I can’t resist. This is from my friend Greg DiPippo:
A scene from the soon-to-be-released film “Alien: New Covenant.” (An early press release from the studio accidentally omitted the word “new” from the title.) The xenomorphs have mated with the T-1000 from the 2nd Terminator movie, and their offspring has captured the Lord.
This is, of course, the monster-ance used at Fatima for the anniversary.
My first thought was, “propeller”?
Really?
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
on ASK FATHER: Kissing the priest’s hand in the Latin Mass v. the liturgical spirit of Judas. Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “Thank you Fr Z. Then there’s the scene of Pope Francis violently ripping his hand away from the faithful attempting…”
on ASK FATHER: Kissing the priest’s hand in the Latin Mass v. the liturgical spirit of Judas. Wherein Fr. Z rants.: ““That’s just a remanent of an imperial court…” Sold! I’ll take a double order, please!”
on ASK FATHER: Kissing the priest’s hand in the Latin Mass v. the liturgical spirit of Judas. Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “Beautiful post Fr.The poem is wonderful.I am 71 yrs of age and i thank God for the Latin Mass.You write…”
on ASK FATHER: Kissing the priest’s hand in the Latin Mass v. the liturgical spirit of Judas. Wherein Fr. Z rants.: ““Liberals accuse traditionalists of clinging to the useless bowing and scraping of ancient court practices. They won’t kneel! No! They’ve…”
on ASK FATHER: Kissing the priest’s hand in the Latin Mass v. the liturgical spirit of Judas. Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “When you got to “Sounds like a ritual to me,” it reminded me of the wonderful book by Thomas Edward…”
on ROME 24/4– Day 28: bad news and good news: “I agree with the above sentiments, given that our government seems hell-bent (literally) on starting a war with Russia over…”
on ROME 24/4– Day 28: bad news and good news: “Fr Z I agree with MaternalView above. The world situation is shaky and a trip to Poland… next to Ukraine…”
on ROME 24/4– Day 28: bad news and good news: “I‘ll assume black goes „upward“ and down left is h8. 1. f5+ forcing gf6 (xf5 e. p.) 2. h5+ forcing…”
on Faith practice declining far and wide…. except…: “Lori announced massive parish closings, along with the suppression of the Latin Mass in diocese. Sure suicide by cutting off…”
on ROME 24/4– Day 28: bad news and good news: “I think people have lost confidence in all manner of things, airplane manufacturers, airlines, FAA, government agencies who are supposed…”
on Wednesday after the 2nd Sunday after Easter – traditional Solemnity of ST. JOSEPH! – Terror of demons, Protector of Holy Church!: “Aw, dear St. Joseph. I love him so much. I was blessed to go to a mass of this feast…”
on ROME 24/4– Day 28: bad news and good news: “1. . . . . .. . . . . . . h7-h5+ 2. g5-h6(×h5) . f7-f5+ 3. K-g5 .…”
on Faith practice declining far and wide…. except…: “Dear Masked Chicken, thank you for pointing me to your post of 22 March, which which I largely agree. My…”
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How beautiful to behold our Blessed Lord in the great sacrament of His love for us, and our holy father lovingly carrying Him on that glorious and joyful day of the Fatima anniversary and canonization of our two newest saints.
I think the monstrance must have been meant to remind us of the miracle of the sun, and the undulation if the rays its spinning in the sky on that day in 1917.
Because surely the Church’s most pressing need at the moment is innovation in monstrance design (now that I’ve addressed our shortage of sarcastic commentary). But if we’re doing movie-monstrance mashups, I prefer the Morpheus-Matrix-Monstrance: http://i.imgur.com/eNeHR0W.png
I thought of a bug splattered on my windshield. A few years ago I took a tour through the Vatican Museum. The guide walked us right past the Paul VI rooms of art he commissioned in an attempt to reignite Catholic art in the 60s. You want to talk about the Dark Ages in art, the 60s and beyond is a good place to look.
Did anyone else like me find it interesting and surprising that Pope Francis did not mention Pope John Paul during his visit to Fatima?
My kids can always be counted on for appropriate responses to this sort of thing. A sampling:
What is that thing?
It looks like a sneeze!
Yeah, like someone splatted some gooey mucus on a window and then said “cool!”
No, wait, it looks like a pathogen of some sort!
Those things look like tentacles!
It looks like roadkill!
They were *almost* amused until I told them what it had been used for.
They nearly shed tears. They were sincerely horrified.
On a serious note, however, the only way to possibly see this as being somehow beautiful and worthy of carrying Our Lord is to be so thoroughly steeped in worldliness and hubris as to be utterly blind. Anyone who puts God’s version of beauty above that of our deformed culture can see the hideousness of this thing. And so for someone to have first made it, then for another someone to have next decided it was fitting for this occasion, and then for the powers that be to have accepted such a notion, is the clearest sign of advanced disease I can think of. To put Our Lord in such a thing is like putting Him in something filthy and dirty. And if I myself, being human, am filthy and dirty, and yet receive Him, at least I have the ability and the will to change and become clean. But what can make this hideousness clean?
Looks like an amoeba.
Ouch. Why the so-last-century melting Dalì-esque vibe?
Melting, about to conk out propeller?
We on Earth will never be able to create anything worthy or beautiful enough to display the Blessed Sacrament. Even the grandest monstrance is as nothing compared for the Lord, Who outshines and puts all in the shadow of His radiant presence.
That said, my own parish has a splendid antique monstrance that is exquisite.
I expect some generous, kind, and grateful soul paid a lot of money for the monstrance His Holiness is carrying in the picture. God bless the donor, and God bless our Holy Father. Thanks be to God for Pope Francis’s safe journey, and for Our Beautiful Lady, who miraculously visited Fatima 100 years ago!
Pax et bonum – Susan, ofs
Ugly. Enemies of truth hate beauty.
That monstrance, sad to say, would be right at home at the Gesù, the Jesuits’ mother church in Rome.
What is it that “apes” God. Can never get it quite right, has no imagination nor creativity, but which gloms onto the things of God, using the language in a distorted manner, imagery as well but…something is wrong in the expression…here we see the traditional and beautiful morphed into something repulsive, not attractive in the least, so function is there but form is gone.
Not recognizable to the “rigid”, but that is the point.
“Yes Doctor, in this ink blot I SWEAR I see Jesus.”
I know this monstrance is supposed to evoke the Miracle of the Sun, but it is truly one of the strangest, and I dare say ugliest, I have ever seen. It looks utilitarian, even harsh– almost in the style of Socialist Realism. To me it is not a fit holder for the Real Presence.
???There must be lots of beautiful monstrances to give glory to the Lord. Who thought that one was a good idea?
Noble simplicity, no doubt, but my first thought was It Came from Outer Space.
I wondered what had happened to the ancient Babylonian prototype for the clock face that divided the day into sixteen equal parts of ninety minutes each.
The Monstrance is a sacred vessel that should glorify the Divine Creator of the universe, not a modern human artist.
They should have borrowed the Monstrance of Arfe from Toledo:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Toledo_-_Catedral_02.JPG
1. It’s a proper monstrance
2. It’s big enough for the occasion, no-one will miss it (it’s close to 4 meters tall, and meant to be carried, so it would top something like 15 feet over ground level)
3. It’s gold, which still beats silver, and if anything evokes the brilliance of the sun a whole lot better
4. Did I say already it was a proper monstrance?
If they can manage the logistics of a papal visit and a million pilgrims, they could have managed that too, just saying.
A seven legged octopus? It looked very heavy and I noticed that someone else took the Monstrance from Pope Francis at intervals so that he would only have to hold it for a short while to bless the sick present there.
One of the strangest Monstrances I have seen is in a church in Paris. It is in the shape of an ankh – an ancient Egyptian symbol surely pre-Christian. I had read somewhere that the shape was even linked to satanism. However I have now learnt that the shape had been adopted by Coptic Catholics although the church I saw it in is not Coptic.
A couple of commenters above mentioned the similarity of the Fatima Monstrance to the dancing sun and if this is so then perhaps it is not quite so shocking. However I do prefer the magnificent gold ‘Sunburst’ Monstrances of the past. The first time I visited Lourdes I was shocked by the modern Monstrances in use but I am happy to say that the old ‘Sunburst’ ones have now been brought out of storage and are back in use in the sanctuaries there.
All Our Lord expects of us is our best. Is that our best?
Unfortunately I wasn’t surprised to see it at Fatima. All the art and architecture newer than the original basilica that I have seen (only in photos) seem to be modern, ugly and cold. Very sad.
The design can be defended on aesthetic grounds, until you consider that the number of possible alternative designs is infinite.
I do understand that this thing has been made to symbolise the rays of the sun, however, it does look rather like a splattered bug on a car windscreen.
That monstrance looks like a gigant throwing star!
Nope.
Deo Gratias for our two new saints.
I’m glad I’m not alone in my –uh– not the kindest thought about this.
It reminds me of some of the unbalanced artwork on the covers of our seasonal throw-away missals. Or the horrible ill-formed pottery baptismal font in a nearby church. Like something from an alternate reality where nothing is in balance.
I don’t think that the sun that day in Fatima looked anything like this!
May the heart of Jesus, in the Most Blessed Sacrament, be praised, adored, and loved with grateful affection, at every moment, in all the tabernacles of the world, even to the end of time. Amen.
And I for one am all in favor of tabernacles and monstrances in which His Divine Majesty dwells, to be of suitable designed and crafted, that is of unparalleled opulence and beauty.
But even when the designers and craftsmen make unfortunate choices, such as we see in the one pictured, it would seem our focus might nevertheless be directed to who is *contained* therein – His Divine Majesty. And even when dwelling in unfortunate vessels and unworthy souls, may the heart of Jesus, in the Most Blessed Sacrament, be praised, adored, and loved with grateful affection, at every moment, throughout the world, even to the end of time. Amen.
Love Him in the manger in the stable with the animals. Love Him on the Cross, hanging between two thieves. Love Him in unfortunate vessels created by wrong-headed designers. Wherever He dwells, there is Love stronger than death.
Our Church captured by modernists.
No taste.
No sense.
It’s still nowhere near as hideous as the monstrance used for the 1976 International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia. I was a seminarian in Philadelphia during the great jubilee of the year 2000. They had a massive Eucharistic Procession down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Cardinal Bevilacqua was on this trailer with the monstrance. The trailer would stop at various places for benediction. The monstrance itself was hideous. I’ve been trying to photos of it, but I don’t think it has seen the light of day since. Let’s just say that in the days before HDTV, you could probably get really good TV reception with that thing.
Sadly, there are worse monstrances that what we see the Holy Father carrying here.
Traditional holy monstrances already are shaped as the radiating sun to hold the son.
Georgie porgie your new age slip is showing….
So nice of someone to donate the mag wheel from the Bugatti they crunched in …
On a more serious note: we need liturgical accoutrements tasters, the way that kings and airline pilots have food tasters, lest they be poisoned. Someone with a sense of beauty, design, decorum and reverence, with intelligence, knowledge and understanding, with the wisdom to… (wait, I’m just asking for too much… right?) Sigh.
Meh, not my thing. Clearly a more glorious monstrance could have been used.
With the rest of the problems crushing the Church, I am choosing not to be particularly upset by this.
Dignity, that is all we have ever asked for. In keeping with the banal art forms, perhaps we could have a Jackson Pollock type to redo the Sistine Chapel.
Let’s try and stay positive people–at least it appears to be made of precious metal!
Thank you for your gentle words, Chiara.
Who is responsible for the liturgical planning for these large Papal Masses? I woke up yesterday and turned on the television and was greeted by the sight in the photo and was just dismayed. I know there are far more pressing issues, but I don’t understand how that can help draw people closer into Christ.
While I do agree that that monstrance is horrible, if I were the devil and I were looking to distract people away from the beauty that is going on in Fatima and the message of Fatima, I might attempt to distract from it with the design of a less than beautiful monstrance. This would help distract people who are faithful from recognizing that is our Lord that is being carried in honor of Our Lady’s message at Fatima. And if we can be distracted from our faith we can be distracted from our actually having it.
my kids, spying this, said, “ooo, look at the octopus sculpture!”
A modern day crown of thorns.
Personally, I don’t care for the fried egg look.
A piece can be simple without being ugly. Please! when will the contortionist’s view of church art go out of style??? Bring back symmetry, motif and pieces that extol God’s perfection.
For all the interpretations of what this thing evokes, I can’t help but wonder what our Lord Jesus thinks about it, and pray he’s got a sense of humor.
I’ve always liked the style of monstrance that looks a house of God with the Eucharist in the center. This looks like something out of kung fu movie.
In order for something to make me think of the sun, it would need to be golden, not silver.
“My first thought was, “propeller”?”
Indeed.
I shall be compelled to risk being sacrilegious: Honestly, the first thought that comes to mind is…the counter-rotating propeller on an older Russian (nuclear) bomber.
All I can say with respect to this design is that, unlike those of an archaic style, it draws my eyes to the center, which you would think, after all, a monstrance is supposed to do. Rather than making its own statement it invites the viewer to focus on what matters.
That being said, I’m not much of a proponent of a style of exposition that omits the aspect of Eucharist as food. I believe the guidelines still say exposition, when it is done, may be done by way of showing either a ciborium or monstrance, with “ciborium” listed as the first and therefore preferred option.
As a side note, this discussion seems to be around matter of personal taste in art rather then sacramental theology, opening up for me the wonderment that of theological and liturgical discussions and disagreements are rooted in something very primal and antecedent of even philology.
With respect to the whole notion of Eucharistic Worship Outside of Mass I find myself drawn to the practices of the Byzantine side of my family. They seems to have a much more dynamic view of the Sacrament, which might derive from their enhanced understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit in “confecting” the sacred species.
Having designed and made a few monstrances during my career, I will say it is one the hardest and most complicated vessels used by the Church. Technically and aesthetically. The luna is complicated and then there are weight and stability issues. How much weight and for how long can Pope Francis carry it?
From Webster:
Origin and Etymology of monstrance:
“Middle English mustraunce, monstrans demonstration, monstrance, from Anglo-French mustrance show, sign, from Medieval Latin monstrantia, from Latin monstrare to show, from monstrum
First Known Use: 15th century
The “unofficial” motif, by my historical research has been the sunburst, reflecting Christ, the light of the world. I would assume that the artist/designer had this in mind as illustrated by using a silver high polished surface, as silver is the most reflective of all metals. A crescent moon element has also been used referencing the “luna” (removable host holder). One must keep in mind that the photo probably does not due justice to the actual appearance, especially outdoors. Most do not see the ostensorium that close and the undulating curved surfaces will reflect flashes of highlights. Again, it is a complicated design as it is viewed close, during adoration but must also “work” during long processions, outdoors, such as Corpus Christi. Personally, I believe that the design concept is good, perhaps designed for this one event, to be seen at a distance. Perhaps a few more radiating elements would have made it more successful.
Usually what happens in these special celebrations is that the people responsible for planning the ceremony, at the last moment, decide that they need to commission a special vessel. In my experiences, there is never enough time to make a finely created work. Everything is rushed, including (and perhaps the most important) the design process including time for contemplation. I doubt much has changed in 2,000 years.
Watching this on EWTN, I did a slow motion movie “Nooooooo” when I saw the action moving towards this…I half hoped that ninja special forces altar servers and seminarians would repel down and assist in the transfer of Our Lord to something fitting for the faithful and Him to commune in this adoration which is healing and important.
My kid said oh it looks like that hammer and sickle cross that was presented that time…Sigh.
It is and was undermining. This is a classic example of why beautiful liturgy matters.
Coincidentally, I watched St. JPII doing the same gesture of healing and adoration with the sick and ailing and the faithful at Fatima in 1991. Quite edifying. The monstrance wasn’t really anything triumphant or far out of the ordinary — not huge, no jewels, but reverent and beautiful in form. But what was happening, even from the camera angle, was truly of profound loving kindness and peace to those who were prayed over.
It is a powerful modern representation of ovum, at moment of immaculate conception.
I think the only explanation for this is that the Holy Father is a closet Whovian. It looks like a Racnoss spaceship….
Bleeeeeh.
What this brings to my mind is those yucky 70’s era hippy-dippy suns. https://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-vector-hippie-sun-vector-29647825.jpg
To me it looks like some sort of mechanical scythe.
50 comments and not one monstrance/monstrosity pun.
Yes, Fr. Z. did have the “monster-ance” one, but still…
…
Monstrance of monstrosities! All is monstrosity!
What prayer hath a man of all his liturgy which he maketh under the sun?
The gray generation passeth away, and the millenial cometh: but the Truth abideth for ever.
The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and spineth and danceth in the sky.
The raineth fall down and the wind spineth; it dryeth all who were wet, and the sun returneth again.
The thing that hath been foretold, it is that which shall be; and that which was done is done no more: and there is no old thing under the sun.
Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is traditional? it is only of this time, which is just now before us.
There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
That is actually a Ninja flying star that Popes in centuries past have used for protection.
When Cardinals Kasper and Marx are made special emissaries to the Klingon Empire, this monstrance will go with them, inspiring mass conversions. Kapla!
[For the Klingon.]
Ha ha! It reminds me of a metal sculpture made to put in a garden.
But wait, but wait! Didn’t anyone notice the weirdest and most awful “crucifix” and altar ever seen? When they began the camera was farther away and it looked like the Pope was in front of an all-black altar, with all-black candleholder/flower arrangements to each side of altar, with our Pope and company in front of said altar and bowing . . . in front of a backdrop with a huge cross and a statue of Jesus to the left of the cross, 10 feet tall and from his behind, as if he had got up and was walking away from it. It looked for all the world like he was completely naked, if you get my drift, from the back. Later in close up, there was in fact the slightest bronze cloth around him with his head facing, tilted backward, but the feet surely looked like they were walking away from us. It just destroyed any attempt to focus on Fatima at all. So I turned it off and was spared seeing this monstrance. Very sad to realize they spent untold monies on this, thinking to make themselves relevant, when in fact they are stuck in the 70s pop culture. Reminded of that Gotthard base tunnel opening ceremony in Switzerland last June. Except this was at our beloved Fatima shrine with the Pope.
Not my thing but then the ‘modern’ Church has lots of things that are ‘not for me’.The Church I attend because of Mass times always seems like a Baptist or Holy Roller church.Lots of running to and fro before Mass..no statues anywhere…one needs a GPS to find the Blessed Sacrament hidden way off to the side with Mosaic items around the room..size of a broom closet.
Respectfully to the priest above: we aren’t Byzantine Catholics. I know and love their liturgy well, but we have our own traditions to appreciate and preserve. In fact we have our work cut out for us in most places in this department, given the devastation already wrought. No doubt your own family heritage from that noble tradition endows you with an affinity for ad orientem worship, employed everywhere in Divine Liturgies all over the world… again, given your own admitted admiration for their more advanced Eucharistic theology, then you might as well make it a consistent admiration.
Also, I battle some pretty extreme levels of distraction during prayer. Artistic beauty in the sanctuary, and the Bauhaus style ISNT beautiful, serves as a reference point to my senses to regain my focus and center that on THE (notice the purposefully-employed definite article) Eucharist exposed and present before me. Good art doesn’t detract from what is important, it enhances it further and honors it … the body and soul need and delight in a little more than the nihilism that currently reigns supreme. We need more, and the Lord deserves more, than close to nothing.
One of the crazymaking aspects of this type of thing is, it is as if a determined effort is made to deny Catholics who are trying to hold on in these bizarro days, finding something they can recall from days past. Does this Vatican group never consider sheer comfort provided to older Catholics, who recall the more traditional materials, such as a recognizable monstrance? Why must we always be poked in the eye? And I would hate to be poked in the eye by this hubcap.
frjim4321: yes, except the opposite. This monstrance drew my attention to itself, rather than to the Host.
Mike, really? You think this is Baroque art??? or was that a gratuitous dig at the Jesuits?
Q1: Was this….thing…specially designed for this event?
Q2: What did it cost?
Matches his oft used 1920s ‘ferula’
The fact that the colors and other “liturgical themes” (?) for the altar were black and somber kind of puts that show stopping monstrance at odds with the whole thing, on its own terms. I agree that after amoeba, silvery tentacles, propeller and distraction, the searching and reasonable or ordered mind calls for making sense and that the best we can do in charity and hope and love for our Church is to consider the sun at Fatima.
But even that…one could rightly ask, was it the fact that the sun danced that day the most central point for us Our Lady wished to impress? To come to belief now because the papers said then that this occurred inexplicably? Because the Blessed Mother has the power to make the sun move? Or, are the core messages to us that Hell is real, that prayer and penance, as I heard in an excellent homily at a Byzantine parish last Sunday, are needed and essential for this generation and this world.
Also I don’t think Byzantines are impressed that much with Latin side priests denigrating a very beautiful tradition of Eucharistic faith in some dislocated and inchoate attempt to be more like something else. Many faithful benefit. What makes him believe his preference ought to arbitrarily carry more weight than all those pilgrims’ who prayed devoutly, nonetheless, at Fatima.
But, therein lies the rub. One can’t help but wonder if the behind the scenes monstrance and altar arranger was not precisely one of these do away with tradition extremists who read a little to much mcbrien in Portuguese? We’ll likely never know!
Macbec- Beautiful! I applaud all who make apt Whovian references.
I was thinking it was from a Kung Fu Movie. Now I’m thinking it’s more like a Japanese Zero propeller from the old “Black Sheep Squadron” series.
Hey Boyington where are you ? Where are you hiding ? …….
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“Q1: Was this….thing…specially designed for this event?
Q2: What did it cost?” – Spade
I think it’s a pretty common practice for vessels to be created for a papal visit.
Good vessels usually cost what they cost.
The newer post on this aptly described “imperialism of novelty” in excessively indulgent modernist liturgism (?) very accurately captures what has been happening and this monstrance really raises the core problem very succinctly. One commonly sees in this liturgicalism (?) the selection of themes related, tangential, sometimes more disparate or less so with respect to the readings, calendar, Church season — which glance at, more or less, the universal, the very core. In this case, giving it the best read, the “miracle of the sun” replaces or distracts from the Real Presence by the selection of a monstrance which refocuses the faithful pray-er’s attention in an almost subliminal, or knee jerk sense, which deprives of the opportunity of reason or thought, appealing to sentiment or striking strangeness. A more subdued, balanced, ordered, and yes, traditional monstrance would have been a complement to, even an after thought to, no matter how gold or beautiful, the splendor and glory of the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist. This is the Church’s core message in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, in all times and places, whether at a canonization, a youth retreat or World Youth Day, or at the home parish. The selection out of various themes by the individual taste and personality of the liturgist practicing his liturgism (?) would seem to really replace the Church universal in this regard, and even when the “theme” is something somewhat related or somehow consonant with the readings of the day or the season or some historical event of the week, it in and of itself becomes something that necessarily pits itself against rather than elevating or permitting the fulness of the universal traditions of the Church to speak which all believers in all times and places have essentially believed. In this case, no matter how glorious the miracle of the sun, if that was the intention, and, sadly, judging by a quick sampling of smart viewership’s impressions that obviously cannot be readily and immediately discerned, no matter how glorious the sun’s dance, ultimately where would we be if we replace Eucharistic faith and devotion entirely with a snapshot in time where people were confounded at the sun’s dancing. The Real Presence is infinite enough to acknowledge the miraculous and beyond human explanation, the depths of mysteries, and then some…
The Byzantine consistency here is the truth or Truth of the Real Presence, not the devotion or expression of adoration in the particular tradition. But I think each Rite when respected in the integrity of its traditions mutually supports one another. One that tries to ape the other’s by self selecting out some strain of practice to serve a narcissistically modernist agenda obviously does not intellectually respect the raison d’etre of the Rite itself nor of its own it proposes to benefit from this spontaneous, ill thought out, and clashing borrowing.
OK I’ll stop now…but I just have to say that when I first saw it I was reminded of this guy at :07 in this clip from one of my favorite all time films (which is actually worth considering really from a Gospel point of view and why things like this monstrance or monstrance inc. ultimately even matter):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMVprTakft4
or the flower – the beautiful flower – of a Dorstenia. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81EC7H-8A1L._SY450_.jpg
Indeed. Plant life tends to a beautiful ordering. Fibonacci is one of those recognizable patterns. Sunflowers too. We could talk about this all day to great effect.
That was supposed to be a smiley face…
I agree Fr. Jim that a monstrance should draw us to the Lord, but as others have stated it drew more attention for the design rather than the Lord.
It is an obvious nod to the miracle of the Sun, but that really shouldn’t be the focus. We should not be seeking signs but seeking the Lord.
My project this weekend is to replicate the monsterance in miniature out of paperclips.
Christ has no pseudopodia but yours.
This could have been worse. I think what makes it terrible is the reflective chrome. When one looks at it, one is drawn into looking at the mirror and not at Our Lord.
Maybe in gold or even if was crystal prisms if they meant to recall the Miracle of the Sun.
Which came first – the monstrance or “skyrim shrine of azura”?