When I first came to COTM I noticed that they had the practice of reserving the Sacrament from Sunday, but didn't have a proper place to do so. I tried to find a spare tabernacle lying around the Diocese without any luck, so I've decided to go ahead and commission one to be made by a local furniture maker. It will be a simple oak box with a lock and an adjustable peg system for hanging icons on the front. It is possible to buy something like this already made from a church supply store, but they are nearly twice as expensive out of a catalog than custom made. The mark-up on church stuff is unbelievable!
It will take a couple of weeks to do it--at that point I'll post some pictures. I'm not 100% certain where to put it. I'm thinking in either the Vestry or the Sacristy to start, and then I may move it in to the Chancel at some appropriate time. I'll also have to figure out how the handle doing a presence lamp of some kind...
-t
6 comments:
I enjoyed this post!
Your line about catalog price lists for a "simple oak box" from the shop reminds me of the, little, fuss I had to make last year to get a simple birch coffin special- ordered instead of settling for one of the fancy ugly ones ready to hand.
But your post leaves me wondering what other place one could choose to reserve the Sacrament other than a proper place. Don't answer; it's none of my business!
Well, a church in Rhode Island I used to serve kept it in the fridge between the mayonnaise and the mustard! Here it wasn't so bad, they were just keeping it in a sacristy cupboard. But if you are going to reserve the sacrament, than the whole point is that it maintains it's holiness past the end of the service! -t
Way to spike up the parish!
Yesterday evening I discovered, almost too late, a very practical reason for not keeping the reserve Sacrament in a sacristy cupboard. There are people with weak eyesight, and weaker minds (me, for one), who can manage to pick up an innocent-looking silver bread box without noticing that underneath was a piece of paper with the handwritten note "Consecrated." I say weak-minded because the smaller compartment it was in (along with the communion vessels)was tabernacle-shape, with a cross on the door and had a separate key. Fortunately my mistake was caught by someone else. I guess that nothing alerted me to the possibility of reserve Sacrament because it was in a multi-faith shared facility for worship services.
Of course this wouldn't have happened had I been preparing properly for my assigned task (reading an intricately-worded chunk of Epistle)instead of "helping" someone else. Took me three hours to figure out this last bit!
I have the Tabernacle, now. Picked it up yesterday. I just haven't had a chance to post a picture...
-t
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