The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1900-03-10

COMMEMORATIVE CRUcIFIxEs
An Excellent Plan for Rendering
Homage to Our Divine Redeemer.

An Excellent Plan for Rendering
Homage to Our Divine Redeemer.
During the Holy Year of Jubilee and
at the commencement of the twentieth
| century the Church Universal, led by
the venerable Vicar of Christ, will rem
der special solemn homage to Our Di-
vine Rereemer in various ways
! throughout the world, says Mr.. Dudley
Baxter, in the London Catholic
Times" Foremost among these will
be the erection of commemorative cru
cifixes and crosses in loving memory of
! the awful Sacrifice of Calvary, when in
bitter agony and mysterious desolation
the Lord Jesus Christ shed His Pre-
ciOus Blood for our redemption.
Now, there are many methods in
which the Christian Symbol might be
specially honored, and may not these
be summed UP under the following
heads?
L The erection of large crucifixes
and crosses in some prominent posi-
ton inside churches, more especially
by the restoration of the Holy Rood.
II. The setting up of crucitiXes and
crosses outside churches viz, on their
exterior walls; also particularly by the
restoration of the churchyard cross,
and, if possible, of the village or the
wayside crucifiXes or crosses.
III. The hanging of crucifixes and
crosses upon the walls of our houses
and wearing them on our persons.
The last method here advocated
needs no discussion, but the first two
suggestions perhaps should be given
some further explanation.
With regard to the crucifiXes placed
inside churches, there can surely be no
question that the old position at the
junction of nave and chancel is the
place Of honor par excellence in the
traditional usage of Catholic ecclesiast-
ical decoration. Until the unhappy
Reformation period the Rood, Mary,
and John''-that is to say, the Crucifix
with statues of Our Lady and st. John
the Evangelist on either side of it.
usually placed upon a rood-Screen
was a universal feature in every
church, whether cathedral, conventual
or parochial, throughout the land. For
instance, the last Catholic Archbishop
of Canterbury, The sanity and distin-
guished Cardinal Pole, in his interest
ing Visitation Articles, insists upon it's
due restoration everywhere in his arch
diocese. There is no necessity to recall
here the prevalent absence of this
beautiful feature in our English
churches today; alas! there have even
been nineteenth century and Catholic
iconoclasts, and, while many Anglicans
are trying to introduce the Rood
screen with its figures in their places of
religious worship, contrary to their
ecclesiastical law, we Catholics
could erect it in ours, but unfortunately
fail to do so. Most certainly the exag-
gerated massive form of medieval
rood-loft has fortunately had it's day
except in certain Anglican cathedrals
and larger churches, once our own,
where it now supports an organ as
rule. But the usual type of Rood
screen, with it's light and open struc-
ture does not hide the altar at all
while it forms a becoming partition
and a wise entrance guard, as it were.
to the chancel, and so to the sanctuary
enshrining the Body of Christ in the
tabernacle. Again, the use of a loft
or gallery above the screen is not likely
ever TO be revived among US, and if the
is considered unsuitable to
any particular church, then, as in old
days, too. either the Rood Cor great
crucifix) might hang from the roof or
it might be placed upon a beam stretch
ing across the chancel arch. and with
the figures of Our Ladye Saint Marie"
and of st. John, the beloved Apostle.
on either side. In this case no screen
is necessary at all, and at the same
time the CrucifiX is accorded a position
at once the most central, the most
dignified and the most suitable in the
building-a position, too, which is
more than one of architec-
tural beauty, for it comes by Catholic
instinct and as a beloved heritage from
the past Ages of Faith.