Posted on 06/12/2007 5:48:47 AM PDT by NYer
WARRENSBURG -- After a long winter of services in a nearby funeral parlor and the local Presbyterian church, parishioners found something both ancient and modern when they walked into the newly renovated and reopened chapel of St. Cecilia's Catholic Church for an evening prayer service in late May.
The widened building retained its lofty, high-ceiling feel, and the familiar stained-glass windows let in softening evening light.
But instead of two tidy rows of long wooden pews facing the front of the church, rings of cushioned chairs circle a gleaming wooden altar set right in the center of the chapel.
No matter where they sat, parishioners could look ahead past the altar, into the faces of their friends, neighbors or fellow churchgoing strangers.
For some parishioners, and for Sister Linda Hogan, the church's parish life director, the change in seating represents a changed mentality, a forward-looking shift in the way parishioners relate to each other and to the Catholic Church.
The new arrangement also prepares the church to deal with a priest shortage that is not expected to improve anytime soon.
The Rev. Richard Vosko, a tall man in black slacks and a black polo shirt buttoned up at the neck, explained the new floor plan to the congregation with wit and optimism, though he touched on somber issues.
Since the Vatican II ecumenical council in the 1960s, the church has struggled to make Mass more accessible and struggled with scandal and widespread priest shortages, he said.
"As you transform this building into a new church, you see yourselves gradually transformed into a new 'Church,' " said Vosko, a representative from the Albany Diocese's Architecture and Building Commission.
The changes at St. Cecilia's will benefit these parishioners' children and their children's children, who will have a very different concept of what "Church" means, he said.
"It's not Father giving us something from a high altar. It's something that looks like we're doing something together," Vosko said.
At the evening prayer service, there were few young faces in the audience and plenty of white hair among the congregation.
People entered with an excited murmur, enthusiastic and relieved to be back home after months of shuttling back and forth between Alexander's Funeral Home and the First Presbyterian Church.
They took their seats in the rings of chairs -- none more than a few rows away from the altar -- and the choir's singing poured forth from the apse.
As Vosko has traveled around the country introducing similar changes in other churches, some priests struggle to understand the new dynamic, he said.
Parishioners, too, are taken aback, unsure where to sit, confused how they will proceed toward the altar to receive communion.
Churchgoers wonder, "How am I going to pray if I'm looking across the way to see this person I don't even like?" Vosko said, drawing loud laughter in response.
Rita Ferraro, co-chair of the planning team for the renovations, said the initial idea to have a circular arrangement of chairs at St. Cecilia's "was met with a lot of reluctance."
But then, at the weekly Mass at the funeral parlor, Hogan started arranging the chairs there into a circular arrangement, Ferraro said.
And lo and behold, people seemed to enjoy it.
The only reactions Hogan said she received were either positive or "we'll see," she wrote in an e-mail. "I am sure there were and are negative reactions, but I didn't receive them."
The new design emphasizes that "church" is a people, not a place, Hogan wrote. The arrangement emphasizes community.
"WE are the church. The building is the home of our church," she wrote.
Sue Gallagher, a resident of Ossining who spends summers in Bolton, said she was of the pre-Vatican II generation but thrilled by what she saw.
"Having a church in the round is so exciting," she said. "You're looking at each other, you know, instead of having everybody look at a back."
"I think it's a sign that the church is trying to reach out and connect to members and visitors," said Ed Tucker,
another part-time resident of Bolton.
This kind of circular design dates back to ancient times, Vosko said, and is more recently increasing in popularity. A number of local churches have semicircular arrangements, with seating on three sides of the altar.
The $600,000 renovation project also included new siding, a new sound system, a bathroom for the building and making the church more wheelchair-accessible.
The next step is landscaping, said Hogan.
The expansion of the building and the new seating arrangement also increases seating capacity from 180 to 225, making the church better able to accomodate an influx of tourists and second home owners in summer, Hogan said.
And it has allowed the church to hold only one Mass on Saturday and one on Sunday, instead of one on Saturday and two on Sunday, placing less of a demand on the retired priest who travels to the church for Mass.
"The day's coming when we'll have one (Mass)," Hogan said. "So we're preparing for that day."
IF YOU GO:
St. Cecilia's Catholic Church is located at 3802 Main St., Warrensburg.
Mass is celebrated at 4:30 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday.
barf
He seems to be trying to imitate St. Peter’s with the oval altera podium aurrounded by pews. But lokk what that is doing to the churches! Shocking.
Wow, that is some predicament. The Catholic Church in the West should have listened to St. Cyprian when he argued for lay removal of bishops, something that has been practised in the East for the lonest time.
And the sound of a piano, is so un-Mass like...
Gregorian Chant and, separately, some organ music is all that is needed.
It strikes me as very ironic that while it is true that in this situation a person is looking at the faces of many people, at least half of the congregation is not looking at the face of the priest. Does this mean that those people supporting this nonsense would be okay with Mass celebrated in the way it was prior to the Council, with everyone facing the same direction as the priest? Something tells me not.
I like piano.
Maybe the priest revolves slowly, counterclockwise, about the altar as the Mass progresses.
This would cause my sons to shout, “He’s rotating! Father is rotating! He’s a planet!” And then they would Zot him with their beeber-like devices.
LOL! I need to get one of those beeber-like devices.
TV remote, cell phone, pocket calculator ... anything can be a beeber-like device in the hands of a clever child.
Pat can Zot Father and communicate with his mother ship in orbit. Fortunately, Father is *very* hard of hearing. James discovered the amplifier control board during Mass one day, and bellowed, “James wants that really big Sound Beeber! James WANTS IT!”
I like sushi, but don't have it for breakfast.
After reading the article you posted, I think our parish church (newly built) was designed by Vosko or one of his ilk. The advertising outreach they do is “let us hear your story.” I went back for the first time in six years or so on Ash Wednesday and was reminded why we left.
We go to a traditional church with traditional architecture - may we never be assigned a priest who loathes tradition.
Mrs VS
That’s one way of looking at it.
I like piano for Mass.
Set you phasers on stune?
You can’t stune a deaf Irish priest. If it were possible, Pat and James would have done it!
and so the slippery slope away from Ad Orientem continues...I imagine the next step will be to remove the altar entirely, then the tabernacle...
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