one and the same, the same now offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered Himself on the cross, the manner alone of offering being different. The fruits indeed of which oblation, of that bloody one to wit, are received most plentifully through this unbloody one; so far is this (latter) from derogating in any way from that (former oblation).

Peace in Christ,
DustinsDad
 
I don’t think estebob meant the substance of the Mass itself, but rather a set of liturgical books and rubrics.
 
Joysong said:
I sincerely doubt that Estesbob was disregarding the Holy Spirit’s guidance, but merely expressing his opinion that a less ornate altar is nevertheless a most sublime table of sacrifice.
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I didn’t take it that way - I took it the way it’s so often presented these days - that we have to “get back” to the way it was done first, as if the pureness of the faith somehow became tainted over the centuries, rather than enhanced and deepened by the guideance of the Holy Spirit. Sounds rather Protestant to me, and the result is we start looking and acting Protestant. Sort of goes hand in hand with the “Ecumania” that’s been ravaging the Church for the last 40 years or so. Think about it.
Joysong said:
With that, I agree … it is not the external pomp that renders it holy, but the action that takes place upon it.
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I think you’ve got it backwards. It is the Holiness of the action - the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - taking place that demands our external pomp, reverance, and beauty inasmuch as we can provide it. For the externals are merely visible manifestations of the internals - that reverence and love taking place in the hearts and minds of each individual is manifested in the Liturgy that developed over the centuries - and this includes the physical and beautiful altars and Cathedrals erected to offer the once for all Sacrifice of Our Lord and Savior.

*Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi *is the phrase to remember. When we start acting out a stripped down liturgy in a stripped down “worship space” day in and day out, weak and frail human beings that we are, we run the risk of forgetting the awesomeness of what is taking place and neglect the growth in understanding that has taken place through the centuries under the guideance of the Holy Spirit.
Joysong said:
Witness the mundane portable ones used in war zones. Many of our servicemen would welcome the opportunity to worship and receive the Eucharist, whether or not the altar is highly decorated.
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Amen to that - and that was by necessity that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered as such. No one is going to argue against such. And I would suspect that no one would argue that because the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass can by necessity be offered as such, we should abandon all Cathedrals and Churches as unnecessary extravagances and start offering all Masses on the hoods of SUVs.

Peace in Christ,

DustinsDad
 
DustinsDad said:
Our salvation was won for us by Christ on the cross - the mass is that salvation won for us by Christ on the cross because it is that very sacrifice. Therefore, it is the source and summit of the faith of the One True Church, the One True Religion given to us and established by Our Redeemer.

To disregard the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as secondary, as some mere commemerative “play” by wich we merely reinact some interesting “past” event out of nostalgia is condemned by the Church and demonstrates a grave lack of understanding of the faith Christ gave us. DustinsDad
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I go to Mass 6 days a week-How about you? Howver I go there to be in the presence of Christ and follow his admonition to eat his body and drink his blood. I am not in the least concerend about how fancy the altar is or whether the Mass is in Latin or not or which way the Priest faces. Given your comments on the state of the Mass in the last 40 years I suspect you are concerned with all of these.
 
DustinsDad said:
You know, ridiculing people with snide comments - people who genuinely have a zeal for the glory of God and long for reverence to be brought back into our churches and beauty back in church architecture - isn’t doing anybody any good. And beauty is not entirely subjective…just rare these days.

[Edited by Moderator]

Lord have mercy,
DustinsDad
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I wasn’t being snide. I thought the altar was greatly improved. My point was that there are people who wouldn’t think that. To say that this altar is more acceptable to God or to say that that altar is more pleasing to God is rendering a judgment we aren’t capable of objectively making. And cramming a church with more statues and gee-gaws isn’t an objective way of rendering glory to God and simplicity doesn’t mean a lack of reverence.

And I pray the Lord does have mercy on you.
 
Which, of course, is why the rococo style was criticized in its day for its over-extravagance and frivolity about as much as the minimalist style of our own day is criticized for the opposite reason.
 
JKirkLVNV said:
I wasn’t being snide. I thought the altar was greatly improved. My point was that there are people who wouldn’t think that. To say that this altar is more acceptable to God or to say that that altar is more pleasing to God is rendering a judgment we aren’t capable of objectively making. And cramming a church with more statues and gee-gaws isn’t an objective way of rendering glory to God and simplicity doesn’t mean a lack of reverence.

And I pray the Lord does have mercy on you.
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Who are the people who wouldn’t think that?

Cramming a church with statues? What are gee-gaws?
 
Uxor said:
Who are the people who wouldn’t think that?
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I think that particular change (in the video) was a good one, but I’ve seen MANY free standing altars or “NO” altars that were far lovelier than that.
 
DustinsDad said:
Like so many of the past forty years or so, you have chosen to disregard the Holy Spirit’s guidance through the centuries of the Church’s liturgy. Organic development and all that stuff is just nonsense I suppose.
Lord have mercy,
DustinsDad
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There may be more than a little wrong with this. Estesbob may be hedging up antiquarianism, but are you saying that simpler altars or free-standing altars or whatever are a departure from the guidance of the Holy Spirit?
 
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Genesis315:
Which, of course, is why the rococo style was criticized in its day for its over-extravagance and frivolity about as much as the minimalist style of our own day is criticized for the opposite reason.
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You are so right-on! I remember reading in St. Teresa of Avila’s Life about the time she was required to stay in the home of a wealthy, but religious, laywoman and feared for her soul because of the trappings of extravagance. It took real effort to remain detached so her spirit could soar to the Lord.

My thoughts about needless extravagance and frivolity are that some beginners in spirituality really need this to “feel” holy and devoted, and place themselves in awe of it all. However, more advanced souls would be able to contemplate God easily in the beauty of simplicity without all the external trappings, in fact, maybe even more so.

Let’s not be quick to denounce those who are in favor of one decor over another, for it is not a true measure of one’s heart or devotion.
 
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