The Stripping of the Altars
A Reflection and a Resource
Last week I attended the rites of the Triduum at three different churches. This is not really normal; one should attend what is essentially one long, if interrupted, liturgy at one’s own parish church. In our case, this is complicated by the fact that two parishes share a pastoral team. So Good Friday was at our parish of Holy Rosary, while the Easter Vigil was at our sister parish church of Visitation.
For Holy Thursday, however, I attended Saint Joseph, our local FSSP parish. Many things struck me about the difference between the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form Masses for Holy Thursday, but the most striking to me was at the very end, the Rite of the Stripping of the Altars.
In the Ordinary Form, the entire process is given in a single rubric:
This sort of presupposes that one knows how to actually do this, as no further instructions are given, either in the rubrics or in the General Instruction.
If we look at Paschale Solemnitatis, the Circular Letter Concerning the Preparation and Celebration of the Easter Feasts, which is our only other authoritative instruction on this subject, we find this:
So that’s not really much of a help in how it should be done.
In the Extraordinary Form, however, a full description of the stripping of the altars is provided. It is, in fact, a rite unto itself. Of course, the rubrics in the Missal are in Latin, but I found a description of the rite in English.
The following is from The Rites of Holy Week by Rev. Frederick McManus, published in 1956:
Further on, there’s an additional instruction:
And here’s what that looked like at Saint Joseph.
Since the modern rubric seems to presume that the celebrant already knows how to do this, and keeping in mind Section 42 of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, there seems to be no reason that this small rite cannot be celebrated within the Ordinary Form. And there is much to suggest that the stripping of the altars should be done this way.
Therefore, below is a gift – a PDF with the short rite provided – for those priests who wish to supplement next year’s Holy Thursday stripping of the altars. Enjoy!