Altar baldacchino secret of our sanctuary renovation

Underneath the canopy of pretty much any baldacchino anywhere in the world – where any still exist – you are likely to see an image of the Holy Spirit. In this case of Saint Peter’s Basilica on Vatican hill, you can also see the amber window of the Holy Spirit.

Below you see some progress being made with the base of our new mostly solid oak altar, which will have a near half-ton granite top. There is, however, for evenly flat and super strong support a maple topped sheet of plywood which will lie immediately underneath the granite which will itself overhang all sides. I insisted that this particular bit of maple plywood be used up top. It is from a 4’x8′ case housing protecting the delivery of a hand painted canvas that was intended to be used and was used for many years as a baldacchino over the ad orientem altar of Holy Souls Hermitage of yore.

Here’s a detail of that hand-painted baldacchino:

We can’t have a baldacchino in our little church since the ceiling is so low that, at the Consecrations at Holy Mass, the chalice almost bumps into that ceiling.

Now that the hermitage is gone forever, I was momentarily tempted to extract this detail of the Holy Spirit from that hand-painted baldacchino, reframe it, and place it front and center of our new altar. Even a detail would be too large.

But, since the beginning of the project, we’re hoping to find some kind of art-work typical of any ad orientem Altar of Sacrifice one might see in days more of tradition more so than our own, such as a mosaic or bas-relief sculpture of, say, the Last Supper. But that’s for the finishing touches. We continue the work.