A friend directed me to a very austere Benedictine website with an exceptionally good article in favor of worship "ad Orientem": Facing East and Papal Fads Fr. Hugh, OSB, articulates well the sense of what we should be doing at Mass.
One day soon, I would like to address the resistance on the part of older folk (my contemporaries) to the Holy Father's and others' invitation to Turn to the Lord for the Eucharistic Prayer in terms of what I suspect is a sort of knee-jerk reaction we will glorify by giving it the designation "a pastoral option" inspired by (you choose) either resignation or desperation. Too many pastoral agents refuse to privilege Sunday Mass as an encounter with the Lord of Life. They must (I guess) see it as a "last stand" for instructional or motivational contact with people. By making liturgy discursive/didactic we have cut off our nose to spite our face. I promise more as soon as I can.
AD DOMINUM!!!!!
2 comments:
Many thanks for your kind recommendation. Facing east at Mass is an issue we are going to have to revisit sooner or later, if only because young people "get it"!
Pax.
God bless, Father! My experience is that everyone gets it. People who are praying don't really want eye contact. They never have. Facing the congregation for the Eucharistic Prayer is unnecessary strain on the priest and no one in the pews wants it. My folk here in the Caribbean also asked me to skip the exchange of the sign of peace. Lots of folks yearn for a "no hug zone"... even in the Caribbean!
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