The Tabernacle

Onesimus

I have down through the years encountered now, many Churches who have removed the tabernacle from the central place of worship to remain hidden at the side of the altar. In replacement of this is usually an icon of Jesus in the center instead of the Tabernacle.

What are your thoughts upon this? The CCC in 1183 and 1379 both tell us that the tabernacle should be given the central place of worship.

So why is it that this has been removed with almost no mention of it or opposition to it from others like ourselves?

By the way I encounter this in Roman Churches not Byzantine.

lmaopml

I only saw one Church so far where the Tabernacle is to the left....slightly - maybe a misinterpretation of Vat II Onesimus....I dunno...

In my Parish, Jesus is exactly where he should be dominating the centre We also have regular Adoration in the Parish, which is getting more and more popular, quiet time with Christ in silence and joy, just praying and listening and giving and receiving, there seems to be a steady throng of people eager to seek the peace in quiet Adoration. Actually it's beautiful turning the corner at the entrance to the Church and smiling and bowing to our friend and Savior right in the centre to greet you and welcome you to his house, his Holy real presence. It's like coming home every time...

Snappy Smurf

This was done by bishops and their parish priests under a mistaken notion inspired by an incorrect interpretation of the liturgical changes decided upon at Vatican II. However, Cardinal Ratzinger was asked, concerning (I think) the re-ordering of a cathedral in Cobh, Co. Cork, and he said that nothing in Vatican II required the dumping of altar rails or the moving of tabernacles. Many beautiful churches were wreak-o-vated following Vatican II. Why was there no objection? In some places, there was, but in others, the church was shut for refurbishment, and only the inner circle knew what changes were being made. The first the faithful learned of it was when they stepped inside the church when it was finished. It was a disgrace and a crime against Catholic culture and worship and a total dumping on the dreams and work of many people who built those beautiful churches. Vincent Twomey said (more or less) that the bishops who wreaked the churches had no artistic sense or appreciation of culture. I am angry about it, but resign myself to my own helplessness.

lmaopml

Snappy, there is no point in being 'angry' no joy at all in that, in fact I think it only leads to letting Jesus down, I've done it myself so many times, take it from me, I know....I'm a self righteous fool mostly, until he bends my knee.

'He' does it, nobody else works in the person through Grace to bring a person to the good shepherd - you should be thankful and pray for your Priests and clergy and take part, Christ is present no matter where. It may be 'difficult' to accept many things, but so too is the mission of the Church and I think he has it under his guidance as promised.

I agree that the Tabernacle should be centre, but I think one should be careful about reproaching or always thinking one knows whats 'best' for everybody, including judging your Priest who is trying to be a servant for all (pray for them) - that's where the bit of charity comes in, not to mention gratitude for lifelong commitment to others.

Snappy Smurf

lmaopml wrote: »

Snappy, there is no point in being 'angry' no joy at all in that, in fact I think it only leads to letting Jesus down, I've done it myself so many times, take it from me, I know....I'm a self righteous fool mostly, until he bends my knee.

'He' does it, nobody else works in the person through Grace to bring a person to the good shepherd - you should be thankful and pray for your Priests and clergy and take part, Christ is present no matter where. It may be 'difficult' to accept many things, but so too is the mission of the Church and I think he has it under his guidance as promised.

I agree that the Tabernacle should be centre, but I think one should be careful about reproaching or always thinking one knows whats 'best' for everybody, including judging your Priest who is trying to be a servant for all (pray for them) - that's where the bit of charity comes in, not to mention gratitude for lifelong commitment to others.

Who's 'he'?

I love these posts where people have the gall to correct 'judgmental' comments by others, but in doing so actually end up judging the original poster for being 'judgmental', uncharitable, angry, and ungrateful. :rolleyes:

I might also add there is a thing called righteous anger and it can be a sin not to be righteously angry with good cause. Christ was angry many times.

Onesimus

Lmaopml, I am not a very educated man but if I may offer a wee bit of correction here, there are two types of anger. There is an anger that leads to sin and death. But there is a Holy and righteous anger and that is to hate all that is evil and of the enemy. To actually really hate sin in itself. This is the anger snappy is feeling right now. He is not angry at the Bishops and priests, but their actions ( keeping in mind that we examine ourselves first and foremost ). Because what those Bishops and Priests did is wrong. When someone does something wrong to your best friend, you do not simply sit back and say nothing just because they are Bishops and priests and therefore presume that they ''know'' more about us of these things and therefore we should just ''leave them alone and stick our head in the sand and say nothing''.

It is important that we as a community stand up for what we believe in and admonish one another in the Lord and do it with respect and love. Now the scriptures and teaching of the Church rightly says that to obey is better than sacrafice. It is important we obey our Bishops, but it is also important to express our feelings about certain situations to the Bishop and do so with respect and love. A Bishop may not be aware he has done something wrong within the parish, therefore it is our duty as a community of servants to one another to correct the Bishop. We would be doing him more of a favor this way than sticking our head in the sand.

But in the end prayer for our clergy and obedience to our clergy is what will help turn this around coupled with our actions of voicing it. I don't think the whole blame can be laid just upon priests and Bishops, but those men who call themselves ''Doctors'' of the scriptures, the sneaky theologians who embrace heresy like our ancestors before us embraced the golden calf. And this whole thing runs even deeper than just that, it gets really messy as there is freemasonry in the Church as well. It's dirty business that is going on around us and it is important ( if we can ) as lay people that we remain on top of it and contribute to stamping it out if possible.

But with prayer and through time this will all end. But if we do not write our Bishops and priests and confront them as a group about this problem we have ( and always do so with the best evidence you can find to prove them wrong ), then these people are only going to further carry on the work of Satan and destroy our lovely little Church here in Ireland. The bishop needs more than just one letter of complaint in order to move, he needs a bucket load, so much so that it's taking up so much room that he or the priest simply MUST respond. Its sad that just one letter one do in these times but we are such a lazy country. If we really care about our Church we'll get up off our backside and write these letters.

Finally. Its not just about what we think is best for everybody lmao. We are just echoing what God has already said is best for everybody through his Church and that is he should remain the center of adoration and worship.

Onesimus

lmaopml

Onesimus wrote: »

Lmaopml, I am not a very educated man but if I may offer a wee bit of correction here, there are two types of anger. There is an anger that leads to sin and death. But there is a Holy and righteous anger and that is to hate all that is evil and of the enemy. To actually really hate sin in itself. This is the anger snappy is feeling right now. He is not angry at the Bishops and priests, but their actions ( keeping in mind that we examine ourselves first and foremost ). Because what those Bishops and Priests did is wrong. When someone does something wrong to your best friend, you do not simply sit back and say nothing just because they are Bishops and priests and therefore presume that they ''know'' more about us of these things and therefore we should just ''leave them alone and stick our head in the sand and say nothing''.

It is important that we as a community stand up for what we believe in and admonish one another in the Lord and do it with respect and love. Now the scriptures and teaching of the Church rightly says that to obey is better than sacrafice. It is important we obey our Bishops, but it is also important to express our feelings about certain situations to the Bishop and do so with respect and love. A Bishop may not be aware he has done something wrong within the parish, therefore it is our duty as a community of servants to one another to correct the Bishop. We would be doing him more of a favor this way than sticking our head in the sand.

But in the end prayer for our clergy and obedience to our clergy is what will help turn this around coupled with our actions of voicing it. I don't think the whole blame can be laid just upon priests and Bishops, but those men who call themselves ''Doctors'' of the scriptures, the sneaky theologians who embrace heresy like our ancestors before us embraced the golden calf. And this whole thing runs even deeper than just that, it gets really messy as there is freemasonry in the Church as well. It's dirty business that is going on around us and it is important ( if we can ) as lay people that we remain on top of it and contribute to stamping it out if possible.

But with prayer and through time this will all end. But if we do not write our Bishops and priests and confront them as a group about this problem we have ( and always do so with the best evidence you can find to prove them wrong ), then these people are only going to further carry on the work of Satan and destroy our lovely little Church here in Ireland. The bishop needs more than just one letter of complaint in order to move, he needs a bucket load, so much so that it's taking up so much room that he or the priest simply MUST respond. Its sad that just one letter one do in these times but we are such a lazy country. If we really care about our Church we'll get up off our backside and write these letters.

Finally. Its not just about what we think is best for everybody lmao. We are just echoing what God has already said is best for everybody through his Church and that is he should remain the center of adoration and worship.

Onesimus

Um, I don't think I disagree with you Onesimus - but I do think one has to have more than just 'anger' to give to others...especially Priests.

All too often the vocations of people all over the world are overlooked because they don't 'stand out' or are not news worthy but they are there nonetheless..

It's nice to explain why the 'Eucharist' is beautiful too. No?

bonniebede

Onesimus wrote: »

I have down through the years encountered now, many Churches who have removed the tabernacle from the central place of worship to remain hidden at the side of the altar. In replacement of this is usually an icon of Jesus in the center instead of the Tabernacle.

What are your thoughts upon this? The CCC in 1183 and 1379 both tell us that the tabernacle should be given the central place of worship.

So why is it that this has been removed with almost no mention of it or opposition to it from others like ourselves?

By the way I encounter this in Roman Churches not Byzantine.

If you get a chance go to Merrion Rd Church, which did a nice refurbishment for the Eucharistic Congress.

The tabernacle, which had been moved off to the side of the main altar, (not to a side altar but stuck weirdly on the wall) has been restored to the centre, and now is the clear focus of the church , shrouded in a light lace veil, to indicate its sacred contents.

Added to this a much needed repaint job, with new carpets which lead the eye up to the tabernacle, and a repositioning of the large crucific to the wall behing the altar with a hard to describe golden painted thingy which makes it stand out, all in all a great job done by a sympathetic architect.

Great progress, lets hope many other churches follow suit.

Onesimus

lmaopml wrote: »

Um, I don't think I disagree with you Onesimus - but I do think one has to have more than just 'anger' to give to others...especially Priests.

All too often the vocations of people all over the world are overlooked because they don't 'stand out' or are not news worthy but they are there nonetheless..

It's nice to explain why the 'Eucharist' is beautiful too. No?

But we are not ''giving'' our anger to the priests, but showing anger towards the situation in itself.

This very thread is about explaining why the Eucharist is beautiful, and our wish to celebrate that by giving the Divine presence of Christ in the Eucharist it's proper place.

Thanks Bonniebede for you post also. It's great to hear that things are changing.

God bless
Onesimus

Moving the tabernacle is one of the disasters of church 'renovations' in the late 60's and early 70's. After the Second Vatican Council, the Church wanted to remove much of the ornamentation that filled churches and to modernize the archaic church buildings, so this meant removing some statues, paintings etc. but ended up with smashing altar rails, reredos, using a dinner table as an altar, removing raised pulpits, giving the celebrant a seat, using an ambo and pushing the tabernacle out of the way to give the celebrant central focus instead of Our Lord.

My home diocese is the Diocese of Killaloe it has many examples of 60's and 70's destruction. Even it very own cathedral one of the first cathedrals in the country, to go through destruction of it sanctuary.

Ennis Cathedral: It had it's altar rails smashed, JJ McCarthy's high altar destroyed, they kept the reredos, extended the sanctuary, smashed the pulpit, carpeted the sanctuary, removed the canons chapter stalls and pushed the tabernacle to a side altar.

This destruction was carried out throughout most of the diocese with only Kilrush and Nenagh churches being left relatively unscathed, but only recently was Kilrush church attacked, removing the raised pulpit, extending the sanctuary and removing some altar rails.

In other diocese such as Clogher and Kerry have went through greater ruination. For example, St. Macartan's Cathedral, Monaghan:


In early 1900's


Today:


Don't even have a clue were the tabernacle is in this photo?

Monaghan Cathedral is the worst case I have every seen, and hope to see nothing worse than this.

Snappy Smurf

lmaopml wrote: »

Um, I don't think I disagree with you Onesimus - but I do think one has to have more than just 'anger' to give to others...especially Priests.

All too often the vocations of people all over the world are overlooked because they don't 'stand out' or are not news worthy but they are there nonetheless..

It's nice to explain why the 'Eucharist' is beautiful too. No?

No idea what you're on about sweetheart. How do you know I don't pray for priests and have only anger for them? Oh yes, more judgment and soul-reading. :rolleyes:

Why bring up vocations in this thread?

* * *

Ah yes, Monaghan Catehdral. It looks sooo dated now. So seventies. COmpare that to the timeless Gothic architecture.

lmaopml

Apologies Brer, maybe I was a bit quick off the mark, actually I was too quick off the mark - you just hear so much giving out about Priests these days and lots of it is sensationalised imo, or else it's fringe ubber trads against fringe ubber mods..lol.....and the ones in the middle get tarred. Sorry though, I really shouldn't have assumed anything at all about your post.