The Extraordinary Form: shaped by the faith of the Church for 1,500 years (CNS)
Let’s face it, bishops and priests of my generation and older have been brainwashed as it concerns ad orientem. The very first so called reform of the Mass was to turn the priest and altar around even before the Roman Missal was reformed. Facing the people was the big deal and then the vernacular. To go back at least on ad orientem would take humility on the part of my not so humble generation of priests and the older ones. They’d have to admit that Vatican II and they made some big mistakes.
Vatican II was a pastoral council, not a dogmatic one. We don’t have to take pastoral sentiments and
make these dogmatic or irreversible. Some of the pastoral judgments of the Fathers of Vatican II were wrong just as wrong as so many of the pastoral judgments of bishops since Vatican II to include the popes who we can blame for the summer of meltdown we are currently sweating.
But how would ad orientem have helped our current situation?
It would have removed the emphasis on the person of the priest to the detriment of the exclusive high Priesthood of Jesus Christ. Lay Catholics at Mass, where the majority of Catholics exclusively see and interact with the person of the priest, would not have focused on that particular priest’s liturgical style, his facial expressions of piety or lack thereof, his welcoming warmth or lack thereof as well as his creativity or lack thereof. Ad orientem as well as reading the black and doing the red places all priests on the same level which helps the ordained bishop or priest to point to Jesus the High Priest and not to themselves.
When Catholics are more focused on Jesus at Mass and in their lives and less so on the personality of priests and bishops at Mass and elsewhere, then we can separate our authentic Catholic Faith from the personality of the “accidents” of the ordained clergy from The Substance which those “accidents” are meant to reveal.
13 comments:
On this side of the tombstone, ya can't have the Substance without the Accidents.
Cheers!
Not disputing that. But when you focus in on the bread and wine, the accidents that veil the Body and Blood of our crucified and Risen Savior, you focus on the veil not the Substance! The same with the accidents of the priesthood, you focus only on the veil and miss the Substance. Ad orientem isn't one or the other, but both, but precisely with the focus on Christ. But sacramentally, we need the accident too, don't we.
I am convinced that facing the congregation is the main reason Catholics forgot who they are and act like Protestants before and after Mass by talking as loudly as they please in the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament. When the priest demonstrates his awareness of the Real Presence and when he faces the tabernacle, it makes Jesus Christ the focal point.
If Jesus Christ returned in His glory, we would not dare behave in front of Him as we do at Mass.
Yet He IS present at Mass, before, during and after. Ad Orientum would certainly be a refreshing way to driving that point home.
Fr. McDonald,
When are you implementing ad orientem at your new parish?
we need to return to Fr Smith or FR stock, nor Fr BOB or KENNY, leaders are not 1st name basis, President DONALD, doesn't have it, General Jim or General MATTIS, which sounds more like a leader??
we don't need a "friend" we need a leader and confessor, at least in public, yes a priest can and should be a consoler at times, such as in the lost of a loved one, but that is private, not a public performance, Think FR Pfleger, total showoff
Ad orientem... no texts require translation and the reconversion is accomplished. They will fight it to the death.
He won’t be as our Bishop will never allow it as he’s just another coward among many. Our Bishop stands for nothing and his statements are weak and not even lukewarm.
Father please stop wasting your time talking about ad orientem. I know you believe this church can be saved, but Satan needs to be purged first and that’s going to take action by Our Lord and Our Lady.
No other hope.
We focus on the Mystery, not the accidents or the substance. The bread and wine are the focus since in and through them, the Presence of Christ is made substantially real for us. We focus on the priest since, throught him, the saving grace of the Sacraments is made substantially real for us.
It is not one or the other. It is both.
We should indeed focus on the Mystery, but in most parish Masses there is little sense of mystery or of awe, or that we are standing as it were at the foot of the Cross.
Those who cling tenaciously to celebration versus populum no longer claim that it has historical precedent - scholars have long since debunked this myth - so what is the rationale in continuing with what is in effect a 20th century aberration?
To John Nolan's question, my feeling is that it is due, in part, to narcissism on the part of many priests. It is as though they cannot fathom standing at the foot of the Cross as opposed to facing their audience on a stage. "I will go unto the altar of God" does not seem, to me, to be consistent with this viewpoint. And, look how silly this has made modern church architecture. Though greatly improved from 30+ years ago, those sanctuary archipelagos do nothing for mystery and awe. Even the pulpit/ambo suffers as it seems in many places, they aren't quite sure where to put it so as not to hinder "sight lines". It therefore is relegated to an awkward position behind the altar. Should we be focused on the mystery taking place on the altar via the priest? Yes, of course, but, if the setting isn't reasonably supportive of the mystery as explained by the Church, how can you not help but be distracted?
John Nolan,
Eureka - Clericalism!!!!
ByzRC
The ambo does indeed have historical precedent, but as a fitting place for proclaiming the Scripture. However, in most churches it also serves as a pulpit, a podium for announcing intercessions and mundane parish notices, and a music stand for a cantor/conductor.
There are still priests who pray the Eucharistic Prayer to the congregation: 'take this, all of you and eat of it/drink from it' is said while eyeballing the congregation and holding out the Elements towards them. It's so common among a certain generation that I can only assume they were taught this in seminary by those who unashamedly advanced an interpretation of the Holy Sacrifice which was both a distortion and a rupture.
The OF thing is just a small symptom of the massive cultural and religious turning away from God and toward ourselves that went on in the 60's and 70's and that is still progressing. Secularism has spread like wildfire and it is a tide that will be hard to turn. Increasingly, the faithful have come together in small groups and alternative churches where the Gospel is still found and worship still focuses on God and not man. But, this is not good, even if necessary. We are called to community in the Church, not in numerous splinter groups and individual theologies and self-epiphaniies. The Reformation, although necessary at the time (well, maybe if Leo and Luther, both, had not been mule-headed) was a bad precedent. We are becoming more and more divided...religiously, politically, socially.
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