Rhabanus

Tu dixisti, Praxiteles! Any fool knows that one DESCENDS into the waters of baptism and one ASCENDS to the Altar of the Lord. Here again, those who reject the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist (and their name I regret to say is Legion) will flatten down the Altar lest the image of Isaac ascending Mt Moriah or the words of the Psalmist “laetatus sum in eo quod dixerunt mihi: in domum Domini ibimus. Stantes iam sunt pedes nostri in portis tuis Ierusalem! find appropriate expression. Christ descended into the River Jordan but WENT UP to Jerusalem. This is a frequently mentioned reference to His Passion and Death where, according to the Fourth Gospel, the Hour was accomplished when the Son of Man was GLORIFIED, not hidden from the crowds.

The cathedral in Milwaukee was wreckovated by Rembert Weakland osb and the Altar, which is where the central act of Catholic worship and the very priestly office itself of Jesus Christ is exercised. There, too, the celebrant must descend to the level of the floor to offer the Most Holy Sacrifice. Abraham and Moses, no less than Our Lord, offered sacrifice on the heights, the summits, the peaks. The Shekinah YHWH – the Glory of the Lord – hovered over the mercy seat of the Ark atop Mt Zion.

In the Milwaukee cathedral the sanctuary of the Lord is filled not with His glory but with organ pipes (the graceful ciborium having been discarded as a mere “distraction”) and jutting out from a platform, like the prow of the Titanic, is a kind of ambo. So what greets the visitor upon entrance to that Abomination of Desolation is MUSIC and WORD: the work of the Protestant Reformers of the 16th century carried out four hundred years too late.

I’m sorry, Praxiteles, and all kind readers, but this reduction of the Altar to an ignominious, disproportionately truncated butcher’s block on the lowest point of the building screams out a rejection of the SACRIFICE of the MASS. The good folks in Cobh can tell when they are being bamboozled. Cliche after banal cliche is trotted out by every architectural hack keen to make a quick buck off the vanity of idle prelates and the caprice of cynical clerics keeping the Church going as long as She keeps them going. Time-servers and wastrels the lot of them! Let them turn their attention to something useful, like reevangelizing the Emerald Isle, feeding the poor, harbouring the homeless, and letting Catholic believers and thinkers get on with restoring the Worship of God in the House of God.

The glory of Ireland’s magnificent houses of worship is too precious a patrimony to be handed over to ill-educated clerics with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Before they are allowed to put one grubby, iconoclastic finger on any part of a church or chapel (let alone a cathedral!), they should be made to pass an examination in systematic theology, then another in liturgical and sacramental theology; then finally, another in Christian iconography.

There would be fewer tragedies like the wreck in Drumaroad if Ireland were to rediscover the rich tradition of her Catholic faith and recover the noble patrimony of classic Christian iconography. For Heaven’s sake, break down and buy a book like Zibawi, The Icon: Its Meaning and History, tr. Patrick Madigan (Collegeville MN: Order of St Benedict, 1993) or the classic work by Evdokimov, The Art of The Icon: A Theology of Beauty, tr. Stephen Bigham (Redondo Beach CA: Oakwood Pub, 1990 [original French, 1970]). Ratzinger, incidentally, uses the latter to great advantage. Oh yeah! He’s Pope now. I suppose that counts for something, even these days!

One excellent way to begin is to read (or reread) and circulate Jean Corbon’s The Wellspring of Worship. Corbon, an Easterner who brings to his subject some well-needed Lumen Orientale, He unpacks for even the most theologically and liturgically illiterate, the mystery (mysteries) of the Sacred Liturgy. He brings the reader from the fountain of life streaming from the Heart of the Father to the New Jerusalem where the River of Life culminates in the trees that bear fruit in due season (saints around the Throne of God and of the Lamb).

And if any of these books is beyond your limited income, either go to a public library or ask to use the library of any Catholic college or university.

And if you cannot read these works for lack of time or academic acumen, then just read an Easter homily by St Melito fo Sardis (available in The Liturgy of the Hours, Vol. 2: Holy Thursday Office of Readings): All the Old Testament types of Christ are mentioned there. This single homily alone could inspire a bright new interior of St John the Baptist in Drumaroad and help, rather than distract, the congregation to take their rightful place around the Altar of God as they celebrate the Victory (not the deflation) of The Lamb!

St Patrick preached the fundamental mystery of the Blessed Trinity with the simple shamrock. How is it that centuries of Catholic worshippers in Ireland recognised this treasure of inestimable worth and the wannabe-chic know-alls of the new liturgical destruction despise it?

The solipsistic designs on the oversized dishrags hanging from the walls of the drearily reordered St John the Baptist in Drumaroad sum up the whole pitiful tale: we repudiate excellence in design; we reject the vast heritage of Christian art; we defy any attempt either to raise the worshipper to the new Jerusalem or even to push aside for an instant the curtain of heaven. “Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return!” None too soon, either!

The real animus against the elevated Altar is a combined opposition to the Sacrifice of the Mass and the glory of the Catholic priesthood. It likewise is a rejection of Roman models of worship. After all, these ideologues are inveterate Gallicans, who long since have rejected Rome’s authority on all levels. O Ireland, Isle of Saints and Scholars! How didst thou press such snakes to thine unstained bosom?

@Fearg wrote:

Seems that it went in 1904, also, the mural/mosaic at the east end of the nave must also have been replaced at that time:

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The stencilling in the arch crossing is absolutely splendid. Great colour reproduction, Fearg! I gather that the statues in the crossing are the four Evangelists – again highly appropriate. The key here is the Apocalypse where the four creatures (symbolising the Evangelists) surround the Throne of the Lamb. Christ, the Alpha and the Omega on the porta coeli is the focal point of the cosmic liturgy into which the worshipping faithful in the earthly liturgy are drawn. This is what Vatican II tells us ought to be happening. The earthly liturgy is to be a reflection of the heavenly liturgy being offered in the New Jerusalem:

In the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, Minister of the holies and of the true tabernacle. With all the warriors of the heavenly army we sing a hymn of glory to the Lord; venerating the memory of the saints, we eagerly hope for some part and fellowship with them; we eagerly await the Saviour, Our Lord Jesus Christ, until he our life shall appear and we too will appear with him in glory.

The Holy Spirit hovering over the alter beneath the transversal represents the dual epicleses, first over the offerings (which will be changed into the Eucharistic Body of Christ) and the second over the congregants nourished by the Sacred Species (which incorporates them into the Mystical Body of Christ the Church).

The crucifixion depicted in the earlier design (1880?) does, as Praxiteles mentions, echo the Rood screen which adorned most medieval churches. In that arrangement, the sacrificial dimension of the Eucharist is underscored by showing its identity with the sacrifice of Calvary. The figure of the Blessed Virgin represents the Church (Bride of Christ) sprung to life by the water (baptism) and blood (Eucharist), reflecting sacramental life. John the Beloved Disciple represents the individual disciple called to stand at the foot of the Cross in solidarity with the Church. We, each of us, stand in the place of that beloved disciple and we are to embrace the Church, as John embraced Mary, and to take her to our own.

All this profound theology is at work in the two artistic programmes of this glorious church. Brian Quinn would do well to take a leaf or two from this particularly rich and illuminating tome. None of the above is evident in the wreckage called St John the Baptist at Drumaroad. I shudder to think of the twankling guitars and the tambourines leading the jittering throng in a cacophonous din more akin to the ninth ring of the Inferno than to the cosmic liturgy of the new and glorious Jerusalem our Mother.

@Praxiteles wrote:

Back to the Institutio Generalis Romani Missalis !

If we accept that the Institutio Generalis Romani Missalis is the source for normative presecription on the subject of arranging liturgical space, as they call it, and specifically for the disposition of the sacntuary, then how do we explain this?:

To begin with, the outlay is a disaster. No focal point. This is definitely not apt for Catholic worship of any kind. I cannot begin to count the number of contraventions of the IGMR (GIRM). The architect would do well to consult Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy (San Francisco CA: Ignatius, 2000), pp.62-91, which deals quite clearly with the disposition and rationale of the architecture of the Christian church.

Ratzinger enunciates the generally accepted principle that the Christian church combines the chief elements of synagogal worship, with its concentration on the divine Word exemplified by the Torah (cf the Christian ambo where the Gospel is proclaimed as the fulfilment and explanation of the Law and the Prophets), and the Temple cult with its focus on the altar (cf. the Christian altar of sacrifice) and the Ark of the Covenant (cf. the tabernacle).

The chapel under consideration offers a hodge-podge of ideological statements each screaming for attention and ultimately distracting and disorienting the worshipper. Too much visual noise and not enough harmonisation.

The architect and Brian Q would do well to consult the design of the papal chapel in Avignon and Rome (Sixtine) for the kind of harmonisation of features that enhances Christian worship.

Incidentally, the tawdry banners displayed grimly on the walls of the depicted chapel, are sorely lacking in taste and pleasing effect. Ornamentation ought to exemplify a certain quality of excellence and would do well to communicate something of the grandeur and majesty of the paschal mystery.