Why Altar Rails Are Returning to Catholic Churches...

[Michie]

Faith must have its physical and visual expression. The return of the altar rail is a refreshing and sublime response to a distorted vision of the Church. It reintroduces the traditional teachings of the Church with awe and wonder, delighting the worshiper and resurrecting fervor for Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

In churches across the country, pastors are installing altar rails. Some parishes are bringing the rails back to old churches after they were torn out decades ago. Other parishes are adding them to new churches that never had them.

The altar rail is coming back by popular demand. It is changing the way people see the Holy Eucharist. Best of all, the move is highly popular and awaking enthusiasm among the faithful.

After the Second Vatican Council, many churches removed their altar rails, claiming it divided “the people of God” from the priest in the sanctuary. The idea was to turn the Mass into “a shared, communal worship experience.” However, it also removed the sense of the sacred that once dominated the church, and Eucharistic devotion waned.

A Catechism in Stone

Continued below.

Why Altar Rails Are Returning to Churches

Faith must have its physical and visual expression. The return of the altar rail is a refreshing and sublime response to a distorted vision of the Church. It reintroduces the traditional teachings of the Church with awe and wonder, delighting the worshiper and resurrecting fervor for Our Lord in...

theimaginativeconservative.org

 

[chevyontheriver]

In churches across the country, pastors are installing altar rails. Some parishes are bringing the rails back to old churches after they were torn out decades ago. Other parishes are adding them to new churches that never had them.

The altar rail is coming back by popular demand. It is changing the way people see the Holy Eucharist. Best of all, the move is highly popular and awaking enthusiasm among the faithful.

After the Second Vatican Council, many churches removed their altar rails, claiming it divided “the people of God” from the priest in the sanctuary. The idea was to turn the Mass into “a shared, communal worship experience.” However, it also removed the sense of the sacred that once dominated the church, and Eucharistic devotion waned.

A Catechism in Stone

Continued below.

Why Altar Rails Are Returning to Churches

Faith must have its physical and visual expression. The return of the altar rail is a refreshing and sublime response to a distorted vision of the Church. It reintroduces the traditional teachings of the Church with awe and wonder, delighting the worshiper and resurrecting fervor for Our Lord in...

theimaginativeconservative.org

My old parish reinstalled them specifically so communion could be distributed at the rail. But I moved.

I have experienced communion at the rail in an Ordinariate setting and at first it is jarring. Not bad after a few times. I could see it becoming my preferred way of receiving the Eucharist.

There is nothing that says a Novus Ordo mass needs to have no altar rail, nor that one cannot kneel for communion. Those things are just how we got told it had to be. But it didn't have to be.

 

[Michie]

I’ve never experienced receiving the Eucharist at a rail. All of these things are just things I read about.

 

[RileyG]

I’ve never experienced receiving the Eucharist at a rail. All of these things are just things I read about.

We have one at my parish, as at the TLM Chapel. I know they're in others. I also live in the most conservative diocese in the country (Lincoln, NE).