Your church HARDLY goes overboard. In our American culture everything has been dumbed down, I guess its even ok to now dumb down the passion of Christ. God forbid we are reminded of the awesome price Christ paid for us!!
Tacky and unduly literalistic. If the suffering of our Lord needs to be brought home to people, the sermon might be a good place to do it. The altar doesn’t need to be cluttered with things that are not used in the sacred mysteries. This reminds me of those dreadful crosses with purple stoles and crowns of thorns that you sometimes see in Evangelical churches. If Christ crucified is being preached at your church, there is no need for this.At our Church we have a Cat-o-Nine-Tails, 2 1/2ft 4 inch thorns - crown of thorns, 7" Nails,
Mallet, Ropes, red scarf draped to resemble the flow of blood, 4 large stones. All “Artfuly Arranged” directly in front of the alter.I think this is TOO much, especially for children and people of delicate sensibilities. I can’t even bare to watch the Passion! People are all different and express their remorse and penetential feelings differently. I REALLY don’t think this whole thing is necessary. As Lent goes on there will be even more instruments of torture added. What do you think, do you have children and how do you think they would respond, does your church do something similiar?
If we need to reflect on the sufferings of the Christ we have the Stations of the Cross.The Latin quote is my signature and has nothing to do with the topic. Sorry for confusing you.
What I meant in my post is that people should understand that while we are sitting at the feet of the Calvary we do not need to see the blood and the cruelty of the crucifixion. We should be able to transcend that and just offer the perfect sacrifice to God without the need for gory details. Mass is for God not for us.
If we need to reflect on the sufferings of the Christ we have the Stations of the Cross.
I absolutely agree with this. A parish we frequent a lot has a statue, just slightly smaller than life sized, of the scourged Christ. It is horrible to see and brought a friend to tears when she saw it for the first time. It is most often kept in the Adoration Chapel near the confessionals, and very often people will kneel there before this statue and pray their penance. It is an extremely moving experience.
I wish we had that statue at my parish.This is Father Val - may God rest his soul in peace. He was a most holy priest and many think he is likely destined for sainthood. He always cried such beautiful tears at the Consecration. He is very missed.
~Liza
Most every parish a statue like this. It reminds me of the 15 Prayers of St. Bridget, the booklet Tan Books puts out to pray them has images of this kind.