The dethronement of the altar of sacrifice in the name of bringing the Meal or supper to the midst of the laity's assembly rather than high above and distant also contributed to the dumbing down of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the respect and reverence due to the Divine Person of Christ.
This image of this dumbed down altar juxtaposed against the original high altar explains in symbol why only 12% of Catholics in dioceses like New York attend Mass on Sunday or better stated, 88% of Catholics are not inspired to attend Mass.
In other words, is there anything inspiring about the look and placement of this post-Vatican II altar when compared to the magnificent high altar, and I mean high, behind the dumbed down, uninspiring one?
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| The stational Mass at San Martino ai Monti last year. (Photo by our favorite Roman pilgrim, Agnese Bazzucchi.) |
8 comments:
NO, bet leftists in the Church don't care if people show up for Mass. They are the enemy within.
If the little box altar cannot be disposed of, a nominal improvement would be to move it up to the area where the high altar is situated. It really looks silly where it is. A total loss of the transcendent nature of the Mass.
If ya can't appreciate the transcendent nature of the Mass at eye level, putting it up on a shelf ain't gonna help ya...
Anonymous, I doubt you care about the transcendent nature of the Mass. Indications are you haven't moved beyond the "group hug" stage.
I would rather see a silly little coffee-table 'altar' in front of an existing high altar, than see the high altar itself demolished and replaced. In continental Europe the latter is not usually an option since the high altar has to be preserved for artistic reasons.
When the liturgy is restored the coffee table can be easily removed. In England high altars were not deemed historically or artistically important enough to merit preservation and were fair game for the wreckovators. In many cases the high altar was mutilated by having the mensa cut back to form a shelf. This was deliberately done to prevent its being put back into use.
John Nolan,
I suspect it was far worse in the US. The only thing that saved the High Altar at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the University of Notre Dame Campus was that the then president, Father Theodore Hesburgh, was ordained and celebrated his first Mass there. The evil, corrupt, lefties in charge of the wreckovation would have ditched it, if given the green light from Hesburgh. The Altar had been crafted in Paris at the Atelier of Robert LaFroc in the 19th century and was purchased by the University's founder, Edward Sorin, at the Philadelphia World's fair. It is truly magnificent, but to the philistines of the 1960s, it was to be discarded in their Calvinist craze to "simplify" the sanctuary.
TJM,
More generally speaking, it's a shame that the Catholic universities of our nation are under the influence (if no longer the control) of religious orders ambivalent about the future of the Catholic Faith here. The same for our Catholic hospitals. The devil must be very pleased with himself.
Dialogue,
Sad, but true. The best thing that could happen to Catholic institutions would be if they no longer had tax exempt status and federal money. They could stop worshipping Mammon then. Ironically, the Church was MUCH stronger in the US before the Church enjoyed these "benefits."
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