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I wish we had a proper corpus.

We have a "Christ the High Priest" suspended from the ceiling of the sanctuary.

Could be worse (it doesn't look objectionable in context):

I think the style is too modern, and I would prefer one of the old-fashioned linden-wood carved crucifixes myself. But that's really just my personal preference. Overall the church is traditional and reverent.

If we went back to ad orientem celebration, it would be relatively easy (although you'd need a LARGE lift) to move the altar back against the roodscreen and install a traditional tabernacle in the center. Which might allow enough room to have a proper chancel choir . . . I wish they'd designed it with a chancel, but then I'm a former Piskie and that's what I'm used to. Technically speaking it was never a monastic foundation so it's not SUPPOSED to have a chancel . . . but so many of the great English churches do. Of course, you have to behave yourself when you're up there in front of God and everybody, the choir loft in the back allows one to shuffle music, fish out cough drops, and ask your neighbor WHICH anthem is for the offertory? And parishioners who sneaked into the choir loft after the Gospel NEVER complain . . . . :-D

I agree, a crucifix would be better, but it doesn’t look absolutely awful and at least it’s cruciform!

Much of the old altar is still in place at the Cathedral and they could even celebrate ad orientem as is. I have heard ominous rumblings about redesigning the sanctuary, though, and I’m not sure exactly what they have in mind.

On the one hand, we need a redesign; our choir loft was removed when the new organ was installed (the pipes had to go somewhere...), so the choir lines up on what looks like bleachers along the side. Not a great effect, and it doesn’t help their sound much. Of course, with the choice of music, their sound is the least of their problems.

If I were confident that the redesign were directed simply at solving some problems, I’d feel better about it, but I suspect it may also be directed at making the altar permanently unsuitable for celebration of the EF.

BTW, I try to avoid hustling for my blog, but I do have some interesting photos of restored altars and Colonial Spanish art from my trip through the Central California missions last week. You can see them here: http://spanishnativity.typepad.com

It’s hard to believe that these things were done by Franciscans, the worst of the religious orders now, but the Spanish Franciscans who went to the New World spent literally years assembling the music they wanted to take with them, devoted much time to soliciting donations of art, and created beautiful environments for their humble converts.