Many religions have various traditions about prayer, whether it be posture or direction. Examples include Muslims, who pray facing in the direction of Mecca, or many tribal religions that look to the east facing the rising morning sun.
Frequent and long time readers have heard me explain how the early Christian church evolved from its Jewish roots, taking some aspects of Judaism, and some aspects of other competing religious traditions of the time, melding and adapting those traditions over time into Christian symbolism and allegory.
One of the things the early Church did was hold its services with the worshippers facing east, much like many of the pagan sun-worshipping religions, and they developed the doctrine that Jesus would make His promised return from the east. The celebrant (the priest leading the service) also faced east, the same way as the people in the congregation, standing on the west side of the altar. For centuries, the liturgical churches maintained this tradition of priest and people facing east during the sacrifice and offering of the Mass, symbolizing the constant watch of believers for the Second Coming. It also served the purpose of deemphasizing the priest as a "performer" or star leader, to avoid distracting the worshippers from their moment of communion with the divine.
This worship position of priest and people facing east is called ad orientem, a Latin phrase meaning "towards the east." Churches were constructed with the altar on the east end; for real estate lot considerations, modern churches often aren't built on the old Greek temple-style east-west axis, so they "pretend" the altar is in the east end of the building. Priests from liturgical churches said Mass, the Eucharist, the Divine Liturgy, or whatever they called it, ad orientem for nearly two thousand years until the Vatican II Council of the Roman Catholic Church of the early 1960s.
Vatican II, however, introduced the concept of the priest saying Mass versum populam, or "facing or against the people." They allowed (contrary to popular belief, it's an option, not a mandate) the priest to stand on the east side of the altar and face west towards the people. The reformers believed that it would allow the people to see what was going on during the consecration of the Bread and Wine and that modern culture required the additional personalization of leaders facing their flocks.
Soon after Vatican II, other liturgical churches began to follow suit, such as many of the Episcopal and Anglican churches. It's been about forty years, but it's still an issue that evokes some discussion and controversy, with some people preferring ad orientem and others preferring versum populam placement of their priests. The vast, vast majority of Catholic and Episcopal churches use versam populam orientation these days.
The current Roman pontiff, Benedict XVI, has during his papacy been encouraging his bishops and priests to draw from ancient liturgical and musical practice of the church, including a resurgence of the use of Latin and a return of chants and better liturgical music. Even I have been noticing liturgical and musical improvements at the cathedrals and larger parish churches around here.
Recently at one cathedral, the bishop opted to celebrate Mass during Advent using ad orientem posture, as a means of helping the congregation with its Advent introspection and preparation for the Christmas season, and deepening their devotions during the Mass. I'm anxious to hear what kind of response the bishop had from his congregations about the new posture for those four Sundays.
On Christ the King Sunday (yes, I'm two months behind in my blogging), I happened to be in Tulsa, so I went to Mass at Holy Family Cathedral, where a friend of mine is organist/choirmaster and several friends sing in the choir. I almost didn't recognize the place. I've not been there in four years, and they've painted the interior of the nave and sanctuary in bright, bold, colors. The cathedral is a 1914 structure in the Italian Gothic style, so I guess the paint on the inside is European inspired. The back of the sanctuary is deep burgundy, which really sets off the white marble altar and reredos. Other colors include red, green, yellow, beige, and gold leaf. Some pictures are in the cathedral blog....you can go to their Web page, then click the "current progress" hyperlink in the welcoming letter to get there.
The service itself was fine. Mass setting was the Proulx A Community Mass, and the Gloria was sung by everyone instead of responsorially as is usually done here in D.C. The Alleluia was Jacques Berthier's Taizé setting. Hymns were Coronation for the processional and Ich glaub an Gott for the recessional.
For the offertory anthem, the choir sang "Look, Ye Saints!" by William Witherup. During communion, the children sang O mysterium ineffabile by Jean Francoise Lallouette and the adults sang "The Lord Is My Shepherd" by Howard Goodall. PBS Britcom fans will recognize the Goodall composition as Psalm 23 from The Vicar of Dibley.
Prelude and postlude were "The King of Love My Shepherd Is" arranged by Eugene Englert and "Fugue on the Carillon of Hours of the Cathedral of Soisssons" by Maurice Durufle.
I just ran across the service leaflet for this Mass today, so that's why I'm writing about it now. I really need to email some of the Tulsa people and find out how the bishop's ad orientem experiment turned out.
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