Father Michael Ingram is spearheading the building of the largest Catholic Church in our diocese to seat about 1500. Augusta is the second largest city in Georgia and Columbia County is a booming, growing suburban county. He worked with a clearing house in Atlanta to purchase historic altars, traditional antique windows, Stations of the Cross and other artifacts from churches closed elsewhere.
Please note that the altar below will house the Blessed Sacrament, but can easily allow for Mass celebrated at it in either form, although a free standing altar will be below it. There are matching side altars from the same closed church. I am amazed that these can be dismantled, shipped and then put back together again.
I believe the Church will be consecrated in November. There is still a bit of interior work to be accomplished.
I am excited for St. Teresa's and Fr. Ingram and Fr. Dawid Kwiatkowski, their parochial vicar:
11 comments:
I like the use made of the older altar in the contemporary space. Melding the old and the new isn't an easy thing to accomplish, and it looks like the designers have carried it off well!
I think Fr. Ingram told me the dedication is set for 20 December at 10:00 a.m. Check that date/time with him.
Why this fixation with putting fake table altars (some un-moveable) in front of perfectly good real altars, even in new construction projects and even with the knowledge we now have? When will the madness end and when can we stop pretending this wasn't a giant historical/archaeological error made by the Church?
Ryan - An altar is made an altar by what happen on it, not by whether it is free standing or attached to the wall.
Free standing altars are not "fake" if, on that altar, the sacrifice of the mass is offered.
Using such is not a giant error, as you suggest.
Of course all the major basilicas of Rome have free standing altars. But I think the point well taken is that the attached altar can be used even in then normative Mass and an additional free-standing one is redundant and clutters the sanctuary.
BTW, PI, King Richards in Atlanta has some lovely wooden (natural I think) attached altars that would look marvelous in your Presbyterianized Holy Spirit. Could you image it in the center with the tabernacle where it should be and not on some flimsy shelf next to a choir cabinet, microphones and the clutter of choir or should I say ensemble junk and the presider's chair situated where the clutter of choir paraphernalia is. It would look marvelous! An altar railing would help it to overcome its puritanical Presbyterian look too. You have money, do it!
Good Father first it is not my church. Rather it is the parish church.
I have been to KR in Alpharetta and did not see anything that I thought would be appropriate for Holy Spirit.
I did get a chuckle out of the phalanxes of BVM's and St Josephs standing shoulder to shoulder in the warehouse, though.
Altar rails are expensive, haven't you heard. If I had a quarter of a million to spend, I wouldn't be firing staff and installing an unnecessary altar rail.
No, any upgrading here will be done with furnishings designed for the space, not leftovers from closed churches.
But Pater Ignotus, canon law speaks of priests "taking possession" of parishes (e.g. 572), which includes the parish church.
But, JBS, to "take possession" canonically has nothing to do with ownership.
Too bad they didn't get the altar in the middle....
Altar rail?
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