By Father Ted

It must have been six or eight months ago that I took a pencil, a few sheets of graph paper, and a tape measure into Roper Hall and started drawing to-scale floorplans of the room. Fr. Casey didn't exactly assign me the task of designing our worship space while the church building undergoes renovations; it was more of a compulsion, an irresistible challenge. Someone was going to have to do that work at some point, so I thought I would take the first crack at it. What started as a rough sketch turned into a wonderful collaboration with the rest of the clergy, Joel, members of the Altar Guild, and the other ministries.

The goal was to come up with a liturgical plan that was coherent and unified. We wanted to avoid a "Frankenstein's monster" kind of a service, one where you just take a bunch of cool ideas, mix them all up, and hope for the best. Every choice needed to be supported by other choices. It all needed to work together.

One feature of our regular worship that we had to consider was the altar rail. An altar rail is not an essential component for the celebration of Holy Eucharist, but it performs a few functions that are very helpful. Altar rails provide a line of demarcation between the nave and the sanctuary. But this line of separation should not be confused with a barrier, it's not intended to keep people out. Instead, it is a reminder that when you are inside the rail, you should treat that space with a little extra reverence, that you are moving from holiness to holiness.

An altar rail also makes it easier to receive communion while kneeling. Not only is it a helpful handhold when you're moving up and down, but it also supports your arms while you extend them to receive the bread. I remember hearing Fr. Gene Baker preach on Holy Cross Day many years ago about how the small quatrefoils in our altar rail support our out-stretched arms the same way the wood of the cross held Christ's arms at his crucifixion: a reminder of the true cost of our sacred feast.

But adding an altar rail to Roper Hall would have been challenging in a few ways: one logistical and the other practical. Logistically, it would have involved an elaborate construction project to create the rail and its supporting structure. But with all the construction in the nave and sacristy, we could do without another project. Practically, it would have taken up a lot of space on the floor. As it is currently arranged, Roper Hall seats about 250 people, and we need every one of those seats, particularly at the 9:00 service. After weighing the pros and cons, we opted for a rail-less design. This means that we receive communion at stations instead of standing or kneeling before a rail. For those of you who regularly worship on Saturday night, this is nothing new.

But even if we made the right decision, we had to make it worked with everything else. Remember, we were going for a coherent, unified service where every element supported the rest. And just as the lack of an obvious devotional focus became an opportunity instead of a problem (see last week's article), removing the altar rail gives us a chance to worship in a new way. Remember how the rail can separate one holy space from another: In Roper Hall's current configuration, the entire room becomes the sanctuary. It's as if we are all worshipping within the altar rail. The lack of separation is also echoed in the way we are seated; we are all sitting together: the ministers, the congregation, and the choir.

And so, I hope that when you walk through the doors of Roper Hall you will feel like you are entering a sacred space, one that has been hallowed by many years of praise and thanksgiving.

See you on Sunday!

Father Ted+