The chapter they all “jumped on”: Orientation ~ The Spirit of the Liturgy, A Book Club
{Book Club: The Spirit of the Liturgy}
I hope you will read along in this book club (or just read my posts, that’s okay): Joseph Ratzinger’s The Spirit of the Liturgy.
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I’ll post on Fridays, although for this longer book, perhaps not every Friday. I’ll give you your homework, I’ll talk about what we read, we’ll discuss in the comments. Even if you read later, the comments will still be open.
Previously:
Introduction to the reading: Joseph Ratzinger’s The Spirit of the Liturgy: A Book Club for Easter and Beyond
Nature or history in worship? Or both?
The Relationship of the Liturgy to Time and Space: preliminary questions
Homework: Read Chapter Four of Part II.
Chapter Three, Part II: The Altar and Direction of Liturgical Prayer
In his “On the Inaugural Volume of My Collected Works”, Pope Benedict XVI says about The Spirit of the Liturgy,
Unfortunately almost all the reviews jumped on a single chapter: “The Altar and the Direction of Liturgical Prayer”. Readers of these reviews must have concluded that the whole work dealt only with the direction in which Mass is celebrated; that it was all about trying to reintroduce Mass celebrated by the priest “with his back to the people”. Given this distortion, I thought for a while about omitting this chapter [for this present volume, in which The Spirit of the Liturgy forms the main text] — nine pages out of a total of two hundred — so that finally a discussion could begin about the essential things in the book about which I had been and am concerned.
He here mentions “two excellent studies” in which “this question” is treated with a clear result: “The notion that priest and people should look at each other while praying appeared only in the modern era and was completely foreign to ancient Christendom.”
Benedict continues to downplay this issue: “But with that I may once again have said too much on this point… [which is] actually only a detail… ”
Yet he finishes the introduction with a thought that belies his apparent trivialization of the question of orientation. He says, in The Spirit of the Liturgy: “I tried to present… three concentric circles… [1] the intrinsic inter-relationship of the Old and New Testament… [2] the relationship to the religions of the world… and finally, [3] the cosmic character of the liturgy, which represents more than the coming together of a more or less large circle of people: the liturgy is celebrated in the expanse of the cosmos, encompassing creation and history at the same time.”
To me, when I consider that he did not leave out “nine short pages” in this, his legacy, but actually returns to them in this preface, I must conclude that he is trying to disarm our resistance by seeming to make light of something that actually can’t be dismissed — the way a parent seems to push away a plate of food being disdained by a malnourished but stubborn child. He winds up his introduction:
This was what the orientation of prayer meant: that the Redeemer to whom we pray is also the Creator and, thus, that the liturgy also always contains a love for creation and the responsibility for it. I would be happy [if this book] could help others see the greater perspectives of our liturgy and put petty quarrels about external forms in their proper place.
The chapter we are reading here, this very troublesome chapter, attempts to open our eyes to these “greater perspectives.”
***
We hear a lot in our society about “listening,” about “hearing the other side,” about how “understanding leads to acceptance,” — yet with this controversy, it seems that people refuse to delve into the question beyond their own preference.
Ironically, it’s the anti-traditionalists who seem to be most attached to their “tradition”: “It’s always been done this way!” they cry.
But that is not true.
In this chapter, Ratzinger leads us step by step to understanding why history and logical conclusion (from the argument of what the essence of worship is) affirm the orientation of the priest and the people to the East.
He shows that Christian worship cannot be only representational sacrifice or abstract detachment from time and place. It must be both and more.
A physical orientation retains the incarnational character of Christian worship. “The cosmic symbol of the rising sun expresses the universality of God above all particular places and yet maintains the concreteness of divine revelation.”
You might say that it lifts our mind out of itself and even out of the narrowness of this world. It expands the horizon of sanctification above the earth, raising our eyes from an earthly city (for instance, Jerusalem, or possibly Mecca — or even Rome!) higher, to include the cosmos itself; and in so doing, we reclaim our original directive from God at the Creation: to sanctify the created world.
Ratzinger addresses all the objections, most of all the one which posits that “versus populum” (priest and people facing each other) most replicates the idea of meal and represents the Last Supper. The celebratory meal in antiquity, however, did not feature the host facing the people; rather, there would have been a horseshoe-like configuration, leaving a side open for service. In other words, host and people would have faced the same direction, more or less.
But even more,
The Eucharist that Christians celebrate really cannot adequately be described by the term “meal”. True, the Lord established the new reality of Christian worship within the framework of a Jewish (Passover) meal, but it was precisely this new reality, not the meal as such, that he commanded us to repeat… the Eucharist refers back to the Cross and thus to the transformation of Temple sacrifice into worship of God that is in harmony with logos. (P. 78)
If we are talking about the Church before the 16th century, “the only thing ever insisted upon, or even mentioned, was that [the priest] should say the eucharistic prayer… facing East… Even when the orientation of the church enabled the celebrant to pray turned toward the people [i.e. the building faced west]… it was not the priest alone who, then, turned East: it was the whole congregation.” (P. 79)
(You can visit the Church of San Clemente in Rome, near the Coliseum, to verify this. It’s a beautiful fourth century church, well worth a stop. Essentially, the Mass was celebrated with the priest behind the people, so important was orientation to worship.)
Interestingly, the former arrangement (of the priest and people facing East together during the Eucharistic prayers) downplayed the importance of the priest; today’s arrangement makes him the focal point — “an unprecedented clericalization came on the scene.” (P. 79-80)
Even where some recovery of reverence has made the priest more conscious of directing his attention to the altar, the people — who cannot see what is on it very clearly — are naturally drawn to focusing on his face and his gestures. Where the rubrics require him to lift his eyes, we can’t be surprised that he looks at what he sees — the people! Most of the time, the priest speaks prayers meant for God while making eye contact with parishioners. (I haven’t done a scientific study, but I have been in many, many parishes all over the country and also in Europe, and I find this to be so universal as to give me a jolt when it doesn’t occur.)
Ratzinger’s worry is that the experience most likely to be found in today’s parish in the West is one driven by entertainment value. The priest’s “creativity sustains the whole thing.” And that disastrous development brings in its wake a whole host of other problems with those in the congregation vying to contribute their creative contributions as well. Pretty soon, every part of the Mass is up for grabs, ready to be exploited by whatever interest group clamors for it or seems to need affirmation. (P. 80)
It’s no use bringing up your own parish or wonderful priest as a counter-example, for the huge and burgeoning “liturgical resource” industry backs up my claim.
The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself. The common turning toward the east was not a “celebration toward the wall”; it did not mean that the priest “had his back to the people”: the priest himself was not regarded as so important… As one of the fathers of Vatican II’s Constitution on the Liturgy, J. A. Jungmann, put it, it was much more a question of priest and people facing in the same direction, knowing that together they were in a procession toward the Lord. They did not close themselves into a circle; they did not gaze at one another; but as the pilgrim People of God they set off for the Oriens, for the Christ who comes to meet us. (P. 80)
I remember a pastor we had long ago explaining why he was removing the altar rail, where parishioners could receive Holy Communion kneeling, in favor of a line for receiving while standing. He said we are all pilgrims on the way to meet the Lord, at Mass and at the Second Coming. But this rang false, because it was an explanation drummed up to justify an innovation — one that came in the wake of that other innovation, the versus populum, which itself removed the actual symbolic value of what he was trying to impose on this one.
It was an effort (he was basically a good man, don’t get me wrong — he had to do what the bishop directed), but one without real roots in the ancient practice of the Church, sustained for centuries. And one which would have been completely unnecessary, had things been left as they were.
Ratzinger completely agrees that the liturgy needed some attention and reformation.
When the altar was very remote from the faithful, it was right to move it back to the people… It was also important clearly to distinguish the place of the Liturgy of the Word from the place for the properly Eucharistic liturgy [and this theology of the two places he explicated in the previous chapter on the church building]. For the Liturgy of the Word is about speaking and responding, and so a face-to-face exchange between proclaimer and hearer does make sense. .. On the other hand, a common turning to the east during the Eucharistic Prayer… is not a case of something accidental, but of what is essential. Looking at the priest has no importance. (P. 81)
But, the cry goes up, this is nostalgia!
To which he replies, “Are we not interested in the cosmos anymore? Are we today really hopelessly huddled in our own little circle? Is it not important, precisely today, to pray with the whole of creation?… to find room for the dimension of the future…?”
And in one of his rare fits of temper, he takes on the objection that in facing each other, we see God’s image in man.
I find it hard to believe that the famous critic [Häussling] thought this was a serious argument. For we do not see the image of God in man in such a simplistic way… but only with the new seeing of faith… But if we are to do this, we must learn a new kind of seeing, and that is what the Eucharist is for. (P. 83)
Then, in that charmingly gentle, practical way of his, Ratzinger takes on the issue of how this turning to the East is to be accomplished, given that many churches are not oriented this way. For Americans, especially those of us living in older, built up, and decidedly Protestant-influenced areas of the country, this is a problem. In New England, very often the Catholic Church can be found somewhat shoe-horned into its spot. We can only dream of a piazza opening its welcoming arms to passers-by, and the site had to dictate the placement of the edifice.
Remember in the last chapter when I mentioned that his comment about how, in the early Church, the crucifix became associated with the East would come up? Here he suggests that we make the most of this deep association and place the crucifix on the altar (in addition to the one behind it or above it, already required by the rubrics). Thus, priest and people can “orient” themselves to this symbolic “east” which is Christ.
The only possible objection to this easily accomplished reform would be that a crucifix interposes an object between the priest and the people. Only if the Mass is expected to entertain does this present a problem! No, the objection reveals a misunderstanding of what the Mass is, in its essence. If Guardini and Ratzinger can’t bring about understanding, then we are truly in a difficult place.
However, in the introduction I quoted from at the beginning of this post, taken from the Ignatius Press volume of his collected works, Benedict continues: “Meanwhile, the recommendation that I made at the end of the pertinent chapter [this one] in my book has fortunately been adopted more and more widely: not to make structural alterations, but simply to put a cross in the middle of the altar for the priest and the faithful to look at together, so as to allow themselves in this way to be led to the Lord to whom we all pray together.”
So that’s hopeful! A simple but effective reform towards reclaiming the meaning of the liturgy. Why, it could be implemented in your parish very soon, could it not?
Were there any other passages you’d like to talk about?
Questions? Comments? I’d love to hear from you!
(Emphases added in quotes are mine.)
Click here to see our previous discussion of Romano Guardini’s The Spirit of the Liturgy, which you can read free, online. You can also purchase it here, although be warned, this edition does not have the footnotes, which stinks
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