Rambusch and Company completely renovated or wreckovated Saint Teresa’s Church in Albany, Georgia when I was assigned there as a newly ordained Associate Pastor as we were called way back then. The renovation took place between two pastors, between 1981 and 1982.
I was assigned there from 1980 to 1985.
There was a little private prayer area behind the reredos where the tabernacle was in full view. The tabernacle was quite beautiful too and a work of art. But few chose to use this chapel. However, during Mass, one had to go behind the modern reredos to repose the Blessed Sacrament not consumed during Mass. But there were doors on both sides of the tabernacle so that it could be accessed from the other side when the sliding doors were opened.
In subsequent renovations of the church in the late 2000’s, the windows were removed for something more traditional looking and an old altar reredos from a closed chapel replaced the Rambusch reredos and tabernacle. Thus the new tabernacle in an old altar is out there even during Mass.
If I would design a new reredos for a new Church today, I would make it look more traditional so that the six candlesticks had a shelf to flank the reredos on either side but maintain the sliding doors to hide the tabernacle during the celebration of Mass.
Nonetheless, I loved the Rambusch reredos as I felt that it and the abstract windows fit the 1950’s A-Framed church very well and complemented the austere look of the building and did not impose a more dressy traditional look not integrated with the 1950’s modern style of the building.
Just my two cents. What do you think about this way to hide the tabernacle during Mass?
10 comments:
Looks unsafe for Catholic worship!
"The abstract windows, but filled with color, had religious symbolism but it had to be explained"
Card. Fernandez would nix those windows so fast, to be sure... sure.
Nick
Unnecessary ceremony/theatrics. During this pseudo reunion with the Orthodox, imagine their shocked reaction to such a notion and its perceived necessity.
A parish near me just removed their doors that looked like a big cookie.
Just veil the tabernacle or it's doors as was traditional.
The reredo is too geometric and I don't know, too symmetrical. I like the tabernacle being in the center of sanctuary. I don't like when sanctuaries jut out into the nave. Also, the Sanctuary stage is too geometric, seemingly a perfect square.The abstract windows are hard to interpret.
Father, I'm a long-time reader who appreciates your insights and your devotion to good liturgy. I know you've said that there was a period where you drank the Kool Aid of your modernist seminary training, which leads me to ask: WHY do so many priests trained in the 70s and 80s wear the stole over the chasuble like in your pictures? What was being taught back then?
What you call the new/old "traditional" windows are, IMHO, rather banal, and don't fit the style of the church. They are pale with symbols that are rather small and difficult to see. Much the same can be said about the new/old altar which looks entirely out of place.
As far as the outside stole, the theology about that is that it is the primary liturgical symbol of being ordained a deacon, priest or bishop. The chasuble is a later development. Some got rid of the chasuable altogether and wore a flowing alb with only the stole. But most wore a chasuable that was plain and the stole over it as in a couple of the photos on this post. I think that lasted welll into the 90’s and there might have been a correction about it under Pope Benedict but I don’t remember that too well. When I was at our Cathedral and the diocesan MC, I purchased a couple of chasuable with outside stoles and our then bishop, Raymond Lessard was not adverse to wearing it. I liked it at the time and understood the theology behind it, but I have sense moved on from that novelty.
The irony being that, with the chasuble symbolizing charity and the stole the authority of orders, the “pastoral”/synodal/hip post-Vatican II innovation unintentionally (I hope), but a little amusingly, put authority over charity.
Nick
(Or symbolically did away with charity in favor of authority altogether)
Father McDonald,
Did St. Teresa's recently get renovated and a magnificent high altar and new windows installed?
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