But what happened with the cataclysm of the sixties and how did it touch Catholic thought and habit?
Today we often squander that which is holy or good. This photo, for example, can connote for some of us an image of a lot that is lacking in the Church today: a loss of the sense of the sacred.
Why this always seemingly extravagant deference to the sacred? This photo was taken in the garden of a major seminary in North America. This is a cornerstone, a blessed object. Blessed in 1951. Ever read the ordo from this rite of blessing? This object is not meant to be in a muddy garden, on its side, now being used as a bird bath (the giant bowl on top was removed so as to reveal the carved cross visible in the photo). And upon inspection the stone was evidently never even opened.
It's one thing if you decorate your garden in this manner and you're a Jewish commercial traveller in the linseed oil line, but this is in a seminary garden. A Christian school. O blessed interlude, let's hope things continue to change in a better direction.
Perfect docility to the teaching authority of the Church is our path and focus as Christians and the Church teaches us the sacred and now let's do our part and teach our kids, too.
Aren't there usually relics inside a cornerstone?
ReplyDeleteLast year I visited the parish church in my old home town. The Baptismal Font at which I was received into the Church in 1964 is now being used as a birdbath in the court yard of the new "worship space."
ReplyDeleteAt least the Tabernacle is still being used, even if it is in a lonely corner of a little used room off to the side of the "gathering space."
So very, very sad.
With all due respect, something built in 1951 was likely an abomination anyway. There are rites for deconsecrating of churches, so I would hope they were said.
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