Facing the Risen Christ a review by Mgr Ignacio Barreiro

Is the Mass a sacrifice or a meal? Do we commune with ourselves or with Christ? These questions – quite settled in the traditional rite – are now being fiercely debated in the new rite. Here, Mgr Ignacio Barreiro reviews an authoritative work by a young priest who now offers the traditional rite.

Turning towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer by Fr Uwe Michael Lang, (Foreword by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger), pb, Ignatius Press, £8.50. (Available from Family Publications, 6a King Street, Oxford OX2 6DF. Tel: 0845 0500 879).

This serious and scholarly work is well introduced by a statement of Cardinal Ratzinger that the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council did not give any indication that the altars should be turned towards the people. This indication is contained as something to be desired, but not mandated, in the General Instruction of the 1969 Roman Missal as it was interpreted by the Congregation for Divine Worship on 25 September 2000. But more important than discussing if under current liturgical laws it is possible to celebrate the Mass of Paul VI facing towards the Lord, the key question is what is the right direction? Father Lang demonstrates that it is better in itself to celebrate the Mass facing the Lord, using well-researched theological, historical and pastoral arguments.

The author presents ample evidence from earlier liturgies, patristic sources and a careful consideration of the archaeological record that the desired direction towards which the whole congregation should orient itself is the East. Of interest here is the evidence furnished by the remains of the house church of Dura-Europos and of other archaeological sites. The common turning towards the East of both the priest and the congregation signifies the turning towards the rising sun, which symbolises the risen Christ, and is a sign of hope in the Second Coming. In the one and single gesture we have a synthesis of cosmos, history and hope.

From the material that Fr Lang presents it is obvious that asking if the celebrant in antiquity faced the people is out of place. As he notes well: “Christians in the ancient world and in the early Middle Ages would not have associated real participation in the liturgy with looking at the celebrant and his actions. The celebratio versus populum in the modern sense was unknown to Christian antiquity and it would be anachronistic to see the Eucharistic liturgy in the early Roman basilicas as its prototype.” As a consequence, the arguments of those who defend turning around the altars, insisting that it was the practice of the early Church and for that reason should be normative for the Church of all times, lack historical value. Also, we should keep in mind the risk of archaism as denounced by Pius XII, in the encyclical, Mediator Dei, showing that early liturgies are not necessarily normative for the Church.

The author notes well that the constant face-to-face position suggests a closed circle. Defenders of the current circular arrangement of the liturgy point to the prevalent anthropocentrism of our age, but the author correctly points out that turning to the Lord is precisely a wholesome corrective to this mentality and serves as a guide to the fullness of the Divine Life. The eastward direction of the whole congregation saves the individual community from closing into itself and opens it towards the Heavenly Assembly. It serves as an antidote against the eclipse of transcendence in our times. The common direction also responds better to the incarnational nature of the liturgy. A circular arrangement also conspires against the necessary attitude of adoration and contemplation that should prevail in the Mass.

One of our contemporary problems is the confusing of the Mass with catechesis. It is fitting that in class the teacher should face his students, but even if the Liturgy has important instructional elements, we will be misunderstanding the liturgy if the teaching elements of the Mass prevail and determine the position of the celebrant. The position of the celebrant reminds the worshipper that God’s house is a house of prayer and sacrifice, not of mere instruction.

The celebrant at the altar should take a God-ward stance to underline the sacrificial character of the Mass. The author shows well that the emphasis on the meal aspect of the Eucharist that required the priest’s turning towards the people has been overdone and has failed to proclaim that the Eucharist is a visible sacrifice. This is clearly one of the principal reasons why the understanding of the Mass as both the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Church has diminished considerably, if not faded away, among the faithful. If the Mass is principally a sacrifice, the positioning of the priest has to be coherent with a sense of offering. So it stands to reason that “the person who is doing the offering is facing the one who is receiving the offering, thus, he stands before the altar positioned ad Dominum, facing the Lord,” (as Mgr Gamber, the respected liturgist, states).

In his pastoral proposals the author insists on the need for a common direction towards the East of the priest and the congregation in the Eucharistic part of the liturgy, but he is ready to consent to a face-to-face position in other segments of the liturgy. The author should consider the value of common direction in the penitential rite. Is it not fitting that both the priest and congregation should turn together to the Lord when they are confessing their sinfulness and their need to be purified? It is not the community that cleanses us, but the grace that comes from on high. If priest and congregation were facing in the same direction at the introductory and penitential rites we would avoid the risks of joviality and familiarity that the author mentions. It stands to reason, using many of the valuable arguments which the author enumerates, that all the prayers should be presented facing the Lord. As the author notes well: “When we speak to someone, we obviously face that person. Accordingly, the whole liturgical assembly, priests and people, should face the same way, turning towards God to whom prayers and offerings are addressed in this common act of trinitarian worship.”

The same arguments apply for the communion rite, save what is established in the rubrics of the traditional Mass. It is logical also that the purification rites should be done facing the altar because that enhances the climate of recollection necessary for personal thanksgiving after the communion of the faithful. With regards to the proclamation of the biblical texts in the Mass we should consider that they are more an exercise of praise that an exercise in catechesis, especially in the solemn or in the chanted Mass. Even if the Mass as a whole has a teaching value, the instructional part of the Mass, par excellence, is the sermon where the readings are explained and their sense is made manifest because the Church always mediates Sacred Scripture. At the same time, the sermon should not be a mere exegetical exercise but a means of expounding through the liturgical year the mysteries of faith and the rules of Christian living.

This serious and scholarly work by Fr Lang clearly shows on the basis of well-presented historical, theological and pastoral arguments the urgent need to recover the sacred direction of the priest and the congregation at the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Returning to the sacred direction, the faithful will regain a sense of the transcendence of God and the value of the only possible human response, which is adoration. As a consequence of this enhanced sense of the transcendence of God, the faithful will start to value again the sacrificial nature of the Mass.

[Taken from the Latin Mass Society's February 2005 Newsletter.]