"Turn to the Lord!"
[A] common turning to the East during the Eucharistic Prayer remains essential. This is not a case of accidentals, but of essentials. Looking at the priest has no importance. What matters is looking together at the Lord. It is not now a question of dialogue, but of common worship, of setting off towards the One who is to come. What corresponds with the reality of what is happening is not the closed circle, but the common movement forward expressed in a common direction for prayer....
In this way we obey the ancient call to prayer: Conversi ad Dominum, "Turn to the Lord!" In this way we look together at the One whose Death tore the veil of the Temple -- the One who stands before the Father for us and encloses us in His arms in order to make us the new and living Temple.
11 comments:
Ad Orientem - a favorite subject of mine.
From a recent post in my own blog:
"....as I shifted in my pew as if to seek the face of the priest, I suddently realized it is the face of God I should be seeking in the Mass"
Ad Orientem - a spiritual case
Deo Gratias!
Amen! (although he was writing then as mere Cardinal Ratzinger.)
Now that I've had a taste of it, it truly bothers me when I'm in any Mass where the priest looks around at the congregation during the Eucharistic Prayer. It disturbs me from the mental prayer that builds leading up to that point.
Father - Do you know where the lovely picture comes from?
Aaron:
If your assumptions are right, I will definitely stop by to witness it one day, but I wish it wasn't so.
Sbdn Benjamin,
I don't recall what series of words I typed into google to arrive at the photo. I do recall that it was from a parish website.
A similarly nice collection, however, can found with this string: "tridentine liturgy"
I think it's interesting that the servers are wearing albs rather than surplices. If I'm not mistaken, this is a French Benedictine custom?
A reader of this blog found the source for the photo. Quoting him, it's from "the one Anglo-Catholic parish in the whole of the Republic of Ireland: St. Bartholomew's, Ballsbridge, Dublin."
http://www.stbartholomews.ie/liturgy.htm
Ah, the lovely S. Bartholomew's! A while ago, I posted a stunning picture of the interior on my blog:
http://occidentalis.blogspot.com/2005/10/s-bartholomews-dublin.html
Great quote, love the picture. Oh, if the whole Church would be one catholic Church again.
Dave
It should be known that it is not a requirement of the Novus Ordo that the priest celebrate it "facing the people". He can, at any time, celebrate the mass "ad dominum", just as he can, at any time, say the mass in Latin, just as his people can, at any time, kneel to receive holy communion, etc. etc. If a few of these practices were revived (for which no papal authority or even approval of the local ordinary is required) there would be far less hankering after the 1962 liturgy. One should not need to point out that there is also no requirement that Novus Ordo masses be celebrated to the accompaniment of Marty Haugen's music...
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