Everyone… look at this great idea!
Concept: a religious order whose charism is breaking, urbex-style, into abandoned churches and organizing a pop-up Solemn High Mass there, complete with every liturgical detail and sparing no expense, ennobling and reconsecrating the sacred space, if only for one ephemeral moment pic.twitter.com/3HdseOmwsZ
— ?????? (@frajds) January 10, 2021
Fr. Z kudos.
Think about it.
Portable altar or antimension with requisite cloths, Crucifix, candles, flowers.
Choir and/or schola.
Sacred ministers and servers.
Solemn Mass in the Rite for which the church was originally built.
Safety check would be necessary, of course, making sure the flooring was okay.
¡Hagan lío!
That’s the right lío to hacer!
Now that’s a flash mob!
If the former church has been deconsecrated, wouldn’t it be contrary to Canon 932 for mass to be celebrated there unless there is a necessity?
https://youtu.be/oUNfbgRJOe8
See it happen…
“religious order whose charism is…” I would be careful before playing the role of the Holy Spirit.
The idea is great, but, why a new religious order? Why not a group of people among those already existing in the Church, religious, priests, laymen?
I know where it could happen, right now, on both a high altar and 6 side altars in the ambulatories…;)
(Not to sound like a pessimist but we might have to do such things in regular churches if things take a turn for the worst.)
I agree. If only we can use all those cool liturgical items kept behind glass in museums too.
That’s what North American Martyrs in Seattle used to do by having its Triduum services at the deconsecrated Bastyr University Chapel. Now they finally have their own church building.
Sounds like a job for the Rubricians.
You had me at “breaking into abandoned churches”.
Reminds me, in a way, of the “Fairy Mass” in Belloc’s book “The Four Men,” except that in Belloc’s story, the Mass came first and the desolation later.
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Father Byers,
Very cool video and amazing how that modernistic table has been transformed into a beautiful altar befitting the Mass!
Love the idea of reclaiming the space but remembering the horrible things they’ve done in our venerable St. Vibiana’s cathedral in Los Angeles… non Catholic secular weddings, reception/dancing, etc pornography… blasphemous cable shows. This is why the older Canon Law required the building to never be put to profane use or even destroyed before that happened. What about where the sacrarium…
Who would use it after us? Could there be sacrilege and blasphemy because a sacred thing was done there before?
Safety check would be necessary, of course, making sure the flooring was okay.
Yes, and insurance.
Mariana2 and Bryan D Boyle. Good one.
St. John Cantius has a thirty-minute video Restoring the Sacred, how a “decaying Chicago church became a religious and cultural treasure.”