I was recently on vacation and the parish I went to for mass had the table altar and the High Altar together in the sanctuary. The pastor did not do this in the mass i attended, but one of the parishioners told us(my family) that the parochial vicar uses both altars at mass. The table Altar is called “The Altar of the Word”, and the readings are proclaimed form that altar, facing the people. Then the rest of the mass is said ad orientem on the High Altar. I thought it sounded interesting, but was wondering about its validity or illicitness.
Brian,
Just to make things interresting:
The 1974 GIRM says that in a Mass without a congregation, the priest does the readings from the altar.
The current GIRM says that in this case, the readings *should *be proclaimed from the ambo; should not must. In fact, the GIRM allows the priest to remain at the altar.
That leads me to believe that under the current norms, a priest celebrating Mass without a congregation could use the altar as the place of the readings.
But we’re talking about a Mass with a congregation. I only mention the above to illustrate that this isn’t something that the priest is making up on his own.
I suppose there’s no reason why the priest cannot use the “new” altar as an ambo–especially since many of these new altars were never properly consecrated as such, they were just pieces of furniture added at some point. It seems a little strange, though.
The Novus Ordo tries to make a big deal about placing the Gospel book on the altar (especially in more recent documents). I’ve always had a problem with this, and personally think that it does not belong there. But one could make the argument that since the book of the Gospels “belongs” on the altar, it’s entirely appropriate to proclaim the Gospel from that place.
