Roman Catholic Altars

The museum’s collections includes six (6) Roman Catholic altars on display. What represents a Roman Catholic altar? The five crucifixes on the altar are a representation of the five wounds of Jesus Christ and identify a Roman Catholic altar. The altars within the museum’s collection follow an age-long practice of the Roman Catholic Church, these altars are constructed out of Italian Carrera marble, significant of a symbolic meaning in using natural-stone in the construction of an altar. Altars are place for sacrifice to God:

And if you make for Me an altar of stones, do not build it of hewn stones; for by wielding your tool upon them you have profaned them.
( Exodus 20:22 )

The use of natural stones are a representation of God’s work, thus unhewn (not cut by men), as well as God’s people. Thus this practice of constructing altars out of natural stone was used for centuries and was to represent the Kingdom of God, which should be made out of stone, symbolic of God’s people.