Let’s pretend this altar is detached and allows for The Liturgy of the Eucharist facing the nave. What a great altar we could have again.
For some odd reason, new altars after Vatican II, not mandated by Vatican II, btw, became square or box-like and very short and insignificant looking in style and elevation.
Of course, this implied the Eucharist was not so great as pre-Vatican II altars made the Eucharist.
We need to make altars great again and that will make the Eucharist great again in the minds of Catholics and non-Catholics.
2 comments:
In our recent church renovation, we removed a square, wooden table altar. It was maybe 4.5 feet by 4.5 feet. Our pastor noted it was simply too small to celebrate Mass on--yet another example of the impractical, poorly-thought-out ideas of the "new springtime" we supposedly had back in the 1970s and 1980s. He pointed out that our new altar--as altars should be--was a more appropriate size (being about six feet wide and three feet deep), but went on to note the symbolism of it being shaped like a sepulchre. The altar, of course, is encapsulated in stone (it is not a solid block), as is more fitting for an altar.
Yet another thing I am glad to see, as a small reclamation of our proper liturgical tradition, rather than an innovation borne out of a revolutionary mind set that doesn't even work in practice.
Nick
The subject altar, if 5x5 almost follows the Byzantine tradition denoting the 5 wounds of Christ. Our altars have an iconostas before them, so, through the royal doors, all is in proportion. Plop one of these down on an open floor, of course it's going to be dwarfed by much that surrounds it.
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