Why is it that the word renovation has come to strike architectural fear in the hearts of many Catholics? Now I have mentioned my own parish before where the church which was already beautiful was made even more beautiful when it was truly renovated. Of course another loaded term has come to be "worship space" when you see a "church" referred to in this manner it is almost a guarantee of what those in charge of the renovation will do. For example The Church of the Resurrection has this "OUR NEW WORSHIP SPACE" Virtual Tour.
Now if someone unfamiliar with the sacraments compared the baptismal font and the Tabernacle, which do you think they would believe to have the pride of place and the higher importance?
Where one is prominently displayed as you enter the church and the other is off to the side in a reservation chapel. I guess they had reservations that this is truly the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ and that the Eucharist should be treated as such. If the second coming were to occur now would we politely ask Jesus to go stand in a side room?
They also probably were not concerned that what they have done also violates canon law. "The tabernacle in which the Most Holy Eucharist is reserved habitually is to be immovable,…" I don’t know about you, but my definition of mobile does not include the ability for the Tabernacle to be easily carried off by even an octogenarian. Now I don’t have a problem with large baptismal fonts. What goes on spiritual in baptism is an awesome thing to reflect upon and the design and beauty of the physical font used can help us to reflect on this. But the Eucharist as mystery is even more awesome and it is sad that in so many churches that the Sacrament of Baptism seems to have a higher emphasis than the sublime mystery of the Eucharist.
As you move toward the Altar you become aware that it occupies the place of greatest prominence in the room. The altar has been handcrafted by Martin Ratermann of solid black walnut. Although stone is a common material from which altars are constructed, our art and furnishings committee purposely chose wood so that our altar would more readily be associated with the Emmaus table of Luke’s Gospel, at which the two disciples recognized the risen Christ in the breaking of the bread.
Art and furnishing committee? I guess if you really want to screw something up appoint a committee. You know solid black walnut in an octagonal shape really reminds me of the table used at Emmaus. There are just so many reference to black walnut trees in the Bible that I have lost count.
Again it looks like canon law was not part of any consideration.
Can. 1236 §1. According to the traditional practice of the Church, the table of a fixed altar is to be of stone, and indeed of a single natural stone. Nevertheless, another worthy and solid material can also be used in the judgment of the conference of bishops. The supports or base, however, can be made of any material.
The US the Bishops conference says that the altar can be made of other materials with permission of the local ordinary. Of course the funny thing is that the document that allows this permission is called Built of Living Stones: Art, Architecture, and Worship.
"The octagon was a symbol used in the early Church for the Resurrection. Its eight sides symbolize the first seven days of the creation of the world as recorded in the Book of Genesis plus the first day of the New Creation, which is Easter."
I hadn’t heard that before, but that does seem to be a fitting symbol.
Now with all of these modification you just know that there is no way in the world that there will be a crucifix within the sanctuary and you wouldn’t be wrong.
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When you stand in front of the altar platform you are standing in the center of the room. Facing the altar from this point, turn clockwise until you are facing the first grand window with its accompanying oculus window above. Here you find the bronze sculpture entitled “Christ Rising” by Fredrick Hart. It is not apparent whether the figure of Christ in this sculpture is being raised from the cross or if he is rising from the grave. In this work we simultaneously experience the anguish of Christ’s sacrifice and the power of his resurrection. |
So I guess you don’t know if Christ is coming or going much like most modern theology. I am more inclined to title this statue "Diving board Jesus."
What is it with the modern aversion to the cross? All of this "We are an Easter People" as if we got a Monopoly card that said "Go strait to Easter do not pass the Crucifixion." We all have an aversion to the cross and usually increase them by ignoring our crosses. Deemphasizing Jesus’ death on the cross will also likely increase not decrease on own crosses. It is much harder for us to say "why me?" when we look up at our Lord on the crucifix.
Now I don’t really know what to make of this final picture.
Other than that I suspect one of the parishioners objected to all of these modifications and was placed in carbonite like Hans Solo.
39 comments
Makes Ave Maria look pretty good now, doesn’t it??
Ahhhh, Jesus save us all! Your first photo looks like a roulette wheel, and the rest look reminicsent of Roman ruins. Where are all of the old statues going too? Why do they have to have artistic crap from the “How to decorate, and piss everyone off” hand book. Auggggh!!!.
Han Solo— AWESOME, dude.
Look at their website – they even offer yoga and centering prayer classes. And the church movements include Justice but no right to life.
Um, and the tabernacle is located in a side chapel.
I instantly thought of Han Solo and carbonite as well? Stations of the Resurrection? The Tabernacle on a stool?
My own parish just underwent a renovation as well, but we added a beautiful traditional crucifix, Stations of the CROSS, a stone altar, ambo, and gorgeous large tabernacle to the center of the sanctuary behind the altar, after it had been on the side since 1980. Our priests, committee, and the architect did a wonderful job. This parish….errrr community….in Ohio would have benefited from the same.
These folks made your work easy–self satirization to the nth degree. In the 22nd Century, special art studies will be done comparing the absolute beauty of Gothic and Romanesque Churches with these spiritual Burger Kings of today.
There is a church near me that is ready now for the abolishment of religion in the US, primed to be an upscale restaurant replete with a raised stage area for jam session and even limited dance numbers. It was built just as darkness descended on many Catholic minds in the 1960s.
And just how many more can be theatres and restaurants in the round?
Fortunately, some of the old treasures are being cleaned and are used for growing congregations who feel that the church is a place where we reverence the Lord together rather than watch Father O’Flake bring on the June Taylor Liturgical Dancers.
Good grief – that tabernacle area is an abomination. How long before someone bumps into it and knocks it over? And what’s up with the “Jesus being raised”? Since when was the resurrection a passive event? The Apostles’ Creed doesn’t say “on the third day He was raised . . .” does it?
One church I attend recently “renovated.” By and large, horrors were avoided and canon law observed. The one oddity that made it through committe is, fortunately, not even in the sanctuary but rather in the entryway. Here they’ve stuck a statue of the risen Christ to the back wall between two modernistic stained glass windows. In this sculpture, Jesus appears to be a 50-ish slightly paunchy man with a mullet and little boy bangs. Far from being inspirational, it’s just plain weird. I have to hope that some overly generous and cannot-be-offended parishioner donated this and that it can/will be removed when he/she passes on.
How many more years of this? I was sorta hoping that this type of structural heresy was winding down.
More then anything though, poor Jesus. He is sat in a tiny box in another room on top of a book stand. A very thin bookstand that is. Within the first month I am sure he will be knocked over at least once.
Jeff,
Any pictures of your parish’s renovation? It sounds great!
Not Han Solo to me as much as a cocooned person from Aliens. See the way she’s leaning forward trying to get away from the monsters …
The one good thing about making the tabernacle movable is that if they get a new pastor they can affordably move it back into the church.
They’re mummies!
“Raise your eyes above the font and you see the brilliant colors of the third Oculus window and its two accompanying side windows located above the entrance to the worship space… Their design and color symbolize the four elements: earth, fire, water and wind. In the center the flames of fire descend on the font, the circle of the earth has the energy of the wave moving around the window and the wind across it.”
Say what?
BTW, “Diving Board Jesus” is OK, but I prefer “Jesus in platform shoes”, or “Jesus in high-heels”
Don’t you think B16 should just save time and make “Spirit of the Liturgy” his first encyclical?
I notice that they list the Vatican website in their links section. (Dang! How did that slip past the committee? Perhaps they were exhausted after a hard day moving all those random bits of timber and rubble?)
One thing’s for sure: the Vatican won’t reciprocate the honor.
I’ve liked other things Hart did. Hart was a traditionalist artist scorned and ignored by the art critics – Tom Wolfe wrote a great essay on him. “Diving Board Jesus” is an exception.
However, I see worse at my church, St. John’s Cathedral in Milwaukee, where Rembert Weakland’s parting gift to us before retiring under a cloud was to remove the high altar and the pews. Rembert wanted Milwaukee entered in Guinness as the place where you can find the World’s Biggest Crown of Thorns dangling from the ceiling. The Crown dwarves everything else, but there’s also one of those highly stylized, featureless renderings of Christ on the Cross. Except there is no visible cross and Jesus is, bizarrely, holding a big wishbone in his right hand, a detail I do not remember from the Gospels. So I guess he’s the “Thanksgiving Jesus.”
I’ve wondered too why images of Christ Crucified have become so distasteful to modern Catholics. It’s like, soooo embarrassing, man! Such a downer! Can’t we just skip that part?
It just occurred to me that the stylized, asexual oh-so-post-modern Jesus statue I have to look at on Sundays (when I’m not praying that the Crown of Thorns stay in place instead of crashing down one day and impaling a deacon)has to do with multi-culturalism. The old crucifix – which was moved to a side chapel – is not only kinda yucky,with red paint on the wounds, (which reminds us that crucifixion hurt quite a bit) but the Jesus on the cross looks like a white male, and that might offend someone. So let’s have a statue with Jesus looking like a child’s stick figure so nobody looks at the Cross and feels disrespected by a Jesus who is not the same race and sex as they are.
Mitchell�s law of committees: Any problem can be rendered insoluble if enough meetings are held to discuss it.
Incidentally, the Jesus statue reminds me of nothing more than the dancing baby made famous by the show Ally McBeal.
Back to the Tabernacle… I was struck last time I was in another of these churches with the Tabernacle hidden in a corner room how it had been moved into the easiest place in the building to break in and steal it. Nothing Satanists covet more… and the Tabernacle depicted here seems by design and placement to be similarly situated…
Boy I hope I’m a lunatic
Artistic and canonical issues aside, I’d be very careful about downplaying Baptism, even in comparison with the Eucharist. The Blessed Sacrament is indeed the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, but it is through Baptism, and Baptism alone, that we become part of His Body and eligible to receive Him in the Eucharist. To ask whether the Eucharist has a “higher importance” than Baptism is to ask an ill-posed question.
In Nashville there is a ‘Resurrection Jesus’ suspended from the ceiling above the altar with arms raised. Some seminarians have named it the ‘touchdown Jesus’.
“Diving Board Jesus”–Ha!
I just hope it’s not too close to the Baptismal Pool…
I don’t mind a big baptismal font. But they keep putting ’em at the entrance and making ’em pennycatchers — especially the ones that look like they’re inside concrete culverts. The irresistable impulse of all and sundry is to flip pennies into them. I mean, that’s what you do with big fountains and pools in public places, ne? Especially if they have mosaics in the bottom. Oh so respectful of the sacrament of Baptism, to set up the font to collect small change from the unclued.
It’s sad when artists and church designers don’t understand their own culture and the foreseeable consequences.
Tom,
Point taken. I tried to make that caveat in the post but still erred in making a level of importance comparison.
Take a look at the Justice Committee part of the parent site. Pax Christi and Future Church are promiment features. Is it any wonder that the church is barely Catholic?
(And yes it does make Ave Maria v2.0 look better.)
I am personally in favour of immersion fonts (octagonal or Greek cross shaped) but it should have steps down, to signify going into the tomb, and then steps out, as one rises with Christ. This descent into the waters is a poignant symbol of death, which is part of the ambivalence of water as a liturgical symbol (which Scripturally brings both life and death)…
There are great examples of such fonts in ancient early Christian churches, or even in Westminster cathedral, London (a huge font).
Some of the later ‘bird-bath’ fonts are an unfortunate development. I agree the font should not be placed on an axis with the Altar but should be in a separate baptistery.
I agree also that the design on the font is somewhat strange. A more obviously Christian symbol such as the Chi-Rho or the early Christian symbol of the Ichthus or deer drinking from a fount of living water would have been more apt.
Lose last carvings look like naked women. Sheesh, and when we’re trying to get our girls to cover up. 😛
“Altar platform?” That is a new one on me. I guess the word “sanctuary” has just the wrong connotations.
Golly, is that the Holy Virgin Mary apparently trying to escape from being frozen alive in a white ice block? If so, why is she only wearing a veil? What happened to the rest of her clothes?
As for the Tablernacle on a stool… well, it makes me wish I could go to that church, steal it right from under their nose and send it to a more worthy place of worship (like a REAL Catholic Church, not this sort of Gaian Church). I don’t think they notice the Tabernacle gone for several days, if ever, so it wouldn’t be such a big loss for them. Maybe they would find another use for the room it was in… like liturgical dancil rehersal place.
That last line should have read “liturgical dance rehersal place”, of course…
Anyone who’s played the original Myst game can easily recognize that the baptismal ‘font’ is a complete ripoff of the holographic display on the main Myst Island, in the door off the boat dock…
Jeff, you’re right!…….I wonder if they could get them For copyright infringment? ( or what ever) That would make the news wouldn’t it? “Church sued by Computer Game Company for snitching designs” How pathetic would that be?
My only problem with big batismal pools is that they remind me of gold fish ponds. Our Cathedral has one and when ever I catch sight of it during Mass it never fails to distract me with thoughts of fish (the old fashioned Baptismal fonts never did that). When ever I pass it the temptation to dump a couple of fish into it is nearly irrisitable.
the Diving Board Jesuses are terribly popular. We had one in the Cathedral in Halifax that is just plain ugly. Fr. Currie (now the bishop of Grand Falls Newfoundland,) used to call it The Diver Who Dived for our Sins. Fr. Currie was no traditionalist, but even he used to say that the sanctuary at St. Mary’s Basilica had been “ruined” by the wreckovators.
“The diver who dived for our sins!” Wow! I cannot stop laughing! That is great! I guess I missed the diving board Jesus – Oh no, nevermind, I see it now! I have never played Myst, but I appreciate the astute observations. I just goes to show you when Catholics reject or simply render themselves vincibly ignorant about their own heritage (I am talking here about Sacred Art) they have to make stuff up or steal it from the most banal elements of the surrounding culture.
Regarding immersion fonts, I had a wedding last night at my old parish and the bride’s sister walked into the semi-immersion font, tripping and falling into the water! She is alright, though I am sure it hurt her pride a bit. I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other about immersion fonts v. “birdbath” fonts. But for goodness sakes, choose one or the other! This font is oval shaped (just as the altar, ambo, and priest’s chair – even the “altar platform” as some there call it is oval-shaped. But I digress!) and the lower (semi-immersion) part has sidewalls that are only eighteen inches high. The poor girl lacked peripheral vision and so she tripped. If the font had been a true immersion font (and not a little oval bathtub) she never woudl have lost her balance! On the other hand, I do not advocate for fonts that look like fountains to have coins thrown into them.
Speaking of coins, are any of you aware of the “confessio” in front of the high altar at the (Cathedral) Basilica of St. John Lateran? For some reason, folks throw coins down onto it. Does anyone have the background on that? I found it disconcerting to say the least.
The problem with committees is that they are stacked with bored retired reformers while the active orthodox members of the parish are too busy doing real ministry to get involved and prevent travesties from happening.
Jeff,
You lost me by paragraph 3. And the first ten comments didn’t help. Another typical display of St Blog’s narcissism.
The baptism/reservation comparison comments are swing-and-a-miss. Humor, not theology, is clearly your deal.
It wasn’t uncommon in Baroque art and architecture to represent the corpus in a pose that ambiguously suggested both painful contortion but also the posture of ressurection, but it was always a corpus nailed to a cross. Yes the resurrection goes hand in hand with the crucifixion, as one is the necessary consequence of the other, but I wonder how this sculpture was justified without the cross.
When churches such as these have creeds that are more like humanist expressions of political affiliation where the closest thing to a mention of God is ackowledging “a creative contiousness that energises the whole of creation”, then are you really that surprised?
Actually, I’m a Milwaukee Cathedral parishioner, there most Sundays and would have been there this Sunday except I’m fresh out of hospital, and there’s no wishbone on or about the crucifix. There is a dove ascending from Jesus’ right hand as His head is lowered (by the way, not featureless, just not ultrarealist). The moment depicted is the Lord handing over His Spirit. The emphasis is on the glorious wounds by which our salvation is gained, with radiant golden beams.
Maybe one actually has to pray there…… it’s a vast improvement on the dark, inaccessable, asbestos-ridden, no-room-for-a-proper-choir, but loved solely because it is the Cathedral, the center of the Church, previous condition.
Now to get the seven new, and still empty, shrine spaces filled!
Todd,
“The baptism/reservation comparison comments are swing-and-a-miss. Humor, not theology, is clearly your deal.”
Let me explain it simply. The Real and Substantial Presence of Christ is more prominent than a symbol and/or location of a sacrament which derives its import from Christ Himself.
Do you worship Christ or the Jordan River?
I am an editor for Church & Worship Technology and doing an article on churches that have undergone renovation, focusing on the addition of audio/visual equipment for the church.
I was wondering if this type of equipment was installed? Does the church conduct large productions or presentations?
How was the decision making process done and who participated for the renovation project?
Would you like to share some of the experiences you went through on this project?
Church & Worship Technology is distributed natioanlly to leaders in churches who select and purchase systesm and they would be very interested in what you have to say.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Saran Hirshman
Workhorse Publshing
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