On February 17, 1929, the Rev. Mr. Lewis Nathaniel Taylor celebrated the first Holy Communion at a grand new altar that the Guild of the Good Shepherd had toiled for so long to make a reality. The altar, crafted from white Italian Cararra marble and mounted upon steps of the same material, replaced a small mahogany altar and was installed under the direction of the rector and consecrated by Bishop Kirkman Finlay. It remains the focal and spiritual centerpiece of the church’s rich interior to this day. But its significance extends far beyond its beauty. One of the core tenets of Anglo-Catholicism is that Christ is present in the Eucharist. Just as the Anglican Church’s break with Roman Catholicism in the sixteenth century had been made visible by the destruction of grand altars, replacing a small, simple wooden altar with a large imposing marble one that dominates the sanctuary would come to serve as its own powerful symbol of Good Shepherd’s return to the Church’s Catholic roots. Throughout the Anglican Communion, this change emphasized the importance of what is done on the altar: celebrating not a simple ceremony of remembrance but a Mass in which ordinary bread and ordinary wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ — the Real Presence of Christ.