Saturday, October 25, 2014

Disoriented Altar of Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage 2014


Who in the Vatican controls the position of the altar? It is wrong that for this Mass the priest ministers should have to look toward the priests in choir and that the priests in choir should have to look at the wrong side of the altar and out toward the congregation in order to face the Holy Sacrifice. So the priests in choir at the Altar of the Chair never look at the Chair of Peter! There might be a nefarious metaphor in this.

Why not just put the Altar of the Chair directly under the Chair as it was designed and stood for centuries? Last year for the occasion it was positioned much closer to it's proper place giving ample space for the elaborate ceremonies of the Pontifical Mass before the altar and not behind it. Just another ironic contradiction of our progressive age that the arguably most iconic Altar piece in Christendom should so be divorced from the Altar for which it was made! Well it is quite consistent with the status quo of many of our Parish churches, alas, including my own!

quia zelus domus tuae comedit me Ps. 68:10