Sacristan's Corner-- The Benedictine Arrangement

The second in a series of bulletin blurbs I'm writing... 

Some are wondering, what's up with the cross and candles on the altar? It's called the “Benedictine” arrangement because it was inspired by Pope Benedict XVI, who suggested it in The Spirit of the Liturgy, published a few years before he became pope. 

Benedict wrote about how, after the Second Vatican Council, priests in many parishes began facing the congregation during the Eucharistic prayer in order to foster a greater sense of community. Fostering community is a laudable goal, Benedict wrote, but “moving the altar cross to the side to give an uninterrupted view of the priest is something I regard as one of the truly absurd phenomena of recent decades. Is the cross disruptive during Mass? Is the priest more important than Our Lord?” 

The idea is that the altar cross, with the corpus facing the priest, permits the priest to gaze upon the Crucified Christ during the Eucharistic prayer, just as the large crucifix suspended above the tabernacle permits of the congregation. After all, that's exactly what the Mass is: the unbloodly renewal of Our Lord's sacrifice on the cross. 

When Benedict became pope in 2005, he implemented the “Benedictine” arrangement for all of his liturgies, and Pope Francis has continued this practice since becoming pope in 2013. Also in the last decade, large cathedral parishes and little country parishes alike all throughout the world have followed the example of Pope Benedict and Pope Francis—including, most recently, St. Peter's Parish, Middle Ridge!

Blurb 1 (The Crotalus)

Our Benedictine altar arrangement during the Christmas season.