Christ should be centre of Church

To the Editor:

This letter is in regards to the Sept. 25 article in the St. Paul Journal, Tapestries create Biblical treasures. Roman Catholics are Christ-o-centric Eucharistic people of faith in the real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. While there are many women mentioned in the Bible, excepting the Mother of God, most of those women had nothing to do with Christ Jesus, present in our Eucharist.

As Jesus is truly the centre of our faith, Fr. Gerard should put the Tabernacle back in the centre of the Cathedral sanctuary, where the big chair now is, where Christ was front and centre. This is the Lord’s house and He should be front and centre. Fr. Gerard’s flair for the artistic should also alert him to the feminine crucifix there in our Church now for so many years, and move him to replace that sad example and give us the manly Christ in all his sufferings, which won our redemption from sin and the fires of hell.

Exposing Fr. Gerard’s tapestries in our Church is not the place for those things. Tapestries are fine in a school or Sunnyside, but out of place in our Church.

This summer, I entertained a visitor from the States, and of course we went to the Cathedral, as he was here for some days. But upon seeing the ‘tapestries,’ this man’s question was: “What are those carpets hanging from the balcony of your Church? Is that not a Catholic Church?” In essence, the carpets prove nothing more than a distraction, rather than an aid to our union with Jesus Christ.

Instead of spending hours and hours on his tapestries, Fr. Gerard Gauthier should be out looking after his lost sheep in this parish. Fr. Gerard is advised to seek out the lost and bandage their wounds, rather than by getting his picture in the paper, remembering our Lord’s sobering words of Luke 6:26: “Woe to you when the world speaks well of you, for so they did of the false prophets of old.”

Irene McNeilly

Lady Commander of Magisterial Grace, Order of St. Briget of Sweden

St. Paul