Altar Stones Oratory seeks to increase devotion to the saints and angels by sharing traditional novenas, saints’ lives and other prayers and devotions.  Whenever possible, prayers will be given in their Latin settings, as recommended by Holy Father Emeritus, Pope Benedict XVI, drawing from the exquisite treasures of the historic Catholic Church.  Altar Stones Oratory follows the traditional liturgical calendar according to the 1962 Roman Missal.

      Altar Stones: a sign of devotion to the Saints and Angels

      The significance of the altar stones as an essential, tangible representation of our devotion to God first appears in the Old Testament, where the altars of the patriarchs were erected as God commanded, with simple, uncarved stones.  In the Jewish tradition, stones signify a memorial and to this day, Jewish mourners place stones on the graves of their beloved departed.

“These stones shall be for a memorial.” Joshua 4:7.

“Jesus saith to them: Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner?”  Matthew 21-42 

Our Lord is our corner stone and our lives as Christians are built foremost on  His memorial: the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The earliest Christians celebrated Mass on the stone graves of Christian martyrs buried in the catacombs, emphasizing that they joined their prayers to  those of the saints and martyrs buried there.

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held.–Revelations 6:9

Pope St. Felix I, (269-274 A.D.) is believed to have issued the decree that Mass should always be celebrated on the tombs of martyrs: “Hic constituit supra memorias martyrum missas celebrare,” Liber Pontificalis. In later centuries, to fulfill the decree of Pope St. Felix I, every Christian altar consecrated to the Mass was built with a recessed area to receive the relic of a saint.  The relic was placed inside a small stone, and that stone in turn was embedded in the altar.

If an altar stone is removed, the altar is  considered desecrated and must be re-consecrated.

 “The priest came in and….took out the
altar stone, and then …it was just a decorated room.”—Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

Over the past several decades, the altars of many Roman Catholic churches and cathedrals were redesigned to accommodate the new orientation of the priest saying the new mass. The amphitheater and theater in the round designs of many new sanctuaries imposed a different presentation of the altar, removing the altar rails and reconfiguring the altar itself.  In order that the priest might stand behind the altar to face the congregation during the consecration, many altars were moved forward from the reredoes (the altarpiece behind the altar). A large number of altars were simply discarded altogether and replaced with flat tables.

What became of the altar stones? The altar stones were removed and carted away.   This article details such events in the Boston archdiocese. This “stripping of the altars” took place amid a general removal of relics and a reconfiguration of the liturgical calendar of saints and martyrs:  the  feast days of many saints disappeared or were removed to a distant part of the calendar, just as their relics were translated from the altars into storage bins.  With the change to a new mass, lost were the instructions for the priest to kiss the altar nine times, invoking the intercession of the saint whose relics were enclosed in the altar stone.  Vanished were the saints named in the canon of the mass or in the confiteor.  It is not suprising that active and fervent devotion to the saints and angels in their supernatural capacity diminished along with faith in the effective reality of the communion of saints and a habit of soliciting the powerful intercession of the Church Triumphant.

 “I believe in the Communion of Saints…”   The Apostles’ Creed

“Be yourselves as living stones built up, a spiritual house.”  1 Peter 2:5

The saints are more than celebrities of the Christian faith, or super heroes.  They are a great cloud of witness cheering us on and interceding for us actively and powerfully if we ask their intercession. A traditional and effective form of prayer is the novena, 9 days of prayer preceding a saint’s feast day.  It is possible to embellish the liturgical year with a garland of novenas, praying from feast day to feast day for our special intentions.

“Without these devotions to the Saints and Angels there is no Catholicism.”–+Father Malachi Martin

Altar stones figure here as an image for the foundation of our worship of God.  By focusing on the Altar Stone as a symbol of our endeavor, we position this devotion to the saints, martyrs, and angels within its proper context, our worship of our Lord Jesus Christ on the altar in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as it was historically prayed in Latin for hundreds of years.

“In the old rite the Church sets forth in a fully explicit way her doctrine of the Communion of Saints by which we are united in a bond of fellowship with all the faithful living and dead. The  doctrine of the intercession of Our Lady and the Saints whose merits can win grace for our souls is given frequent prominence in the Ordinary and the Propers of the traditional Latin Mass.”

In a visual, tangible way, the relics of saints and martyrs inside the altar stone are a complement to the five crosses traditionally etched on the altar stone’s surface, representing the five wounds of Our Lord’s crucifixion.

We earnestly pray the altar stones with their holy relics will soon be replaced in the every altar.

“…a small red flame—relit before the beaten-copper doors of a tabernacle…the flame which the old knights saw from their tombs….I found it this morning, burning anew among the stones.”  

—Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

Altar Stones Oratory is under the patronage of St. John of God