Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Ad orientem in the papal trip to Turkey

Gerald points out the official Vatican page with the overview of the liturgies the Pope will be participating in. The attention to detail is indeed impressive. One thing that I noticed was the following teaching which seems almost in praise of orienting the priest ad orientem, which is interesting given the Pope's known preference for Mass ad orientem as opposed to the now-common versus populum. It may well mean nothing, but it's interesting none the less. From the page:

The Byzantine Divine Liturgy, like that of all the Eastern Churches, is celebrated facing East. The priest and all the faithful look to the East, whence Christ will come again in glory. The priest intercedes before the Lord for his people; he walks at the head of the people towards the encounter with the Lord. At different moments the priest turns to the people: for the proclamation of the Gospel, for the dialogue preceding the anaphora, for the communion with the holy gifts, and for all the blessings. These symbolize moments in which the Lord himself comes forth to meet his people.
Update: Fr. Z. apparently noticed the same bit in his post here, although he also took further notice that it was His Excellence Msgr. Marini who wrote the above. If memory serves, Msgr. Marini did mention once after Ratzinger became Benedict that his job as MC became harder because Benedict is also a liturgist as well as a theologian and had his own ideas of how liturgies should be composed. As I like to say, vewy vewy intewesting. (It's a Buggs Bunny thing if you don't get the intentional mis-spelling.) I'll have to look for the reference.