Communion Rails Return as Churches Embrace Beauty and Reverence
When I was there from 2016 through 2022, I began using kneelers to allow people to kneel if they felt called by God to do so. The article says I only had one, but in fact there were two, for the two main lines approaching the altar.
I recommended to my successor, Fr. Dawid Kwiatkowski, that he install an altar railing in the future. I would not have placed the railing on the top level of the sanctuary but expanded the first step leading up to it for the railing to be there. I think it would not have fenced in the spacious sanctuary as much as having it on the top level does. That’s the fly in the ointment for me. But over all it is a great thing to do.
I should also say that I am the first priest in the Diocese of Savannah ever to have removed an altar railing from a historic church in our diocese in 2004 only to have it restored in a new location in 2015. I guess I have always been a modern trend setter!
This is the blessing of the restored altar railing at St. Joseph Church in Macon, Georgia in 2015:
3 comments:
Agree, Father but for a slightly different reason. If my knees allowed kneeling, your legs are dangling and standing back up might be awkward. Perhaps this compromise made the project realistic economically. Also agree, it is otherwise a successful installation.
Now, if only the tabernacle would find its place on something more substantial. If only the high altar would be reinstated.
I just returned from Paris. Of course we toured the restored Notre Dame. Other than the toilet bowl “people’s altar, “ the restoration is a tour de force. Notre Dame is more vibrant and light than she was prior to the restoration.
Thanks be to God that we never lost our altar rail at the Catholic Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Augusta, GA. Rumor has it that some past pastors wanted to remove it in accordance with the “Spirit of Vatican II”. For many years post 1970 it was only ornamental, but it’s been in regular use for the past four years. The fruits of our return to the communion rail have been the vast majority of parishioners receiving Our Lord kneeling and on the tongue with increased reverence for the Eucharist.
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