The Symbols of the Altar
In order to participate more fully and intelligently in the action of the Holy Eucharist we need to enter the reality within the symbols, the instruments we see about us in church. Each may be a focus for meditation. Each will yield up great depths of spiritual life. So from many symbols, one wholeness will emerge – the living temple under the veil of material forms, the meeting-point of the Creator’s work and humanity’s highest labor in this world.
As the whole church, including the people, is to be the focus of divine life-giving, so the altar is the focus of the church, the summation of divine and human work. The cross and candles represent and communicate the life of God, poured out for the transformation of the world. The table, the base, of the altar symbolizes the world of matter which is to be spiritualized through the work in the temple.
The altar focuses the whole process in which the darkness of our material world is illuminated from within by the irresistible power of the spirit…the divine is not remote from creation, but present within material forms, forever working the miracle of transformation. Here in the temple, “under the veil of earthly things”, that great work is focused in power, so that we may take a conscious part in it. The altar is the key to an understanding of all symbols of the temple…for all are material things, things of this earth, which point to, represent, and embody the infinite Life which is to be expressed through them.
Many of the first Christian altars were built upon the tombs of martyrs, deep in the earth of the catacombs, symbolizing the denseness of matter. Here, where other men saw only the visible evidence of death, the Christian saw through the tomb, to the unseen life underlying all things, giving vitality and purpose to the solidity of matter, bring life out of death, light out of darkness.
The base of the altar, beneath the candles which will burn as symbols of light and life, is the earth; it is every shape and structure of matter. Here men place their material offerings of bread and wine which are to transformed…and, with their offerings, also place themselves, and all creation. As the offerings are re-created, new life will flow to all things visible and invisible; the seemingly rigid altar, the unyielding structure, is in reality a vortex of life.
Upon the altar lie three cloths of pure linen, recalling the cloths with which the body of Christ was wrapped, and placed within the tomb…and which, on Easter morning, were found lying within the empty tomb. They also symbolize the material forms which the divine assumes to communicate itself to humanity…infinite life within the commonplace forms of daily life.
On or near the altar stands the tabernacle, in reality an extension of the altar – a locked safe in which the Blessed Sacrament is kept. Here again the symbolism of outward rigidity and inward vitality is continued; within the material form of the tabernacle, the divine life is, in a special sense, present, indwelling hidden from earthly eyes, in a for which we cannot intellectually understand, but which, through an awakening of spirit, may become a reality in our lives
Condensed from the audio-visual program, “The Instrument of Transformation”, by J.B. Perry and M.C. Godby. Published by St. Alban Press.
