"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.
14 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!
Brilliant rubrical instruction from the Holy Father and a proclamation which contributes to the "fulfillment of the service in the Holy Temple" which the Mass, in its essence is.
One only wishes that the priests of the Roman Catholic Church would heed the Holy Father's admonitions -- in most of the Novus Ordo "masses" that I've been to, the celebrant does NOT bother to turn toward The Lord during the Eucharistic Prayer, but rather, remains facing the 'audience' like some sort of entertainer.
Yes John, I got your "spiritualization message" that we should all quit dwelling on your resignation and instead concentrate on Christ's Salvation, but the Holy Father also intended this comment to be understood in a straightforward manner -- the celebrant should face east during the Eucharistic prayer because this is what God commanded in Leviticus 1!
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.
Dear Fr. Boyle,
I was thrilled to go to your Church's website and see that your parish offers the St. Gregory Tridentine Mass on a bi-weekly basis.
I pray that the forthcoming declaration from the Holy Father regarding more liberal rules on the saying of the St. Gregory Mass will allow your parish (and all parishes of the Holy Catholic Church around the world) to benefit more fully and more frequently from the Missal that was passed down to us by St. Peter from the lips of our Messiah! Blessings to you from Detroit!
Thank you for the quotation from Benedict; he has much to teach the Church.
Seeing this quotation here brought to mind your comment elsewhere about your chief persuasion against Rome being a "key liturgical issue, namely the adoption of the Novus Ordo." I wouldn't want to be forced to sing the Marty Haugen Mass, either, but what about the Institute of Christ the King? They have St. Mary's Oratory, an entire parish here in downtown Rockford, and it's all Tridentine, all the time. St. Josaphat in Detroit has the Tridentine Mass every holy day, every Sunday. And the Holy Father himself will be issuing his motu proprio soon, a universal indult. So it may be 1962 all over again, at least for any priest who so desires and isn't already a part of a group such as the Institute of Christ the King. All of this leads me to wonder, how can liturgy be the chief issue? Or is it the filioque and other such theological expressions in the Tridentine Mass (absent or altered in the Western Rite) that would keep you out of even a pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church? If so, why say, "if this were 1962, . . . "?
On the other hand, a Western Rite mission of the Antiochian Orthodox Church in the Detroit area could likely "gather in" schismatics of the SSPX variety—the very ones whom Pope Benedict is trying to bring back in, via his upcoming universal indult. I'm not saying that this is your intention: You have emphatically said that you do not wish to proselytize or recruit. Yet this is just the reality—many will follow you from Augsburg and, if you are soon offering a Mass quite similar to the Tridentine there in Detroit, from Rome as well.
You are in my prayers,
Aaron Wolf
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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