According to my eye, depending on where you sit in this basilica or the camera angle, the candles look misplaced and unbalanced. It looks odd, but it is better than just two or six “rinky-dink” candles so many places have. But there is an odd look here and at this angle:
13 comments:
The bottom photo with the traditional arrangement of tte candles
How one perceives "balance" is determined not only by one's geographic location, but also by one's natural preferences and prejudices.
BOTH candle arrangements, the linear and the angled, appear to me to have achieved balance. Taken by themselves one is not, pre se, better than the other.
I like both, the angled one just tends to look off balance from where YOU are not the arrangement.
OTOH the angled arrangement is done so that the priest is the center of attention shows him off more than the "screen" of the straight line. I remember some criticizing the "Benedict" setting when he first used it because the people s view of ME is obstructed. Priest, the Mass is not about YOU.
Egyptian,
Spot on!
Nubian, the mass is never about the priest, regardless of the arrangement of altar accoutrements.
It seems to me a LOT of folks here spend WAY too much time paying attention to the priest, critiquing his movements and gestures, complaining about his smile, his hair style, whatever jewelry he might be wearing.
I suggest the time might be better spent focusing on the mystery and not creating tempests in liturgical teapots.
Frmjk
When priests insist on making a spectacle of themselves, exaggerated swooping arm movements exaggerated pronunciations and phrasing or my favorite exaggeratedly pronouncing and stopping at every word, like....the....dew....fall, it is about him and showing off. It is all in your face and quite disgusting, but he thinks he's making the mass interesting and meaningful.
Nubian - The ones who stop...at...every...word... in my experience are the traditionalists who, at the words of institution where the rubrics say "He bows slightly," incline their bodies greatly, sometimes with forearms resting on the altar, tilt the chalice (what's what all about?) and say, "This....Is....My....Body..." Your experience may be different.
Personally, I'd rather hear a celebrant who pronounces clearly as opposed to a mumbler or, as I find is often the case, a priest who speaks the words of the mass with such rapidity that one wonders if he knows their meaning and importance.
Now, I have never seen a face that is disgusting, but then I'm not focused on the priest's face as you seem to be.
Frmjk
and before you make some snarky comeback. That is about all I have witnessed up here in the northern wasteland of the diocese of Cincinnati for my 63 years of existence with the exception of the 1st 10 years of my memory. the 1st priest I remember was Fr Stock. a dignified man who should be a saint, but then he was a Latin mass man who understood the place of the priest not as a showman, but as a lowly stand-in for Christ. All the rest except for one who was a huge man and a former army chaplain and quite sure of himself, were narcissistic showoffs,
Nubian - Seems this near obsession you have with what the priest looks like, how he moves, what his voice soulnd like, etc., has been with you a long time.
As with the "balance" of candles on an altar, your own preferences and prejudices determine your perception of what is and is not a "narcissistic showoff."
The priest, in his humanity and ALL that that entails, is the "lowly stand-in for Christ." If you have the expectation that the humanity of the priest should disappear when he get to the altar, then it is your expectation, not the traits of the priest, that is wanting.
You want priests? They come with traits and characteristics, some of which may not be to your liking. That's the way of the world - get used to it.
Fr K certainly fits the last sentence to a tee!
Egyptian you have just encountered Clericalism on Steroids. He also votes for the Party of Moloch so his intellectual and spiritual bona fides are suspect
Nubian - What you have encountered is a person who presnts you with facts. Others, like TJM, fly off on flights of personal insult and hyperbole precisely because they cannot face the facts.
That priests come with personal characteristics is a fact, not some hyped up clericalism.
Fr K you insult people here all the time, including Father McDonald. You are also a Hypocrite on Steroids, follower of the Party of Moloch
My own preference, straight across the front with a proportional cross. It's worked for centuries, isn't broken as best as I can tell and shouldn't even be the talking point that it has become.
Heinz already has 57 varieties so that the Roman Church doesn't need to.
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