reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches
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Anyone with access to The New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America and Detroit: Thompson-Gale, 2003), might take a look at the biography of Edmund Bishop in volume 2, page 409, and then, just for kicks, gaze upon the photograph on p. 412. What might the third edition hold twenty or thirty years hence?
By the way, has anyone read the latest on seminarians being educated to celebrate Mass in the usus antiquior?
Behold the links:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ukcorrespondents/holysmoke/feb08/revolutionintheseminaries.htm
http://www.summorumpontificum.net
Surely this was not the reason for the installation of the sinks behind the reredos in St Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh?
Will Ireland choose to implement the upcoming legislation? Or will it apply for some sort of indult or other exemption?Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome:
The High Altar raised in 1123, raised, canopied and approached by steps, the lot screened by a choir as at San Clemente [currently adapted for the use of the Melchite rite].
And another:
Santa Agatha dei Goti in Rome
This church was the chapel of the Irish College until 1928. If you look closely at the mosaics in the spandrels between the columns, you should be able to make out a whole array of Irish Saints.
And here we have adetail oft he bronze door of Bernward in the West portal of Hildesheim Cathedral, completed in 1015.
The Bernward door is of interest to us here because of the detail on the upper left corner of the detail shown: it depicts a canopied altar with its curtains pulled back. We can take it that this represents how all of the altars above would have looked around the year 1015.
On the question of canopies, it appares that the earliest representation of a canopied altar is to be found in a mosaci in Thesselonika and dates from ante 600. Praxiteles is trying to track it down and will post an image as soon as it is found.
The antiquity of curtains surrounding the altar may be guaged from a reference to teh same in Saint John Chrysostom ‘s (c.347– c.407) homily on St. Paulu’s Letter to the Ephesians [Patrologia Greca 62, 27-30] who regards the practice as completely Catholic.
In MIlan, however, around the same period, St. Ambrose takes a different view. Here he sees the hanging of curtains and veils around the altar in the Porcian Basilica by Justina, the mother of the emperor Valentinian III, as a distinct sign of Arianism [Patrologia Latina 16, 995].
In the following centuries, in the West, a certain unease developed concern9ing the orthodoxy of curtains surrounding the altar. From the later middles ages they begin to disappear. They survived in Spain down to the XI century when they succumbed to the influences of the Cluniac Reform and Gregory VII (1073-1085).
@Praxiteles wrote:
A drawing of the High Altar of St. Peter’s as left by Gregory the Great who died in 604.
Thanks for the isometric diagram, Prax. Note the serpentine columns carved in marble on the bema demarcating the area around the confessio and high altar. Bernini drew on these elegant marble columns in his glorious bronze columns that support the great baldachino over the high altar in St Peter’s today.
The original marble columns depicted in this isometric drawing were worked into the current St Peter’s: they frame reliefs of the secondary relics of the basilica depicted over the four tribunes surrounding the high altar: the veil of St Veronica, the Cross transported to Rome by St Helena, the lance of St Longinus, and the head of St Andrew [returned in the 1960s by Pope Paul VI to Greece]. So after all these centuries, these columns continue their humble service in St Peter’s Basilica.
It is characteristic of true genius that it finds brilliant ways to enhance that which is good, beautiful, and noble, taking from the vast storehouse of the Church things both new and old. If only such genius had been at work in St Saviour’s Dublin!
By the way, the relics of the Passion mentioned above will be brought out on the tribune of St Veronica just after Vespers on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, where one of the canons of St Peter’s will bless the faithful with each individual relic. St Peter’s-in-the-Vatican is the stational church on the Fifth Sunday of Lent.
Here is a picture indicating where the pllars are at present. They can be seen at either side of the galleries over the statues in the great pillars supportinh the dome. The pair here are seen at the tribune of St. Helen, inventrix of the True Cross:
Some splendid views of King’s College Chapel in Cambridge duringt he singing of Gregorio Allegri’s magnificent setting for Psalm 50, the Miserere mei, composed for the Sixtine Chapel whose exclusive prerogative it was until Mozart hear it while sung on Good friday and copied it out from memory:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZL3POaATn8&eurl=http://www.thenewliturgicalmovement.blogspot.com/
This Roman version has some excellent shots of Michelangelo’s two Pietà s and of some of the best contemporary pictures from 1630s Roman realist school:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0zzqkNNv0c
Finally, here is the text
Another one of the alternative architectural practices currently involved in ecclesiastical architecture:
Do not forget the architect responsible for the Classical Revival in the United States of America.
http://www.thomasgordonsmitharchitects.com/
Thomas Gordon Smith has designed exquisite churches, a major seminary, and a monastery, plus he has groomed leading lights in the Classical Revival. Thomas Gordon Smith has remodelled the American Neo-Classical wing at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Absolutely first-rate! And what a sterling gentleman!!
With the Celtic Tiger roaring in full pride, Thomas Gordon Smith ought to be getting calls galore to assist in the restoration and revival of Georgian Architecture. He brings joy and vitality as well as erudition and expertise to all his projects. Floreat!!
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