Resistance is futile
In the post below we played "guess the mystery object" when it came to two tabernacles. The blogger at American Inquisition sent me a photo of a tabernacle that would on first site appear to be photoshopped if it were not for the act that it appear on Saint Malachy Church's website. The architecture of the church is bizarre, so bizarre that it won Honorable Mention prize in an international architectural competition (a kiss of death for beauty). The church integrates strange elements with more traditional ones. But I must say their tabernacle takes the cake.
Now any SF geek worth their salt would instantly identify this as the ship used by the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation and I am rather surprised that paramount hasn't sent them a letter for copyright infringement.
(This is the Borg ship from TNG)
Known as 
No doubt about it. Looks a lot more like a Borg ship than anything else I can imagine. Except perhaps a grey air cargo container:
http://www.ockerlund.com/images/grey_air_cargo_col.jpg
Also from the Malachy site: 'Over the Eucharistic Table in the main church hangs this Crucifix'. Eucharistic Table? What happened to the ALTAR?
Oh, that's right, Modernists don't believe Christ was a sacrifice... therefore there's no need for an altar. I forgot.
That must be the worst tabernacle ever invented. So much for reflecting God's glory ...
It is ugly, but I like the appearance of floating in air with no supports. The church looks like a white 55 gallon drum, half buried on it's side.
Sorry, I couldn't take it. I had to send off a memo to them about their offensive architecture. They will get a good laugh and put it in the shredder, no doubt, but I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight if I didn't say something. Now, why couldn't that be one of the churches sold off?
Some choice quotes:
"After the musicians were welcomed out onto the altar platform, glass was installed in the openings and it became the crying room. Later, crying infants were welcomed into the congregation during Mass and it was converted into a general-purpose meeting room."
"Off to one side in the chapel our tabernacle sits suspended...."
I wondered if this parish was in St. Louis.
They do have some pretty stained glass.
St. Vulcan of the Holy inner space and final frontier.
Enjoy all of the vissual beauty in side as you see items that resemble episodes that included the Borg, Klingons, and so on. Catholic Trekies must be thrilled.......
I'm not sure but I think I've seen that tabernacle before, only it was at a junk yard, and they had just crushed a car into the size of about 20x20x20. Holy crap, we're recycling our garbage to make tabernacles? I could just cry.......
Aww peee - yewww! The top one looks like an old beat-up steamer trunk and the bottom one looks like it's the hunk of metal you see when they squash up cars and such in those compactors.
(woops, Lucy & Teresa have near instantaneous reactions... holy cow, maybe it IS something from outer space affecting us!!)
I agree that this tabernacle is lame and so is the rest of the building. The "hyperbolic curve as a symbol of eternity" is the height of this lame-i-tude.
I tend to think that modern architecture as a general rule is incompatable with the Catholic Faith - like trying to make a Catholic form of pornography. But part of me hopes that someday there might be a modern, liturgical architect who can retain the great tradition of Catholic architecture and still produce something that is, well, modern. Or has Catholic architecture found its only authentic expression in romanesque and gothic?
I'm rolling over in my grave. Take my name off that thing, please!
I came across a church the other day where I couldn't find the tabernacle. Then I saw the red sancutary light, but still no tabernacle....then someone pointed out a large rock with a hinge on the front. What?!
I've seen a church that looks like that:
http://www.maryimmaculate.rcec.london.on.ca/history.html
The stone toilet from below does seem beautiful compared to this, doesn't it? Lord, have mercy...
There's something almost Lovecraftian about that black-box-suspended-on-space thingy. Every time I look at it I get the feeling that something creepy is going to slither out of it. *shudder*
Time to turn a saying I've heard so much about the grand churches of the past around on the people who prefer this stuff.
"Think of all the money spent on this that could have gone to the poor."
I have to give them a point for having an actual crucifix in the church. That's mighty white of them. Oh, add a point for that Mother of Perpetual Help icon.
I think some architect is just too in love with that opera house in Australia.
It is sad. Did anyone visit their tour slide show? If you do, note how the church is falling apart .... compared to some of those ancient churches that are still standing ..... Just another sad commentary on modern architecture such as this church.
When I saw the first picture, I immediately wondered how a piece of charcoal made it into a fetal sac. I mean, the shadow made by the cube looked just like a baby's foot to me at first glance. No beers for me on Thursday night!
"Altar platform?"
Actually, the exterior and overall shape remind me of St. Clement's parish in Centerline, MI. (The church near my grandmother's home outside Detroit) It was built in the mid sixties (I think) Though the tabernacle, as I remember, is actually in place behind the altar and is of relatively traditional shape (not like the rock of ages in this photo show)
Is that Eucharist valid? Look at the banner in
http://www.saint-malachy.org/liturgy.html
"Think of all the money spent on this that could have gone to the poor."
Well, you can tell that to the poor who contributed what little they had to the building of many of the old grand churches.
Clicked to view the church while having a midnight snack of cereal, snorted with laughter and nearly blew a Cheerio out my nose!! The church looks like a blimp hangar, no lie!
PML: There were so many more of the older churches at one time. The ones that are still standing literally got lucky, as they often figured out what would stand from trial and error.
Sigh. A horrid looking church, and yet they have such a lovely icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
Also, I swear one of those priests looks like Fr. Ted.
Also, Pam, it's not like the architecture is their fault. One can't help one's parish church, like one can't help one's family. My home parish is pretty horridly built, but the priests are top-notch. Tabernacle's unfortunately off to the side as well.
Okay, yeah, St. Malachy's tabernacle is ugly. But look, they've got the stations of the cross (which aren't bad), they've got a prominently-displayed crucifix, they've got statues of Our Lady and St. Joseph... it's ugly, but is there heresy? (And out of charity we must assume the best and therefore we must say that we think not.) No earthly structure is worthy of housing our Lord, not even ourselves, but He comes anyway and just for this purpose.
I'm more concerned that they call the Altar the "Eucharistic Table". Altar's and sacrifices are synonymous, what then of the relationship between sacrifice and a table?
Now it all suddenly makes sense. The poor architecture, the StarTrek "artistic" motifs of the sanctuaries, etc, and the emotionally dead voices and affects of our "liberal" priests, nuns, religious and professors.
In one of the StarTrek Next Generation movies, the plot line was that the Borg had gone back to the late 20th early 21st century to assimilate the planet Earth. Now we know where they've landed!
what then of the relationship between sacrifice and a table?
When I go to Mass at a place with a table, I'm making a huge sacrifice.
And Jonathan, you totally missed my point. So many people complained about the "extravagance" of those beautiful churches of the past, you'd thinkg they'd make the new churches out of Quonset huts. I assure you, even though this church looks like it, it /did/ cost more than $9.95 to design and build.
Oh, the waste! The poor needy!
From L's link:
Music, prayers and a brief homily geared for children are also part of this special and popular experience. The children rejoin the main body of parishioners during the Presentation of the Gifts and are invited to remain standing around the altar for the Eucharistic Prayer.
Hmmm.
How nice to know that if you go to this church, you won't be able to find the tabernacle, if/when you do, you may want to notify the bomb squad that someone appears to be trying to blow up the building. After the bomb squad departs, you can settle down to a solmen liturgical service replete with musicians strolling about the altar platform accompanied by a chorus of squalling infants.
What I meant by the link was check out the picture...that bread looks a little thick..
This is hideous, as Borg construction usually is... They can't ever have assimilated beings with aesthetic senses...
I probably won't ever do so, but for once I wish I could show you the tabernacle at Christ the King here. The ugliest Church in our Diocese, despite some stiff competition, it features a tabernacle that looks like a very ugly safe, to which bits of rough and blackened stainless steel strips have been welded... UGH...!
It takes a physical effort of will to remember to genuflect in front of these uglies; one has to remember Who they contain, and try to ignore what they look like...
The one on the left looks like the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, inverted.
Theresa, great minds think alike....or something like that. If only you and I could sit down over a cup of coffee and talk about all of this liberal craziness in the church. I think it might take longer than a cup of coffee though. :o)
...and then I went and spelled Teresa wrong.....oops.
They beat me to it! I was going to put up a web page about this building, which is one of the two ugliest churches in the Archdiocese. The other one has an metal roof and looks like an airplane hangar.
Someone said the Church looks like a blimp hangar. That is to remind the world that our God is bigger than a blimp. Obviously you cannot have a New Theology without some new symbolism.
Wow...I was so blessed in Florida when I lived there! Sometimes you don't know what you've got until you don't have it any more!! If you want to see a recently built church that inspires you towards the Lord, check out Annunciation Catholic Church (read about the parish at their site at http://www.churchofannunciation.org/ , and then check out pictures of the interior of the church building at http://www.walkercc.com/Annunciation%20Sanctuary%2002.htm ). The picture with the Tabernacle on the bottom left is the chapel for Adoration, and it's located directly behind the gates and glass that is at the back of the sanctuary. This church was completed only about three years ago, and it has lived up to be what our pastor said it would be: Something Beautiful for God.
Fear not! We are taking back our Church and building appropriate buildings that honor and glorify Him! Cheer up, all! They aren't all that bad!
(Oh, and a P.S. for you: There are statues of saints at the back of the narthex complete with candles to light, as well as statues of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, one on each side of the church.)