Ad orientam v. Versus populum

[Cam42]

[quote]In restoring this ancient tradition of the Church to the Roman Rite, Latin parishes should be encouraged when building new Church structures to have the sanctuary at the eastern end. But this of course would require the restoration of the concept of the "sanctuary" which is often missing in the modern Roman Rite.[/quote]

This is a sad commentary, but one that is true. It is also one that must be called from the rooftops. In order to see this happen, it will have to come from the Church at large....and an understanding of proper Sacramental and proper Liturgical theology from the seminary onward.

[quote]I pray that someday the Apostolic Tradition of praying ad orientem is restored in the Roman Rite.[/quote]

Me too.

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v672/camilam42/altarfloor-1024.jpg[/img]

Ahhhhh.....home sweet home. My home parish when I lived in Minnesota. It is a Novus Ordo parish......



Cam42

[Guest Catholic_Torch]

Did You Know...

St. Peter's was built to face west? Only after Vatican II did the priest face east.

(it's so the sun on Easter morning pours in the front windows on to the altar, as i'm told)




also, what about side altars in basilica's that face every which way? what's the deal with that?

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Catholic_Torch' date='Feb 21 2005, 07:12 AM'] Did You Know...

St. Peter's was built to face west?  Only after Vatican II did the priest face east.

(it's so the sun on Easter morning pours in the front windows on to the altar, as i'm told)

also, what about side altars in basilica's that face every which way?  what's the deal with that? [/quote]
Although it is correct that the present St. Peter's is built with a western orientation, it has this orientation simply because the original basilica, which had been given to the Church in Rome by St. Constantine the Great, was a public Roman building (in other words, the original basilica of St. Peter's was not built as a Church, rather, it was turned into one); moreover, Roman governmental basilicas were invariably built with the apse in the west because of belief in Sol Invictus.

In spite of the western orientation of the building, originally the priest in the Roman Church would face east (i.e., standing behind the altar), while all the people would be looking at him while facing the apse (i.e., facing west); but just before the priest would begin reciting the prayers of the Mass, the Deacon would call out to the people telling them to turn and face east, and these acclamations of the Deacon can be found in the ancient Roman sacramentaries.

It was only later that the priest in these Roman Church buildings began facing [i]ad absidem[/i], and only once that had occurred did the acclamations of the Deacon telling the people to turn and face east drop out of the Roman diocesan liturgy.

God bless,
Todd

[Guest Catholic_Torch]

very true. "Old St. Peter's" was destroyed though. The altar could've been placed wherever it was supposed to be placed, but wasn't. St. Peter's today has only been around since Pope Paul V Borghese, as clearly expressed front and center of the structure.

[Cam42]

The Papal Altar at St. Peter's is not the main altar of the Basilica. The Altar underneath the Chair of Peter is the main altar.

Only the Pope may celebrate Mass from the Papal Altar. St. Clement had it consecrated 5 Jun 1594.

Again, however, it isn't about a literal facing East, but rather a spiritual facing East. We should face the consecration of the Blessed Sacrament.....as should the priest. It is bad catechetics to promote versus populum. The priest is mediator and should be portrayed as such. In the current posture he is not portrayed as a mediator, but rather something else.

Cam42

[Theoketos]

Both

Face the people and face the "preverbial" East, which is the Crucifix.

Edited February 22, 2005 by Theoketos

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Theoketos' date='Feb 21 2005, 06:11 PM'] Both

Face the people and face the preverbal East, which is the Crucifix. [/quote]
Praying while facing east must not be confused with praying while facing a crucifix, because these two postures are not the same thing. Praying while facing east is an eschatological sign, i.e., it concerns the return of the Lord at the end of time. Thus, the direction of prayer for the early Christians wasn't about the crucifixion; rather, it was about the resurrection, and to fail to recognize this is to confuse the liturgical signs.

Moreover, as I have said before, the priest and the people should not pray while facing each other, because it is contrary to the Apostolic Tradition.

[argent_paladin]

the ironic this is that, far from eliminating clericalism, the changes did the opposite. Before, you saw the back of the priest while he *lead* the rest of the congregation in prayer and worship, all facing the same direction. He was just the guy at the head of the line.

Now, it's all about the priest. He is amplified, lit, facing the people, with a ten-minute homily and perhaps a bit of patter before mass ("anyone here from out of town?"). He then is the center of attention for the entire mass, except for the usually very visible choir and the readers. But little attention is paid to the miniscule altar or to the tabernacle. Or to God, for that matter.

I am planning on transferring rites to Ukranian Catholic in part because of this very issue (but of course this is only the tip of the iceberg).

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='argent_paladin' date='Feb 21 2005, 07:26 PM'] I am planning on transferring rites to Ukranian Catholic in part because of this very issue (but of course this is only the tip of the iceberg). [/quote]
The Ukrainian Catholic Church is the largest Eastern Church in communion with Rome.

[Guest Catholic_Torch]

[quote name='Cam42' date='Feb 21 2005, 07:42 PM'] In the current posture he is not portrayed as a mediator, but rather something else. [/quote]
portrayed as [i]what [/i]else?

and i wasn't speaking about the papal altar.

Edited February 23, 2005 by Catholic_Torch

[Myles Domini]

I voted ad orientam out of preference but I think this poem I wrote entitled 'that which we eat' fully expresses my truest feelings on the matter:

Their fathers ate in the desert and died
My own, the gentiles, were deprived of all
A punishment meted out on all mankind
The result of serpent cunning and Adam’s fall
Yet in your mercy sweet sacred heart
You have handed to Peter Heaven’s key
From age to age you gather a people to your table
So that we might eat and partake in eternity
How all-sweeping the Divine Mercy
To take on the form of the work of human hands
To place your body, blood, soul and divinity
Into the mouths of they that follow your commands
What little to ask when it is on your shoulders
That the yolk and burden come to rest
You so enrapture us with your awesome presence
The liar goes unperceived when he comes to test
No force on earth or under it
Can break the bonds that bind us to you
As grace flows into us by your body and blood
Linking us by a love so pure and true
O God how can we ever imitate your meekness
For us you have shed all-power for inanimate form
You who created everything out of nothing
Make yourself less than all creatures born
Most benevolent and beautiful Jesus
What can I do to give you some small compensation?
For opening up to us Gentiles who hope in you
The covenant of everlasting and eternal salvation
A thousand contrasting feelings grip me
As I kneel in awe to receive you into my heart
My appendages almost racked with trembling
My body gripped by an all-consuming start
In the reality of all that is occurring
I can barely keep my head clear to reply
As my vision clouds and you approach me
I wish everyone could share in this like I
When I feel your caress upon my lips
My chest heats up as if to explode
My mind unable to grasp the simple beauty
Of a mystical union by such an easy mode
How graceful of you to lower yourself
To be placed in the hands of an ordained man
So that we can all have an easy access point
To the blissful existence you lay in our hands
My eternal and ever-loving King
I lay myself unreservedly at your pierced feet
For you my Lord have built upon the rock
That which has made my life complete

The Holy Father says it can said either way and he is the rock upon which the Church is built thus whichever way it is done matters not so long as our hearts touch the mystery and are open to Christ. Ideally the altar should face eastwards but I think our main concern should what the hearts of the faithful are turned towards, starting with ourselves as individuals.

[Cam42]

[quote]portrayed as what else?[/quote]

As presider for one. Or an equal second.

To use the language of presiding is not proper theology. He doesn't preside over the Liturgy. To assume that he is presiding misrepresents my role in the priesthood of Christ. I share in the royal priesthood, but I am not capable of consecration. The priest celebrates the Mass, therefore the proper term is celebrant.

If a bishop sits in choir, he is presiding. He is sitting a position of authority. The bishop acts a president or chairperson at the Mass. Unfortunately, many don't see that much any more.

But the priest is also more than an equal. He has an indellible mark on his soul that allows him to consecrate. By virtue of his office as one who is ordained, he acts in "persona christi." He his role is that of celebrant or mediator. He presents us with the Lord and he calls the Lord down from heaven. That is a position of mediation.

By definiton:

presider - To possess or exercise authority or control
celebrant - An officiating priest celebrating the Eucharist
mediator - a negotiator who acts as a link between parties

To refer to the priest as presider assumes a role of control, which is not proper in theological terms. The priest is a servant, as Christ was a servant. It is the priest who offers the gifts, not lords over them.

That role of control belongs to the bishop because of his office as universal pastor of his See. He is to excercise authority, when he sits in choir, that is precisely what he is doing.

So, in a long winded answer, those are the two roles that are most incorrectly viewed of the priest. While the language of today often speaks of the priest as presider, it is incorrect terminology and improper liturgical theology.

Cam42

[Apotheoun]

As Fr. Louis Bouyer said in his study of the Christian liturgy:

[quote name='Rite and Man: Natural Sacredness and Christian Liturgy' date=' by Fr. Louis Bouyer']The Christian church, like the Jewish synagogue, is carefully  oriented.  But it is no longer directed toward Jerusalem but toward the geographical east.  This is so true that contrary to the synagogues, Christian churches to the east of the Holy City did not hesitate to turn their backs on it.

This gives the exact meaning of the orientation in prayer to which the early Christians clung so tenaciously but which is a bit disconcerting to us.  It indicates that they had definitely substituted for the earthly Jerusalem the heavenly Jerusalem that is our mother, of which the Apostle speaks.  And they were waiting to see it descend from heaven with Christ in His [i]Parousia[/i], which had become symbolized for them by the East, in accordance with the Gospel formulas.

We should insist, therefore, that this instinctive return to one of the most natural religious symbols took on a fully supernatural meaning from the very first.  In the context in which it appears and in which we are going to describe it, the Christian orientation for prayer does not seem to owe anything to the forms of solar syncretism being propagated at the same time as Christianity.  It may well be, however, that it had its antecedents in a practice already spread among certain Jewish groups such as the Essenes.  But with them, as with the Christians, the immediate reason for this orientation must have been eschatological.  It was the expectation of the Messias as the New Orient, which will be that of the Day of Yahweh par excellence, that determined this symbolism. 

Will not Christ Himself say that His coming will be like the lightning which comes out of the east  and shines even unto the west?

This shows that Christian universalism, which replaced Jewish particularism, had nothing to do with an abstraction which would subtract man from his humanity.  The "city whose foundations are eternal," awaited by the Christians, that is, is in no wise a [i]civitas Platonica[/i].  It is one with Jesus of Nazareth, a man of our flesh and blood, who has become a part of our history, but who has freed Himself from it, drawing us entirely after Him, body and soul, to the right hand of the Father, from whence He will return to take us with Him.

This gives the clue for the new organization of sacred space within the church.  The presence on which the cult is oriented no longer pertains to the earth:  the symbolism of the orientation turns us toward the new heaven and the new earth where justice will dwell.  This eschatological presence is, however, anticipated in time:  it is revealed in the table of the Eucharistic Supper which now occupies the apse that had till then remained empty.  In the commemorative banquet of the Cross, the faithful can anticipate the [i]parousia[/i] each time they assemble.  The presence of the risen Christ not only with, but also in, them brings them there beforehand.  Nevertheless, it is still the Word, in the fullness of the Gospel that orients them toward the [i]parousia[/i], through the Eucharist of the Cross.  And this has brought about the rearrangement of sacred space along an ecclesiastical axis, Word-Eucharist-East, that replaces the synagogical axis, Word-Jerusalem.

[. . .]

The notion that the arrangement of the Roman basilica is ideal for a Christian church because it enables the priests and the faithful to face each other during the celebration of the Mass is really a misconstruction.  It is certainly the last thing which the early Christians would have considered, and is actually contrary to the way in which the sacred functions were carried out in connection with this arrangement.

More should be said.  The notion that the Roman basilica and its altar [i]versus populum[/i] would provide a better view of the ceremonies is not even true when one is stationed facing the celebrant in defiance of the traditional orientation.  Today, when a papal Mass is regarded as an interesting spectacle, the place in front of the altar is so poorly adapted for seeing what is going on that those who are experienced in such matters always ask for tickets for places on the side of the apse!

Moreover, even if this had not been so, it is quite doubtful whether the faithful, even if turned toward the altar, could have seen anything particularly interesting during the celebration.  The date of the first ciboria to cover the Roman altars is difficult to ascertain.  But it seems that from the very beginning they served to maintain, despite all their subsequent transformations, another element of the primitive symbolism besides that of orientation.  This was the veil, which in Syrian churches hid the holy table as it had earlier hidden the Holy of Holies.  We may even wonder whether the ciborium, as found in Roman basilicas, was not the successor to a close imitation of the ancient Jewish tabernacle, in other words, to a real tent completely surrounding the altar.  As a matter of fact, in the Ambrosian rite, this tent, the [i]padiglione[/i], has survived down to our own time.  This may well be a further example of what the Roman rite embraced in its primitive form.

[Pages 170-171, and 175-176][/quote]

Once again, the Eastern Catholic Churches [i.e., the Ruthenians, Ukrainians, Melkites, etc.], in line with the inspired Apostolic Tradition, have retained the eastward orientation in prayer, and they have also, through the use of the iconostasis, kept the temple veil which covers and shields the altar from view, since sanctuary is the Holy of Holies upon earth and the dwelling place of God among men. The Roman Rite needs to recover the Apostolic Tradition of having both the priest and the people facing east, looking to the eschatological return of the Lord in His [i]parousia[/i]. The eastward orientation in prayer was instituted by Christ the Lord Himself, for as Gospels tell us, Jesus said, "As the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of man." [Matthew 24:27] Byzantine Catholics, both the priests and the laity, continue the Sacred Apostolic Tradition of facing east while praying in expectation of the Lord's [i]parousia[/i], and I hope that at some point in the future the Roman Rite will restore this inspired Tradition, which was given to the Church by Jesus Christ Himself.

[Cam42]

[quote]The Roman Rite needs to recover the Apostolic Tradition of having both the priest and the people facing east, looking to the eschatological return of the Lord in His parousia.[/quote]

I could not agree with you more. I think that in order for there to be move in this direction, there needs to be proper catechesis, of the priests and the laity.

The role of the priest, as I have elluded to and the eastward position as you have elluded to are the two major points. If those who are priestly, understand this, then I think that there would be a genuine move to the proper orientation.

The question then becomes, how and when does this begin to happen? Perhaps we need to bring Fr. Pontifex in on this discussion.

Cam42

[Cam42]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/liturgy/smturned.txt"]Article by Msgr. Richard Schuler I[/url]

[url="http://www.adoremus.org/497-Schuler.html"]Article by Msgr. Richard Schuler II[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/LITURGY/TURNTABL.TXT"]Article by Rev. John Zuhlsdorf[/url]

[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/LITURGY/SMADORVE.TXT"]Notitiae article[/url]

These articles really sum up the whole discussion. Msgr. Schuler is my mentor and I have the utmost respect for him and Fr. Zuhlsdorf is a friend.

Cam42

Edited February 24, 2005 by Cam42