Altared state

[offcntr]

Some years ago, my friend Kathy Lee started me on a new sideline. She was a potter as well, and her late husband a Lutheran minister, so she'd done a lot of altar ware over the years. Now her church, Central Lutheran, wanted a complete new set: chalices, patens, ciborium, and fairly complicated structures. The chalices were designed for intinction--dipping the host in the wine--and also needed to accommodate both wine and grape juice in the same vessel. Kathy was no longer young, didn't want to take on such a big job, and, frankly, I needed the work.

The commission led to other work, over the years, both for Central and Springfield Lutheran churches. And I recently got a call from the head of the altar guild at Central: their cleaner had had an accident with a backpack vacuum, and could I make some replacements?

As it happened, I had one spare chalice in the shed, but they needed four. Also some tiny patens, and a mini-ciborium that matched the glaze on the rest of their set.

It'd been several years since I'd last made these; I was surprised how quickly it came back to me.


Now I have to go back through my records and see what I charged for these...

Comments

[ioplokon]

Do they not have to be gold, or is that just a Catholic thing?

Also, I suppose if things go poorly, you can practice your Quebec swearing... :p

[sporky_rat]

Growing up we only had ceramic during Lent, we had silver (or probably good silver plate) rest of the year.

[ioplokon]

Cool! I'd only ever seen gold ones, so it was surprising to me.

[offcntr]

Even the Catholics are less insistent on gold these days: my church has a very nice handmade pewter chalice set with cast bronze bases. This is for a Lutheran congregation, so stoneware with a nice iron/titanium matte is as close to gold as they get.

[ioplokon]

Is the bowl gilt on the inside, though? When I was an altar boy, it was impressed on me that the gold was not optional. Our bishop was very fancy, though, so may have been his influence.

[offcntr]

It isn't in our set. Not sure if that was canon or just tradition.

[offcntr]

Also, I suppose if things go poorly, you can practice your Quebec swearing... :p

No, I swear in Slovenian when things don't go right.

[ioplokon]

That works too! I was joking about how ciboire (ciborium) and câlisse (chalice) are swears in Quebec.

[offcntr]

Did not know that! I fear I can guess what body part "chalice" refers to.

[ioplokon]

Haha, but actually, no! There's no other references, they're just religious swears, like 'damn'.

[offcntr]

Oh that's right, remember this from the Lingthusiasm podcast; one of the hosts is a Canadian linguist.