Where's the Tabernacle ?

[Barbara_Ann_Bau]

Most churches in large cities need to be locked during the nighttime hours. This is true of my parish church even though it is in a smaller city. The Cathederal in this city does have 24/7 adoration. The adoration Chapel is in the basement of the cathederal and has a seperate entrance. The entire church is locked at night, The chapel can be entered by a coded lock which is given to those who sign up to worship in the late night and early morning hours.
Our need to protect the sacred body of Jesus against desecreation is indeed tragic.

 

[MSSheBear]

In my diocese the churches built after 1970 have the Tabernacle in a side chapel. The older ones have it somewhere near the altar. So if I go to a church that I am not familiar with I get to play “look for the Tabernacle.”

Some people are unaware of the presence of the Tabernacle even when in the small chapel. I have mixed feelings about it. We have a lot of non-liturgical activities in our nave so it is just as well as we have the Tabernacle off in another room. But still during Sunday Masses something is lost, I feel.

Our choir would for the most part prefer to be invisible.

 

[babochka]

Cistercian monasteries often have the tabernacle behind a curtain. Late medieval Churches typically used a rood screen to hid the entire altar area. I believe many Eastern Catholic Churches still use rood screens.

We don’t use rood screens, exactly, but an iconostasis is similar. The tabernacle is there, on the altar, immediately behind the royal doors. A red lamp indicates its presence. The lack of visibility does not change the reality.

 

[Barbara_Ann_Bau]

We don’t use rood screens, exactly, but an iconostasis is similar. The tabernacle is there, on the altar, immediately behind the royal doors. A red lamp indicates its presence. The lack of visibility does not change the reality.

http://www.byzcath.org/forums/gallery/19/medium/901.jpg

That is so beautiful. But I don’t think the the royal doors hide the they just seem part of it. What bothers me is when the tabernacle is shoved off into a corner where there is no indication of the presence of Jesus

 

[babochka]

That is so beautiful. But I don’t think the the royal doors hide the they just seem part of it. What bothers me is when the tabernacle is shoved off into a corner where there is no indication of the presence of Jesus

No, the doors definitely do hide the tabernacle in this design. Perhaps a less ornate iconostasis might emphasize better than the tabernacle is not in view when one walks in the church.

At any rate, I agree with your point. I want to know where the tabernacle is in a church, Latin or Byzantine. In a Byzantine Church, it is place on the altar, and I know it is there, whether or not I can see it.

http://www.dosoca.org/images/Deaner...Icon-of-St.------Jonah-in-the-foreground..jpg

 

[TimothyH]

No, the doors definitely do hide the tabernacle in this design. Perhaps a less ornate iconostasis might emphasize better than the tabernacle is not in view when one walks in the church.

At any rate, I agree with your point. I want to know where the tabernacle is in a church, Latin or Byzantine. In a Byzantine Church, it is place on the altar, and I know it is there, whether or not I can see it.

http://www.dosoca.org/images/Deaner...Icon-of-St.------Jonah-in-the-foreground..jpg

Thank you for your posts and for educating about the Byzantine Church. I’m just curious, is the Eucharist ever moved, reserved in a chapel during the night or similar in the Byzantine Church?

-Tim-

 

[commenter]

In my diocese the churches built after 1970 have the Tabernacle in a side chapel. The older ones have it somewhere near the altar. So if I go to a church that I am not familiar with I get to play “look for the Tabernacle.”

Some people are unaware of the presence of the Tabernacle even when in the small chapel. I have mixed feelings about it. We have a lot of non-liturgical activities in our nave so it is just as well as we have the Tabernacle off in another room. But still during Sunday Masses something is lost, I feel.

If you really need to have activities in your church that you want the tabernacle to not be visible, you could set up some arrangement for that, while keeping the tabernacle as visible all the rest of the time. As you rightly say, something is lost when the Real Presence is absent in the period before and after Mass. I suspect that all the adoration that goes on in the adoration chapels in recent years does not make up for the decline in adoration that used to happen before and after Mass.

Our choir would for the most part prefer to be invisible.

In my former parish I preferred the choir to be not only invisible but inaudible.

Some posts are missing the point when they refer to various elaborate “coverings” (rood screens, cloth covers, and other things) - things that clearly identify exactly where, and how important, the Blessed Sacrament is. The Blessed Sacrament is very prominent in the layout of the church. The Blessed Sacrament is emphasized. The fact that they cover the Tabernacle is irrelevant, the Tabernacle itself covers the Blessed Sacrament. So what? Those churches have a “direction”, and it directs hearts toward the Blessed Sacrament; towards Christ. There is unity in that kind of church.

This is side tracking from the thread’s theme, which is concern over churches in which the Blessed Sacrament is deemphasized, in put locations that are not obvious, or happenstance; not the center of attention; not the most important place in the building. (and, I would add, the crucifix is often either “stylized” or non-existent).
If it takes you awhile to figure out where the Blessed Sacrament is, you have lost part of the sacramental dimension. Everyone’s attention is going off in different directions. This is a bad kind of “catechesis”.

 

[otjm]

I see your point, ok.

1. You can have a parish that is strong because it has many other elements that are strong, even if the Blessed Sacrament is not prominent. No parish is strengthened by making It not prominent.

Ours has been. Perhaps it might be better to say “I don’t see how a parish could be strengthened if it is not prominent.” Absolute statements are most generally not accurate, and have a tendency to shut down dialogue.

1. My former parish removed the Blessed Sacrament to be only in the Adoration Chapel, which was already in place. Over the years only older people went to the Adoration Chapel. In other words, only those who had grown up in churches that had the Blessed Sacrament AND crucifix prominent.

However, they were also people who were catechized before the Baltimore Catechism got thrown out with the bath water. Our parish seems to have no problem with getting younger people in. Some of that has to do with how Perpetual Adoration was originally set up. We had a traveling priest at our start, and he has come back several times - I can never remember his name, but he would make a good drill sergeant… Sorry yours did not expand.

“Adoration” became an optional elective, like the charismatic prayer group, not a universal thing, like prayer before the Blessed Sacrament briefly before and after Mass used to be for most Catholics.

I hate to tell you, but adoration was optional before Vatican 2 (I was an altar boy in the 1950’s), and few if any parishes had Perpetual Adoration.

That parish could no longer find people to replace Adorers that died. People growing up in that parish likely will admire those who go to Adoration, but would be very unlikely to do so themselves.

They might if they are invited. That is what happens out here in Oregon (we are not the only parish with Perpetual Adoration).

1. Your parish sounds interesting. In my former parish the Adoration chapel was removed to a corner of the building nowhere near the “church”. It sounds like your church has its (enormous!) adoration chapel adjacent to the church, and highly prominent. So I see your point, but I am not sure it refutes mine. And most people would consider a chapel that big to be a smaller church.

For someone who comes into our church for the first time, they most likely will not even notice the chapel.

1. Congratulations on what seems like a super parish. My former parish closed. My current parish always had the Blessed Sacrament prominent, but the new pastor restored the crucifix, also important. We reopened the closed elementary school building, now as a high school, this Fall.

I understand where you come from. But be careful of making universal judgments. There is a tendency to ascribe certain results with what may be our “hot button” issues, when in fact those issues are peripheral, or are only a small part of a series of issues which have caused the result of which we complain. People like simple answers to complex questions, and simple answers tend to be simplistic and inaccurate.

I have sat and watched people get totally wound up about where the tabernacle is, or is not. A lot of it has to do with emotions, and with “That is the way we always did it!”, always being both the operative term, and one showing a lack of historical information.

Some people are so inflexible, they are apt to break at the slightest possibility of bending. Then, again, we have others who are so open minded that they brains have fallen out somewhere back there. Many of the changes which have occurred in the last 50 years have their origin in liturgical research, which, if I recall, stopped some popes back, and then was re instituted by Pius 12th. There certainly can be (and has been a plethora of) push back to the results of that research; but the intent was to remove some of the accretions which have occurred over 20 centuries and move closer to early Church practices. The thinking, which is not entirely inaccurate, is that some of the accretions have taken on a life of their own, to the point of moving us away from the essence of what Christ gave us. That is a discussion that is way above my pay grade; but I also had some questions in the 50’s when I was an altar boy. And some of those have been answered by some of the changes which have occurred.

Not everyone is going to land on the same page - now, or ever. What is needed, and often lacking, is charity in the discussions.

 

[commenter]

I hate to tell you, but adoration was optional before Vatican 2 (I was an altar boy in the 1950’s), and few if any parishes had Perpetual Adoration.

Adoration:

1. In the more specialized sense, it means prayer before the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the monstrance, sometimes in the church, but more often in a special chapel used for no other purpose; sometimes 24/7.
2. I meant it in the more general sense, as prayer before the Blessed Sacrament mostly when it is not exposed in the monstrance, but in a prominent place. For instance, people used to “make a visit” and pray to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, but when it was in the tabernacle, outside of Mass. Before and after Mass, it was once almost universal in Catholic churches that some of the congregation would be in silent prayer, even if only for a few minutes before and after Mass. Even though they don’t see the host, the older churches were designed to facilitate this kind of adoration.

Adoration chapels are great, I visit there myself. But in my parish the priest is trying to encourage prayer before and after Mass. So it can be done, nowadays. It’s a mistake to focus so much attention on the (welcome) first kind of adoration that parishes forget the second.

 

[babochka]

Thank you for your posts and for educating about the Byzantine Church. I’m just curious, is the Eucharist ever moved, reserved in a chapel during the night or similar in the Byzantine Church?​

Not as far as I know, but I’m definitely not an expert. We don’t move the Eucharist to an altar of repose on Holy Thursday, as in the Latin rite.

 

[Commander901]

Now we have the Bishop’s Cathedra placed where the Tabernacle used to be in some Cathedrals. I guess the Bishop is more important than the Eucharistic Christ.