Catholic Word of the Day: TABERNACLE, 05-20-10

CatholicReference.net ^ | 05-20-10 | Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary

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TABERNACLE

A cupboard or boxlike receptacle for the exclusive reservation of the Blessed Sacrament. In early Christian times the sacred species was reserved in the home because of possible persecution. Later dovenshaped tabernacles were suspended by chains before the altar. Nowadays tabernacles may be round or rectangular and made of wood, stone, or metal. They are covered with a veil and lined with precious metal or silk, with a corporal beneath the ciboria or other sacred vessels. According to the directive of the Holy See, since the Second Vatican Council, tabernacles are always solid and inviolable and located in the middle of the main altar or on a side altar, but always in a truly prominent place (Eucharisticum Myserium, May 25, 1967, II C). (Etym. Latin tabernaculum, tent, diminutive of taberna, hut, perhaps from Etruscan.)

All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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I don't care for the tabernacle to be located on a side altar.

Your opinions?

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Catholic Word of the Day – links will be provided later by another FReeper.

 

Mass Salutation	Old Law	Nazarene
Subjectivism	Papal Coronation	Apostle
Subdiaconate	Mala Fide	Spiritual Espousals
Baptistery	Didache (Teaching of the twelve Apostles)	Aglipayanism
Tabernacle

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Later dovenshaped tabernacles were suspended by chains before the altar.

"dovenshaped"?

My parish has a separate chapel for the Blessed Sacrament, but we don't have a "real" church, so we don't have a permanent altar. Different arrangements work in different places.

One church in, iirc, the Oklahoma City area had the tabernacle in something like a between-rooms fireplace arrangement: an opening in a dividing wall so that it was behind the main altar in the church, and behind the smaller altar in the day chapel.