What is that?
That …that …enormous …thing
over the altar, filled with lights and colored glass, holding up the suspended
crucifix. That, my friends, is a
baldachin. That’s the first thing you
have to explain to a first-time visitor to our humble parish church. It is also known as a baldacchino, from the Italian; or ciborium, from the Latin.
That latter is the same word we use for the vessel that holds the
consecrated hosts; the common element being the lid, or cover.
Some call it a
“canopy,” and that is no bad guess, although that invokes a tent or some other
cover made of cloth. The most famous
baldachin in the world – the one designed by Bernini that stands above the
Papal altar in Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican – fashions bronze to look
like fabric, silk flaps swaying gently in the breeze, with tassels hanging from
the tips.
Aside from simply
designating the altar area as the most important in the church, which it is;
and beyond drawing eyes and attention to what happens beneath it, which it
does, the baldachin does in fact refer directly and unambiguously to another
canopy.
In many pre-modern
and pre-urban societies, not only was the wedding itself a social event
celebrated by the entire population of the village or town, but that
celebration and that involvement continued up to and including the fulfillment
of the marriage promises. So, just as
before the wedding, the preparation of the bride and the groom was a communal
effort, so after the wedding, the banquet (a much stronger – and longer! – event
than a mere reception) and
beyond. For there was also prepared a
nuptial chamber, to which the couple, after sufficient partying had been enjoyed,
would be led. Inside was prepared the
wedding bed, decorated and designated by the best of everything available and
over it, a canopy. Under that canopy
would be sealed and consummated the nuptial union that the couple had promised
one another in the marriage ceremony.
In the lectionary for
weekday Mass, we just began reading Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. In its fifth chapter, Paul reflects that the
sacrifices husbands and wives offer one another are in fact a great mystery, a sacramentum, both manifesting and making present the very
relationship between Christ Jesus and His spouse, the Church: “For this reason a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one
flesh." This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the
church. (Ep 5:31-32)
How
does this happen? How does Christ, the
ever-faithful Bridegroom, offer His flesh to His bride, and how does She
receive it, and offer Her body to be His?
How else but in the Holy Eucharist?
He who eats my flesh and drinks my
blood abides in me, and I in him. (Jn
6:56) Ergo, the nuptial imagery
surrounding and identifying our Holy Altar.
Nobody who knows and
understands the faith of the Church would confuse believing Catholics with
prudes or puritans. How could that be
possible when our most sacred space is centered on a direct reference to the
marital act? For our faith does not lead
us away from the flesh; on the contrary, it leads us to the life-giving flesh
of our Lord.
Just last week we
switched our bulletin cover to the photo of this most distinctive feature of
our church. The baldachin is at the
center of our church, because the Eucharistic feast is the center of our
life-giving communion in the Body of Christ, and because marriage is the center
of the communion in the flesh between man and wife that brings life into the
world, and into the communion with God in Christ. So that is what that is.
Monsignor
Smith
