The altar - not real anymore?

[Intercessor]

Denial seems to be the thing to do when it comes down to it.  Denial of Christ crucified ON the cross, and thus an empty cross, denial of sacredness and thus an altar is no longer needed just an area designated for the offering.  Denial of sin and no longer the need for reconciliation with the creator, and the sacrament of confession, the need of the priest and penance and atonement.  

Granny goose!  As far as I know, all the participants in this thread accept Catholic doctrine (one says he is "getting close to believing it").    We don't have to be persuaded to believe what the Catholic Church teaches to be true.  We already believe it.

I had hoped to demonstrate that a faithful Baptist receives a good foundation that God can build on when drawing him to the fullness of Truth in the Catholic Church, the one true Church.

Cheri had asked about the role of the altar in our spiritual lives, specifically about the role the altar had played in our becoming Catholics.  I had hoped to show the relationship between the Baptist's spiritual concepts of an altar of sacrifice and the Catholic's fuller, truer understanding of the role of a physical altar.

There are other very important concerns behind what I wrote.  I have Baptist friends and relatives who sometimes read this forum (to say nothing of all the other Evangelicals who sometimes read this forum).  We need to explain clearly what the Catholic Church teaches (and everyone in this thread is already very clear about what the Catholic Church believes and teaches about an altar).  

We also need to avoid inaccurate or uncharitable representations of what Evangelicals believe.  I did not want us to leave cradle Catholic readers with the impression that Evangelicals had no notion at all of an altar or of sacrifice, and I hoped to make it clear to Evangelical readers that we DO understand that they are our separated brethren in Christ.  

Now, to address specific statements:

Denial seems to be the thing to do when it comes down to it.  Denial of Christ crucified ON the cross, and thus an empty cross, denial of sacredness and thus an altar is no longer needed just an area designated for the offering.  Denial of sin and no longer the need for reconciliation with the creator, and the sacrament of confession, the need of the priest and penance and atonement.  

Baptists do not deny the crucifixion of Christ on the cross.  (They would add that He rose from the dead.)

Baptists do not deny sacredness.

Baptists do not deny sin.

Baptists do not deny the need for reconciliation with the Creator.

Baptists do not deny the need for an atonement and for repentance.

Having said all that, I'll close with this----

I love my Baptist friends and relatives and do my best to have their beliefs correctly and charitably represented on this forum.  However, wherever Baptist beliefs differ from the teachings of the Catholic Church, I, of course, accept the teachings of the Catholic Church and pray earnestly that my Baptist friends and relatives will enter the Catholic Church one day.

Grace and peace to all the brethren, Catholic and Baptist and other Protestant Christians,
Becky

[Steven Barrett]

I agree with Becky on this because of my experience in a Baptist church. It's largely cultural, historical and perhaps a reflection of current evangelical trends in worship. Now I'd go up the wall and my eyes would roll  roun'd n' round when I'd hear the pastor make comments about stained glass windows blocking the Almighty from reaching us. Well, it was jarring of course, but in fairness to the man, loading up his trowel with a few heavy architectural metaphores to make a point hardly constituted a major sin, any more than my truly modest application of polemics (LOL Big time on that! ). Yet, when Communion Sunday rolls around, the sextons make sure a table's set out for him to repeat a symbolic version of our Eucharistic Prayer. The main altar sadly evolved over they years into a large ornamental symbolic table  holding up two large candle sticks and a huge ceremonial Bible. But go to any Congregational Church and you'll probably find the same set up. Go to any "low-Anglican" parish  (mostly in the South) and you won't find nearly anything as elaborate as what Episcopalians are used to up  north.

Denial, my friend, is less theological than architectural. After all, a lot of modern-looking (yep, the "plain Janes" of the latter half of the 20th Century) have a lot of bare wooden crosses, too. Of course, they do make sure to have in plain sight, full crucifixes with the Corpus and Marian statutes. (Uh oh, now I let the cat out of the bag. All our Protestant friend and relatives (esp. those folks) will find all their suspicions validated when they see Mary. But who is anybody to say we can't put up a picture or statute of their Mother in their homes, or Houses of Worship. After all, we Worship Father.

[rbo4u2]

Baptists do not deny the crucifixion of Christ on the cross.

Baptists do not deny sacredness.

Baptists do not deny sin.

Baptists do not deny the need for reconciliation with the Creator.

Baptists do not deny the need for atonement and repentance.

Having said all that, I'll close with this----

I love my Baptist friends and relatives and do my best to have their beliefs correctly and charitably represented on this forum.  However, wherever Baptist beliefs differ from the teachings of the Catholic Church, I, of course, accept the teachings of the Catholic Church and pray earnestly that my Baptist friends and relatives will enter the Church one day.

Grace and peace to all the brethren, Catholic and Baptist and other Protestants,
Becky

So right Becky.  I'm not Baptist, but as a Protestant (Presbyterian) we don't deny any of the things you list Becky.  You are right.  We love the crucifixion.  We preach it as the finished work of Christ.  The reason our crosses are empty is because we emphasize the resurrection victory of Christ.  We think sin is the problem of mankind and, at least in many of our churches, still teach the need for salvation from sin.  I don't need to repeat what you have so clearly said.  We don't have sacramentals like the Catholic church except for perhaps some of the more liturgical churches.  But getting through these "language" difficulties is important.  
What is drawing me to the Catholic church is the liturgical worship.  Intellectually I've resolved most of my major issues. Now it's about a lot of fears, the cost of leaving the comfortable and the impact it will make on our home.  
Thanks for the clear explanations Becky.  

[Intercessor]

So right Becky.  I'm not Baptist, but as a Protestant (Presbyterian) we don't deny any of the things you list Becky.  You are right.  We love the crucifixion.  We preach it as the finished work of Christ.  The reason our crosses are empty is because we emphasize the resurrection victory of Christ.  We think sin is the problem of mankind and, at least in many of our churches, still teach the need for salvation from sin.  I don't need to repeat what you have so clearly said.  We don't have sacramentals like the Catholic church except for perhaps some of the more liturgical churches.  But getting through these "language" difficulties is important.
 
What is drawing me to the Catholic church is the liturgical worship. Intellectually I've resolved most of my major issues. Now it's about a lot of fears, the cost of leaving the comfortable and the impact it will make on our home.
 
Thanks for the clear explanations Becky.  

Dear friend Rich, for whom I have prayed so long,

Thank you for the kind comments.

You are a leader, Rich, a very gifted leader.  So, dear brother, lead the way for your wife and for your friends and loved ones.  Through your prayers and sacrifices and through the grace of God, some of them will follow you into the fullness of Truth.

Still praying,
Becky

[Intercessor]

. . .After all, a lot of modern-looking (yep, the "plain Janes" of the latter half of the 20th Century) have a lot of bare wooden crosses, too. Of course, they do make sure to have in plain sight, full crucifixes with the Corpus . . . .

Alas, Steven, it has been only by strict insistence and monitoring by a bishop that some parishes have restored the full crucifix with the Corpus.  It takes my breath away that a priest might display the full crucifix only when forced to do so. 

Well, let us rejoice that more and more we see bishops who WILL insist and monitor such matters.

God bless,
Becky

[Steven Barrett]

Thanks for sharing that Becky. And for naive moi to have entertained the thought that our Cromwelling the crosses was just relatively isolated within our dioceses, you showed me how much catching I've got to do as well. Maybe I've been spending time following through on St. Paul's admonition to the Phillippians to get their eyes fixed on the better things in life that I was missing out on what's been happening ... OR NOT ... when it comes to making sure our Catholic parishes look like CATHOLIC PARISHES when people walk in the door.

If the laity are willing to part with their hard earned cash to buy hand-made crucifixes imported from Germany, what's with our diocesan bean-counters?!?  :

You'd make a heckuva St. Catherine of Siena telling the bishops to start acting like bishops priests to start acting like priests.  ;)And I mean it because they sure need it!

[rbo4u2]

You are a leader, Rich, a very gifted leader.  So, dear brother, lead the way for your wife and for your friends and loved ones.  Through your prayers and sacrifices and through the grace of God, some of them will follow you into the fullness of Truth.

Still praying,
Becky

Oh my, Becky.  Thanks for the kudos, but methinks you went overboard on that one. You may have to visit confession for that overstatement.    But I'll take your prayers none-the-less.  

[Intercessor]

You are a leader, Rich, a very gifted leader.  So, dear brother, lead the way for your wife and for your friends and loved ones.  Through your prayers and sacrifices and through the grace of God, some of them will follow you into the fullness of Truth.

Still praying,
Becky

Oh my, Becky.  Thanks for the kudos, but methinks you went overboard on that one. You may have to visit confession for that overstatement.    But I'll take your prayers none-the-less.  

You'll have the prayers, but keep the compliment as well.  Folks who have been on the forum a while certainly realize that it was only the truth.  You are indeed a gifted leader and one who has a genuine concern for people.  Now I'll stop embarrassing you.

God bless,
Becky

[left coast mystic]

Cheri -
I have been a member of a nondenominational charismatic church, a Baptist church, a Presbyterian church ,  a Vineyard church, and a Willow Creek church.  None of them had altars or anything that would be similar to an altar.  My perception is that the purpose of having an altar was explicitly rejected by most protestant streams of christianity and if you were to ask most protestants about the existence of an altar in their church that they wouldn't even know how to respond, since this is something that has no place in their world view.

Marcee

[Talithacumi]

Cheri -
I have been a member of a nondenominational charismatic church, a Baptist church, a Presbyterian church ,  a Vineyard church, and a Willow Creek church.  None of them had altars or anything that would be similar to an altar.  My perception is that the purpose of having an altar was explicitly rejected by most protestant streams of christianity and if you were to ask most protestants about the existence of an altar in their church that they wouldn't even know how to respond, since this is something that has no place in their world view.

Marcee

Hola, Marcee  .

Yes, I'm finding out from all the responses that, indeed, my initial surprise at the idea of the altar not being "real" anymore, as I quoted from that book I read, has resulted in a revelation of sorts for me. I mean, it obviously isn't a mindset that is unique to that author. It is just funny to me (as in "strange" or "interesting," in a sense) to find that most Protestants have no real sense of the "altar" as having any part in their religious devotion.

I appreciate you all explaining to me how the mindset of a Protestant differs. I think David E. kind of brought it home when he said, “What Catholics fail to understand is that Protestant devotion tends to be almost exclusively spiritual. It has little of the concrete, material dimension that Catholics value so highly. This explains the general Protestant lack of appreciation for rosary beads, for holy water, for the church building as a holy place. Yes, one comes forward to dedicate one’s life to the Lord, but the altar is merely a symbol of that dedication, not a holy thing in its own right.”

I have had a vague idea of this “difference” from observation when it comes to Protestants. Many seem to have an almost Puritanical understanding of the material – almost as if the physical part of us is not only not important, but almost evil, of the devil – which is why some of them seem so queasy about such things as playing cards, drinking, dancing, even sex. I guess this thing that David E. brought up has to do with that – and in some strange way, it even has to do with that whole “either/or” rather than “both/and” thing that we talk about on here all the time. Like, it has to be either the spiritual OR the material. Whereas Catholics don’t have a problem with both or either. I guess as a Catholic I was always taught that we are both spiritual and physical beings and that we can’t really separate the two, so it really is a different mindset, I suppose. We were taught that when the Fall of Adam and Eve came about, that we humans did not become totally depraved, but rather… wounded. Many Protestants I know seem to think that we became totally depraved during the Fall. I heard one priest (Fr. Corapi?) say that if that were the case, then what would there be left for Jesus to redeem?

Anyway… got off track a little maybe. I know that it seems like I got way off topic, but honestly, in a sense, I think it all ties in together. All that spiritual vs. material stuff, you know?

Becky, thank you for your explanations of how your former Baptist understanding evolved, rather than completely changed, as you were led into Catholicism. And, btw, just to clarify in case I might need to, I sincerely hope my statement on changing one’s “entire outlook and way of seeing things" didn't sound like some sort of insult to suggest that Catholics are so much holier and above Protestants in their understanding of God and spirituality. As I said before, there are Protestants I know who are better Christians than I am. But I simply meant that, as has been suggested many times on here, Protestants and Catholics do see things very differently – it’s like we’re from two different spiritual countries. I have always been fascinated by the different mindsets and different languages between different cultures, and my fascination between the language and cultural differences between Protestants and Catholics is no less so than my fascination towards the differences between worldly cultures. It is simply very interesting to me. So when I said that Protestants who become Catholic need to change their outlook and way of seeing things, it wasn’t to suggest that they are less holy or any such thing, but rather that they have to learn the Catholic “language” and mindset, much like when one moves to a different country they have to learn to think like a native of that country.

Thanks, everyone, for all the responses. This has all been highly interesting!

JMJ
- Cheri  

[Dave Armstrong]

I'm with Marcee on this one. Part of the slight differences seen in this thread are semantics, I think. We're talking past each other. As I alluded to earlier, it has a lot to do with the notion of "sacred space." I used to make the argument myself, that all places were equally sacred, because it is God's creation. If one thinks all places and spaces are equally sacred, then of course, the front of a church would be included in that.

But this misses the point. God is omnipresent, too, but it doesn't follow that He is not present in a more profound way in the Eucharist and in a eucharistic chapel. Catholics believe in this sense of particularly sacred space precisely because we believe in the Real Presence and eucharistic adoration, and the Sacrifice of the Mass. The latter was vehemently rejected by all Protestants, save for a very few high Anglicans.

That is what "altar" -- literally speaking, is about. It hearkens back to the OT sacrificial system, Jesus as the Lamb of God, the table of the Lord (vs. the table of demons: St. Paul). Once that goes, the notion of "altar" is gutted. "Altar" doesn't simply mean the place in front of the church where the pastor gives his sermon or where (in some churches) people come up to devote themselves to the Lord. It's much more than that. The term is still often used, as a carryover from Catholicism, but I think it is unfortunate because it entails a radical redefinition of what the word has historically meant.

It doesn't follow that we are saying that no Protestants think anything is sacred, etc. No! Of course not. I wasn't of that mind, and I dare say that no other convert here ever was, either. That's not the point. Protestants believe in sacred space when they go to Jerusalem. They wouldn't consider desecrating any of the holy sites. But in rejecting the traditional notion of the Sacrifice of the Mass, the altar goes, too, even if it is still called that.  Continuing Real Presence of Christ in a Catholic Church is why that space is sacred; why we genuflect; why we adore Christ in eucharistic adoration; why the sanctuary in from of the altar is a limited area during Mass, and treated with great reverence at all times.

That is not the case even in churches where the Real Presence is believed (traditional Lutherans and Anglicans), because they think the Presence ceases as soon as the service is over or after everyone receives communion. Protestants will respect the sanctuary area of their church but it is in a different sense; it's not because they think Jesus is truly present there in a very special way. He's only present in the sense that He is omnipresent in His Divine Nature. Since that applies to every place on earth and the universe, there is not all that much difference in the front of a church.

[Dave Armstrong]

We see the Protestant aversion to altars in the sense I have described in, e.g., John Calvin, where he writes "we know that the altars do cease, the sacrifices are abolished, whereof there was some use in time of the law . . . "

[see the larger quotation on Google Reader, p. 554: search for "altars"]

There is no question that the Calvinist tradition (out of which large portions of the Baptist tradition is derived) scorned altars, and acted consistently insofar as altars and other Catholic items were often destroyed by Calvinist iconoclasts. This was true in the church in Geneva where Calvin preached (St. Pierre or St. Peter). Hence a web page about the church noted:

The Catholic cathedral of St. Peter became a Protestant church in 1536. John Calvin preached here from 1536 to 1564, and the cathedral became the guiding center of Protestantism. Like reformers all over Europe, Calvin's followers stripped Geneva's cathedral of its altars, statues, paintings and furniture. Only the stained glass windows remained. . . .

The nave is generally austere but warm, with a pleasing mix of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. The austerity is due to the former cathedral's transformation into a Protestant Church in 1536. The Calvinists had little tolerance for religious images and any kind of excess, so they destroyed nearly everything but the bare architecture and whitewashed over the murals.

Fortunately, there were a few survivors of all this destruction - the stained glass in the chancel and the wonderful Romanesque capitals in the nave, which depict both human figures and a variety of mythical creatures.

The Lutherans didn't do this. But the Calvinists did because they were iconoclasts, and part of that was considering an altar an idolatrous remnant of Catholicism. And that is because Catholics believed in the Real Presence and the Sacrifice of the Mass.

In an article about Calvin's influence on the English "Reformation", the following appears:

Add to this, that, according to the said Heylyn, the order for removing altars, and placing communion tables in their room, was chiefly owing to the influence of Calvin. "The great business of this year (1550) was the taking down of altars in many places, by public authority: which, in some few, had formerly been pulled down by the irregular forwardness of the common people. The principal motive whereunto was, in the first place, the opinion of some dislikes which had been taken by Calvin against the (first) liturgy."

I even found a Baptist online who agrees exactly with what I am saying about how most Protestants view an "altar" in the full Catholic sense:

Baptist Altar-ations

In his post “Fads and Fixtures: The Seven Deadly Trappings of Evangelicalism,” Joe Carter writes that one of the fixtures he finds troubling is the “altar call.” While I too find the altar call methodology troubling, this brings up a larger question in my mind for my own denomination:

Why do so many Baptist churches refer to the front of the church as the altar?

I’ve heard this terminology used in countless Baptist churches, even from pastors who should know better. The last time I checked, transubstantiation was not on any Baptist confessions of faith that I know of. Baptists believe that Christ was sacrificed once for all. In the Lord’s Supper Christ is not continually sacrificed, as Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, and others believe. We don’t burn offerings, and I haven’t really ever seen any kind of elevated structure other than a pulpit.

It’s clear that in Baptist practice, the term “altar” has become synonymous with the front of the church sanctuary, but why do we retain the term? We’re Baptists, after all. We don’t do altars. Can any of you more studious church historians enlighten me?

The Baptist view, along with that of many other evangelicals, is that since Christ was sacrificed once, it does not need to be “re-presented,” as you say. His sacrifice was presented to us once for the ages. In our view, this “re-presentation” is akin to “re-sacrfice.” After all, we would argue, why is there a need for an altar if there is no sacrifice?

Baptist Ken Blue makes basically the same point:

Having been saved and reared in Baptist churches all my life, it never occurred to me that much of what we do is steeped in tradition. We have borrowed these from Judaism and the Catholic Church. One of these is the so-called “altar.”

[Free]

It sounds as if Rich's Presbyterian church calls the front of the church the altar and has altar calls there.

In the Presbyterian USA church that I attended, the word "altar" was never used about any area of the church.  Like the Calvinist iconoclasts that Dave talks about, that word was thrown out.  I didn't even know how to understand that word when I began to read the Old Testament.

Also, the word "sanctuary" did not refer to the area that contained the pulpit.  In the Catholic Church the sanctuary is the area at the front of the church around the altar.  In the Presbyerian church, the entire nave of the church, where the people sat in pews, was called the "sanctuary."  I think this goes back to Calvin's throwing out of priests and emphasizing the priesthood of all believers in quite a different way than the Catholic Church talked about the priesthood of all believers.  Calvin's way was a rebellious overthrow of the need for priests.

But why should Calvin need priests, if there was no altar and no sacrifice?  For the basic function of priests is to carry out the sacrifice at the altar.

Presbyterian USA'ers at least kept a rudimentary concept of the word "sacrament," but Baptists, Church of God, non-denominational churches & others threw that out, too.  Communion and baptism became "ordinances," to the Baptists, which meant something to do in obedience to God, but without the concept of it being a means of grace.

As someone in this thread mentioned, throwing out this or that becomes a slippery slope, and the Protestants are still sliding down it.

Those that are adding back in this or that, such as communion every week, or a crucifix, can't really fix things that way.  I hope and pray that they'll understand sooner rather than later that they must humble themselves, repent of their "protesting" and ask to be received into the Catholic Church.

[colony1]

We have lost the concept of sacred space. Last week I had to get up and ask a gentlemen to stop tweerling his rosary in Mass.

[Steven Barrett]

Not even relatively speaking, this thread is ab-so-lute-ly fascinating if for no other reason, than to learn the deep history and even deeper signficance in the differences of teachings and opinions Catholics and Protestants have on this issue. Perhaps I've just been complacent all my life to the point of not really paying all that much attention to it before returning to the Church, or perhaps, due to the growing sense of informality (shaped largely by the very influential Gordon-Conwell Seminary a 100 miles to my east) shared by many of the newly minted Evangelicals -- viz "mainstreamers." Of course, if there'd been any major moves to institute a more formal recognition of "THE ALTAR" in the Baptist congregation I belonged to, or de-emphasize role of the Altar in the Episcopal parish we belonged to prior, then I might've watched a different set of circumstances played out.

 As a former military dependent, I attended many Masses said in quite a few “informal” spots, such as a base armory, cafeteria, and the “chapel” in the Lindsey Kaserne, where my dad was stationed in Wiesbaden … wasn’t a “chapel” at all: It was a small movie theater. This of course begs the question, “what constituted the altar,” and/or putting it in another, perhaps better, angle, “how could anyone tell if the altar was sufficiently designated as ‘sacred’ enough for the Priest to say Mass on it?”  I’m not raising these questions to be facetious. After all, there are those occasions when necessity commands a certain amount of “informality,” (i.e., in a battlefield zone such as Gettysburg, just prior to Pickett’s Charge, or on a destroyer where chapels were created out of the enlisted mens’ or officers’ galleys.) Go to Google/Images and type in Catholic Chaplains, history, us and you’ll see several thumbnail photos that can far better illustrate my point and of course, any veteran reading this post … and by the way, thank you for your service to our country … will have memories as well to share.

Thankfully, our military chaplains and chaplains serving in various other “outside the ‘regular’ parish walls” are well equipped and trained in how to adapt to some very trying circumstances, some of which have been fatal, indeed. How many people know that the Instruments of Surrender signed by the Japanese on the USS Missouri were laid out on a standard galley mess hall table and that the green cloth placed under them was also standard “government issue”? And how do we, know for sure that the same table was or wasn’t used later that day or just prior to the ceremony during one of our Masses or an Episcopal Eucharistic Service? This begs another question, is the use of a shared altar with Protestants “dilute” the sanctity of space used by Catholic military, police/fire and academic chaplains? Hardly. I only brought this up because I was beginning to see … and maybe I’ way off here … a bit of over-worrying.

Don’t worry, that’s what we have a Magisterium for and the Good Lord knew we’d need it and firm leadership when it comes to saying “yes,” “no” and making sure “maybe’s” take centuries to give a yea or nay answer to. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but Rome takes its time and for at least 35,000 valid reasons, as of today and still counting!

The more I read up on religious history, especially as it concerns the English “reformation” and its disastrous ripple effects (not to mention Oliver Cromwell’s march through Ireland that made Sherman’s March to the Sea and through South Carolina look like Pax Christi peace marches) and especially as it concerns the shaping of our own nation (and let’s never forget it IS a Protestant nation for a lot of reasons, BOTH [good] and some bad) the more illustrative issues like the one we’re discussing in this thread, seem to play a larger (behind the scenes) role in shaping our earliest foundations.  

After all, while the Cromwellian Commonwealth lasted only a decade, its after-effects lingered in the colonies, especially in New England, and some of them continue to play some role in how we (Christians in the U.S.) get along or don’t get along.  And they got their start back in England when the Puritans, outraged by what they viewed as “popish” practices creeping back into “reformed” English Christianity, and a whole host of other arguments, some of them quite valid concerning the general corruption of the monarchy, overthrew the Stuart King Charles I and had him beheaded. In this snippet of “Oliver Cromwell: The  Puritan Caesar, starring Richard Harris as Cromwell and Alec Guiness as Charles I,” there’s a portion dealing with Cromwell’s reaction to “popish” artifacts, including a golden/silver beautiful Crucifix on his parish church’s altar. Perhaps Harris, who was Irish, might’ve hammed it up to make Cromwell look worse, but the effect is attention-grabbing nevertheless. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phz5AADXXM0&feature=related (Move the scroll dot at bottom of screen to the the point where it says 2:66.)
But were the Puritans all that against “gussying” up their sacred objects?  Or even their churches? Were they all that dour in appearance, and in their tastes concerning furniture? Not entirely. (I’ve never mastered the art of linking with newer Forum format, and as I’m typing this out on MS Word to get around the “bouncing screen” so I can paste it all on, I’m suggesting the following steps if anybody’s interested: Go to Google and type in “goffe bible,” a 1599 Bible said to be a Geneva inspired version that belonged to one of Charles I’s ‘regicides’ who signed his death warrant.) On the “search results page, you’ll see “Cultivating a past: essays on the history of Hadley, Massachusetts (By Marla R. Miller, editor.) (2008, Amherst, MA, Univ. of Mass. Press,) beginning with p. 124. The author of this chapter/article, Robert Antonnelli, Curator of Rare Books at Smith College’s Mortimer Rare Book Room. )

Somehow, and in some way(s) many people in this country (especially) got it into their heads that less is more when it comes to honoring God. Granted, I’ll be the first to admit that in many respects, the simple designs of many Protestant New England Meeting Houses (Congregational Churches) and some town halls which took their cue from the Puritans/Congregationalists … are quite handsomely beautiful and bring honor to Him. (Far moreso than today’s amphitheater-like barns designed for packing in as many people as possible to take in loud “praise n’ worship ‘music’” that’s more distracting than anything else, and to boot, while many of these so-called “worship facilities” don’t even have an altar, their “pulpits” are plexiglass easy-order items that scratch easily and look like hades after a year or so of moving around, not to mention the “talk show format” some megachurches feature.

At least the Puritans did have a table to place their (sometimes elaborately decorated) Bibles in a prominent spot, and to my knowledge, their Congregationalist heirs are continuing this tradition. Protestantism’s varied approaches towards the Real Presence on or at the altar should be of less consequence (save for praying that they come over to where they can meet the Lord very personally in the Real Presence with us) … than what Becky drew attention to yesterday concerning the necessity of some needling and prodding on our bishops’ part to get some pastoral leadership shown when it comes to making Catholic churches begin to look like Catholic churches again.

I couldn’t help chuckling a bit when I noticed a new thread beginning about the upcoming revisions to the Missal (that to this pre-Vatican II relic) isn’t all that much different than what I used to read on the English side of my (“bilingual before it was cool” St. Joseph’s Missal, 1962 edition). On my way  home from Mass this morning, I was wondering if the revisions will arrive before we settle this thread and SHOUT! --

 Halleluhia! CHNI Locuta Est, Causa Finita Est!

Anybody want to give me an “Amen”?!