Below is a great read from a regular diocesan priest in Connecticut! It is a beautifully written and well document explanation of why the priest is to celebrate the mass Ad Orientem (Toward the altar, back to the people). Seriously this priest is awesome!
You can find the original post HERE on his parish website.
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Why does St. Mary Church offer the Mass facing east (ad orientem)?
Offering the Mass versus populum (facing the people) is only a recent development in Church history. In fact, offering the Mass ad orientem (facing the altar) was the common liturgical practice for the entire Church’s history only up until our generation. Experiments were done with the versus populum position prior to Second Vatican Council (1962-65), but it became more popular when the Ordinary Form, the Missal of Pope Paul VI, was introduced in 1970. While most Catholics who lived through this period think that this change in orientation was mandated by the Second Vatican Council, there is actually nothing in the documents of Vatican II (Sacrosancum Concilium) that asked for a reversal in the altar direction.
Today, offering the Mass ad orientem and versus populum are both acceptable options in the Missal of Paul VI. However, the official rubrical guide of Paul VI’s Mass, The General Introduction of the Roman Missal, assumes that there is a common direction between the priest and the people: that everyone is facing the altar. For example, at the Orate fratres (Pray brethren that your and my sacrifice...) the Pax Domini (The Peace of the Lord be with you), and Ecce, Agnus Dei (Behold the Lamb of God), and the Ritus conclusionis (Concluding Rite), the rubrics specifically state that the priest should now turn to the people.
Liturgical scholars like Fr. Louis Bouyer and Msgr. Klaus Gamber have recently shown that offering the Mass with the priest and the people facing in a common direction goes all the way back to the Last Supper. Jesus and His apostles sat around a “C” shaped table, with all of them sitting around the outside. Da Vinci’s famous painting of the Last Supper with everyone sitting on one side helps one to visualize the idea of all of these first priests facing the same direction for prayer.
(Same direction. Different view point)
Gamber argues that this new altar arrangement, facing the people, is an aberration in the organic development of the liturgy. He explains that scholars have shown that, “...the custom of praying in the direction of sunrise is an ancient one, practiced by Jews and pagans alike. The custom was adopted early on by the Christians. For example, to face east in prayer was a common practice for Tertullian, as early as 197. In his Apologeticum he speaks about Christians ‘praying in the direction of the rising sun’. The sun served as a symbol for the Lord having ascended to heaven and of His return from there.”
When the Lord ascended into heaven (Acts 1:10), He was fulfilling the messianic prophecies in Psalm 67. For example, “Sing ye to God, who mounteth above the heaven of heavens, to the east (ad orientem)” (verses 33-34). As the apostles looked upon this mystery, angels then appeared to them further prophesying, “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). In other words, at the second coming of Jesus, He will come from the east. “For as lightening comes from the east, and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of man” (Matthew 24:27). Therefore, the Mass throughout the centuries was offered facing east, in joyful anticipation of His second coming.
Gamber explains, “We can say and convincingly demonstrate that neither in the Eastern nor the Western Church was there ever a celebration versum populum – rather, there was only the practice of turning towards the east while praying. Martin Luther was the first person to demand that the priest at the altar face the people.”
Furthermore, the ad orientem position represents an opening up of the faithful toward God, with an active and forward movement toward heaven. In the book of Genesis, the Lord “planted the Garden of Eden in the east” (2:8), and when Adam and Eve sinned, they were driven out from this garden (3:24). With the priest facing the east, he is leading the people in procession back toward their original paradise. As Gamber wrote, “Facing the east was to indicate the direction and destination of this procession: the lost paradise to be found in the east. The celebrant and his assistants formed the vanguard of the procession to the east...When we expect the arrival of an important person, the group of waiting people will form into the shape of a semi-circle to receive the expected person into their midst.”
Traditionally, Catholic churches fulfilled this reality by having the sanctuary built facing east, but over time churches were built facing “liturgical east”, meaning that even if the sanctuary did not literally face east, the priest and the people were all united in a common direction, facing the Lord together.
If offering the Holy Mass ad orientem was the common practice of the Church from its beginning, and offering the Mass versus populum was never proposed by the documents of the Second Vatican Council, how did the Church come to adopt this position as a common practice today? Offering Mass versus populum became fashionable during the Liturgical Movement of the mid-20th century, led by priests such as Fr. Romano Guardini and Fr. Pius Parsch. They perceived a need for a more active participation on the part of the people and assumed that in the early church offering the Mass versus populum was the norm.
However, more recent scholarship has shown this understanding of the early Church to be decisively flawed. While there were certain churches that had an altar that faced the people, such as St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, this had nothing to do with pastoral sensitivity, but because of a desire to have the celebrant facing East. This recent decision to have the Mass versus populum is an example of how the Liturgical Movement of the 20th century adapted at times to passing fads without taking the proper time to reflect on the scholarship behind those decisions.
Some today negatively explain the ad orientem position as the “the priest with his back to the people”. Nonetheless, the person in the front pew also has his back to the people behind him, and we know that he is not being rude. It should be remembered that when the priest faces the people, he actually has his back to Christ in the tabernacle. The reality is that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is being offered to God, not the people, and the symbolism of the ad orientem position is a fuller representation of this reality. Notice how the prayers of the Eucharistic Sacrifice are all offered to the Father. When the priest offers the Mass facing the people, it gives the false and confusing impression that the Mass is being offered to the people.
Finally, offering the Mass ad orientem helps the priest to better fulfill his role in persona Christi, in the person of Christ. By his sacred ordination, the priest offers the Mass in the person of Jesus Christ. The priest’s personality should disappear when he offers the Mass so that Christ can offer His own perfect Sacrifice. When the priest offers the Mass versus populum, it is more difficult for his personality to disappear. However, when he offers the Mass ad orientem, the intimacy that exists between Christ and Father can now become actualized, free from the curious eyes of the crowds, in imitation of Christ who “withdrew to the wilderness to pray” (Luke 5:16).
As stated earlier, both positions, ad orientem and versum populum, are permitted by the law of the Church for the Ordinary Form of the Mass. The Congregation for Divine Worship stated on April 10, 2000: “Both positions are in accord with liturgical law; both are to be considered correct...a priest’s choice of position to offer Holy Mass, whether facing the apse or facing the people may never be used to call into question his adherence to Catholic Doctrine.” Furthermore, later that year, on September 25, 2000, the Congregation for Divine Worship rejected the position that there is a general obligation in the Ordinary Form of the Mass for the priest to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass versum populum.
Prior to becoming the Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger promoted the value of once again offering Mass ad orientem. In 2000, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in his book, Spirit of the Liturgy, “A common turning to the east during the Eucharist Prayer remains essential. This is not a case of something accidental, but of what is essential. 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 toward 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.”
Now as the Vicar of Christ, Pope Benedict XVI has begun to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Ordinary Form ad orientem at times. Evidently he sees our current atmosphere as the proper time to reorient ourselves with this common practice of our 2000 year history: “Historical research has made the controversy less partisan, and among the faithful there is an increasing sense of the problems inherent in an arrangement that hardly shows the liturgy to be open to the things that are above and to the world to come.”
We are unfortunately living through a historical period of great liturgical confusion. However, here at St. Mary Church I try to do what is correct, making sure that we are “free to worship Him without fear” (Luke 1:73), according to the teachings and Traditions of the Church. I think most people in the parish understand why we have the oriented altar position, but if you still struggle with it, remind yourself that in Mass we are processing toward the Garden of Eden, and awaiting the second coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ who will come from the east. Please pray for the Holy Father, that he would lead us in an authentic liturgical renewal, as he often writes, in “continuity” with the Traditions that we have received from the saints who have gone before us.
In closing, we can reflect on the words of St. Josemaria Escriva who when asked how to obtain the most spiritual nourishment from the Mass, answered: "First of all, listen to the Mass with great veneration, preparing oneself perhaps with a small Missal, even if it is old, in order to realize that the Holy Mass is the unbloody re-presentation of the Divine Sacrifice at Calvary. It has nothing to do with dinners and food! The priest is Christ. When I am at the altar I am a president of nothing, I am Christ Himself, I let Him use my poor body and my voice. That is why, when I take the Bread in my hands I say: This is my Body, and taking the Chalice of the wine, I say: This is my Blood. It is beautiful that the priest shows his back to the people, because we cannot with our poor human face represent the divine Face of Jesus Christ."
