Transformation of an Altar From Fabulous to WOW!
Despite the fact that I have an “issue” with non-linen Altar linens I am usually content (for the most part) to stay out of the current liturgical debates in the Catholic Church. (That does not mean that liturgical abuses don’t set my hair on fire.) I understand the reasoning behind the use of Latin (and it isn’t because Latin is more holy than English, or French, or German, or Polish….it’s a matter of UNITY) and my children are learning many Catholic prayers and parts of the Mass in Latin. I love contemplating the symbolism and the richness of the Tridentine mass but I also love contemplating the richness and the symbolism of Novus Ordo. I think our answer lies in the Gospels and at the feet of Our Lord. Jesus went to the Temple with all of it’s ceremony and ritual but He also broke bread with the people on hillsides. Jesus makes the Sacrifice of the Mass holy and not our trappings. Just as so many theological issues are not either-or they are both-and. (Jesus is both fully Divine AND fully human, God is both ONE and Three Persons, etc.) my personal opinion subject, of course, to Church authority, is that we should embrace both the Tridentine AND the Novus Ordo. One focuses us on supreme Holiness and Majesty of Christ and the other on His Perfect Humility to walk among us and His People. It is us in our limitations that cannot grasp all that Our Lord is and did at once. We can’t celebrate Easter once and then not need to do it again. Or Christmas, or Pentecost either. The Church in her wisdom brings us back to the same place prepeatedly because we cannot grasp it all the first time. As we meditate and pray and grow the same Sacred Scriptures and the same celebrations mean more to us. Would we still be able to grow even if, like the first Christians, we had only some of those Sacred Scriptures? Of course! But as Catholics we should embrace the Fullness of the Faith. Rather than vigorously fight for one expression of the Mass over the other (let’s save our fight for actual abuses) could we not look to our human limitations and see what is more perfectly communicated to those of us limited by the flesh in each? Jesus loved both Mary AND Martha….it is just a matter of matching their respective gifts to the appropriate time and place.
That said. This was just breathtaking!!
