WOW! A STUNNING RENOVATION OF A CARMELITE MONASTERY CHAPEL AND THE RENOVATION EMPHASIZES POPE LEO’S ORDINARY MAGISTERIAL TEACHING CONCERNING THE PRIESTHOOD AS “ALTER CHRISTUS”!

Liturgical Arts Journal has the story about the Carmel Chapel of the Holy Spirit in Littleton, Colorado. You can see their full story HERE.

If you look at how the Bugnini altar is placed on the steps leading up to the “true” altar, it is done as it was in my childhood parish right after Vatican II. That brought back some memories of 1966 at St. Joseph Church in Augusta, Georgia.

The Bugnini altar is gone and Mass is celebrated ad orientem. This posture emphasizes and makes clearer that the priest celebrating Mass is the “alter Christus” and “In Persona Christi Capitis” as Pope Leo describes the role of the priest at Mass in an elocution to Madrid’s priests. The heterodox are howling out loud and beating their breasts over Leo’s Ordinary Magisterial teaching, truly good news!

What Pope Leo taught about the priesthood has implications for how even the Bugnini Mass should be celebrated and we find those implications in the ad orientem new altar of the Carmelite chapel. 

Here are the stunning before and afters. Thank God they removed the “second graders’” stained glass windows too!

BEFORE:

AFTER (NO DIRECT SHOT OF THE NEW WINDOWS BUT YOU CAN TELL THEY ARE NOT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN’S):