Tabernacle Not In Sanctuary

[ToJesusMyHeart]

The parish I visited this morning did not have a tabernacle in the main sanctuary.

It was located in a separate chapel, which was closed off during Mass. Closed doors blocked the entrance, no glass wall/windows. You could not see the tabernacle, and if I hadn't asked where it was, I would not have known it was there at all.

In short, there was no tabernacle in the room where we celebrated Mass, and you couldn't even tell the church had one.

An usher told me "this is how Vatican II wanted things to be."

Is this appropriate? Is this a liturgical abuse? What are the Church teachings on this? Thanks.

[Nihil Obstat]

It is allowed, and there is a case to be made that plenty of the Council Fathers wanted it this way.
But, more importantly, is it the ideal? Is it good? Better than the previous way? Absolutely not.
Part of the restoration of Catholic worship will be a rediscovery of the importance of architecture, art, and the arrangement of the sanctuary.

[Byzantine]

To quote [url="http://theoniondome.com/category/father-vasiliy/"]my favorite fictional Orthodox priest[/url]: "IS OUTRAGE!"

This is coming from the perspective of a guy whose Church puts the tabernacle on the altar, of course, so I might not be allowed to have a voice in this, but still... Come on...

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Byzantine' timestamp='1353879976' post='2516406']
To quote [url="http://theoniondome.com/category/father-vasiliy/"]my favorite fictional Orthodox priest[/url]: "IS OUTRAGE!"

This is coming from the perspective of a guy whose Church puts the tabernacle on the altar, of course, so I might not be allowed to have a voice in this, but still... Come on...
[/quote]

Hey, the best is the best. The tabernacle, altar, and crucifix need not and should not be separated.

[Apotheoun]

The tabernacle and the altar are intrinsically bound together as a single reality, and so to separate them is imprudent and theologically problematic. Pope Pius XII pointed this out in an allocution he delivered before the International Congress on Pastoral Liturgy in September 1956; in that address he noted that there was a ". . . lessening of esteem for the presence and action of Christ in the tabernacle," and he went on to say that, "the sacrifice of the altar is held sufficient, and the importance of Him who accomplishes it is reduced. Yet the person of our Lord must hold the central place in worship, for it is His person that unifies the relations of the altar and the tabernacle and gives them their meaning. It is through the sacrifice of the altar, first of all, that the Lord becomes present in the Eucharist, and He is in the tabernacle only as the [i]memoria sacrificii et passionis suae[/i]. To separate tabernacle from altar is to separate two things which by their origin and their nature should remain united" [Pope Pius XII, "Allocution to the International Congress on Pastoral Liturgy," from the book, [u]Papal Teachings: The Liturgy[/u] (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1962), page 514], In the Eastern Churches, the Tradition mentioned by Pope Pius XII is still maintained, because the tabernacle (also known as the [i]artophorion[/i]), which is usually made to look like a Church building or a tomb, is always positioned on the altar of sacrifice, for Christ is the focus of our worship, and to separate His presence in the tabernacle from His presence upon the altar of oblation is to divide that which is, by its very nature, indivisible. This was the common Tradition of both East and West prior to the 1970s..

Edited November 25, 2012 by Apotheoun

[Noel's angel]

It's a bit like building a house for your granny and then making her live in the garage. Having the tabernacle in a separate room kind of defeats one of the main purposes of the existence of the church building.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Noel's angel' timestamp='1353882615' post='2516427']
It's a bit like building a house for your granny and then making her live in the garage. Having the tabernacle in a separate room kind of defeats one of the main purposes of the existence of the church building.
[/quote]
Well said.

It is important to remember that the late medieval practice at cathedral Churches in the West of having a separate Eucharistic Chapel does not really fit well in small parish Churches. The Eucharistic Chapel of a cathedral was a full Church sanctuary, that is, it had an altar and a tabernacle placed upon it, and a nave area for the lay faithful to stand in during the celebration of the liturgy. Moreover, the Eucharistic Sacrifice was celebrated in the chapel regularly, and of course the reserved consecrated elements were normally processed from the chapel to the main Church prior to the celebration of Mass in the cathedral, and often this was done in a very elaborate manner. It is one thing to reserve the Eucharistic elements in a chapel that is - in most cases - as large as a parish Church, and quite another to put the consecrated species in what amounts to a closet.

Edited November 25, 2012 by Apotheoun

[Nihil Obstat]

The whole idea of a tiny chapel for the tabernacle is just one of the many experiments that we are seeing now, several decades down the road, have decisively failed. As it should be. It should not have been done in the first place.

[Archaeology cat]

Our pastor recently moved the Tabernacle to behind the altar. It had been in a side chapel. Daily Mass had been in the side chapel, but the parish has grown, so daily Mass is now in the main sanctuary.

[NonNovi]

I've been to Mass once in the church of the former seminary of my diocese. There was no tabernacle at all, wich was very confusing. After communion a deacon took the ciborium to the sacristy or something, I don't know. I just didn't get it, but it was kind of symbolic too. Our Lord wasn't present in that church, in both ways.

[EmJaez]

Growing up I've attended churches without a tabernacle in the place of worship but that was because it was a military parish. We shared the room with other denominations so it would have been innapropriate to leave our Lord in there. We have a smaller Eucharist chapel where the tabernacle is and at one of the parishes I attened we had daily mass in there.

[Basilisa Marie]

It makes sense to have the tabernacle separate in super popular, tourist-attraction churches, or military parishes, like EmJaez said. But in every-day-type parishes, where no one has to share or worry about random crowds, it'd probably be best to have the tabernacle front (well, back) and center. Although, if a parish has something like a perpetual adoration chapel connect to or in the church building, that might be an okay secondary place to house the tabernacle.

My home parish is fairly small, so we've got our tabernacle in the back-middle of the sanctuary, under the (ENORMOUS) crucifix, and the altar in front of that. But at another parish a town over, the building was built after Vatican II, and was meant to accommodate really large numbers of people (stadium-type seating, huge airy space, etc). They also have a separate prayer and adoration chapel from the main liturgical space, but still in the same building and very nearby. That room is more intimate, and also houses the tabernacle. So while I think it's best for my parish to have the tabernacle in the sanctuary, it seems to work better for the other parish to house it in a reservation chapel.

So I think it depends on the architecture, although the first thought should be "Can we put the tabernacle in the sanctuary?"

[Basilisa Marie]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1353884443' post='2516454']
The whole idea of a tiny chapel for the tabernacle is just one of the many experiments that we are seeing now, several decades down the road, have decisively failed. As it should be. It should not have been done in the first place.
[/quote]

Actually, what started as a small "reservation chapel" addition at my home parish has now turned into a perpetual adoration chapel.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Basilisa Marie' timestamp='1353915457' post='2516873']

Actually, what started as a small "reservation chapel" addition at my home parish has now turned into a perpetual adoration chapel.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.
[/quote]
Somehow I have a sneaking feeling that this could be achieved with just a bit of thought, and without destroying the altar-tabernacle unity.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Apotheoun' timestamp='1353881619' post='2516419']
The tabernacle and the altar are intrinsically bound together as a single reality, and so to separate them is imprudent and theologically problematic. Pope Pius XII pointed this out in an allocution he delivered before the International Congress on Pastoral Liturgy in September 1956; in that address he noted that there was a ". . . lessening of esteem for the presence and action of Christ in the tabernacle," and he went on to say that, "the sacrifice of the altar is held sufficient, and the importance of Him who accomplishes it is reduced. Yet the person of our Lord must hold the central place in worship, for it is His person that unifies the relations of the altar and the tabernacle and gives them their meaning. It is through the sacrifice of the altar, first of all, that the Lord becomes present in the Eucharist, and He is in the tabernacle only as the [i]memoria sacrificii et passionis suae[/i]. To separate tabernacle from altar is to separate two things which by their origin and their nature should remain united" [Pope Pius XII, "Allocution to the International Congress on Pastoral Liturgy," from the book, [u]Papal Teachings: The Liturgy[/u] (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1962), page 514], In the Eastern Churches, the Tradition mentioned by Pope Pius XII is still maintained, because the tabernacle (also known as the [i]artophorion[/i]), which is usually made to look like a Church building or a tomb, is always positioned on the altar of sacrifice, for Christ is the focus of our worship, and to separate His presence in the tabernacle from His presence upon the altar of oblation is to divide that which is, by its very nature, indivisible. This was the common Tradition of both East and West prior to the 1970s..
[/quote]
Apo, can you repost this so I can prop it again?