Portable Altar Stone

hblock21

If this is more suited to the history section please move.

My great grand uncle was a priest (died aged 94 in about 1974) and we have many of his religious objects here including his altar stone. I have done a little reading on the internet and it says that an altar stone contains relics but there is no noticeable hole in our one.
There is however an engraving on the back "PFG" and the reason for this post.
Anyone with any ideas as to what this engraving means?

I have attached an image.

uck51js9zml2yt

hblock21 wrote: »

If this is more suited to the history section please move.

My great grand uncle was a priest (died aged 94 in about 1974) and we have many of his religious objects here including his altar stone. I have done a little reading on the internet and it says that an altar stone contains relics but there is no noticeable hole in our one.
There is however an engraving on the back "PFG" and the reason for this post.
Anyone with any ideas as to what this engraving means?

I have attached an image.

Theres nothing attached!

Thinkingaboutit

The sacrifice of the Mass of Ages was and is offered, ideally, on an altar containing a relic or relics of a martyr saint. A portable relic allows that to happen anywhere. A priest would have a travel sized Missale Romanum to allow him to meet the common ideal of a daily offering of Mass.

hblock21

Only saw now that I didnt attach the picture. So here is a pic of the front and back.

hblock21

and the back

Would love to know what PFG means. They are not the priests initials as his name was Fr. Joesph Phelan

uck51js9zml2yt

Thinkingaboutit wrote: »

The sacrifice of the Mass of Ages was and is offered, ideally, on an altar containing a relic or relics of a martyr saint. A portable relic allows that to happen anywhere. A priest would have a travel sized Missale Romanum to allow him to meet the common ideal of a daily offering of Mass.

Whats a "Mass of Ages" mean?


OP- whats the PFG on the back mean?

hblock21

Brendan Teeny Razor wrote: »

OP- whats the PFG on the back mean?

I don't know. I'm asking on here.

uck51js9zml2yt

hblock21 wrote: »

I don't know. I'm asking on here.

so you are

Peregrinus

The style of the lettering in the "PFG" looks pretty old to me - eighteenth or early nineteenth century. So, though it may have belonged to the OP's great-great-uncle who died in 1974, he probably wasn't the first owner. "PFG" could be the initials of an earlier owner, though I don't think it was common for altar stones to be identified with owners in this way. Altar stones weren't really owned by individual priests; they were supplied to priests as needed, and it's possible that one priest would have carried and used the same altar stone throughout his ministry, but it didn't really belong to him, and on his death it would normally be returned to his parish/diocese/religious order/whatever, who would then have it available for another priest. So putting your own initials on it wouldn't really be the done thing.

(In this case, the altar stone wasn't returned on the priest's death in 1974 because, possibly, by then altar stones were no longer in use, or were no longer required.)

So, if not an owner's initials, then what? It's common for an altar stone to have a little plaque fixed to it recording the names of the saint or saints whose relics are contained within. There's no plaque here, obviously, or if there was it has been removed or has fallen off, but it's just possible that "PFG" is an indication of the names of the saints whose relics are enclosed, or that it links to an entry in some register or documentation that was at one time created by, e.g., some religious order to track their various altar stones, whose relics where in them, which priests/locations they had been issued to, etc.

If the OP's great-great-uncle was a member of a religious order, it might be worth contacting the archivist of the order who might still hold records of that kind, or at any rate might be able to shed some light on the likely signficance of the "PFG" inscription.

And one final possibility occurs to me. We're familiar with religios cyphers like "BVM" (Blessed Virgin Mary), "AMDG" (Ad Majoram Gloriam Dei"), etc. Is it possible that "PFG" is some little-known cypher that someone considered appropriate for an altar stone, standing for something like (wild guess here) "Pro Fidei Gloria"? Or could that or something like that have been the motto of a religious order?

uck51js9zml2yt

^^^^^^^. In other words "we don't know"

recedite

Brendan Teeny Razor wrote: »

Whats a "Mass of Ages" mean?

Googling it, it seems to be the name of a magazine.

On the main topic, I see from wiki that

Every altar had to have a "title" or "titulus" in Latin. This could be The Holy Trinity or one of its Persons; a title or mystery of Christ's life (Christ the Good Shepherd; the Holy Cross); Mary in one of her titles (Mother of Christ; Our Lady of Good Counsel); or a canonized saint.

So it seems likely that PFG is the "title" of this stone. Is there any saint with those initials? I don't know.

Another thing that strikes me about the crosses that are engraved on the stone is that they don't seem to be in usual style that you would normally see in reasonably modern official RCC usage. They have a teutonic look about them, as in the "cross formee"; what you might associate with the medieval crusades. Now I'm not saying the stone is that old, but I'd certainly take good care of it just in case it is "quite old". Also the engravings are quite rough and ready, and being a "portable" stone, maybe this comes from a time of great strife or great uncertainty within the church?
We know that in settled times of prosperity, even the very ancient church was capable of producing very fine craftsmanship (eg the Book of Kells)

BTW I should point out I'm no expert in either religious artefacts or indeed antiques in general. Just throwing ideas out there

Peregrinus

The arrangement of five crosses with one at each corner and one in the centre is conventional for an altar stone. And they're usually Greek crosses, with arms of equal length. I have no idea why this should be so, but it is. If you do a Google Image search for "altar stone" you'll see lots of examples.

recedite

On the topside, the one with the 5 crosses, at top centre, what is that squiggle symbol with a "c" in the middle of it?
Or is it just a blemish in the stone?