Turning Toward the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical PrayerIntroduction by Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) Turning towards the Lord presents an historical and theological argument for the traditional, common direction of liturgical prayer, known as "facing east", and is meant as a contribution to the contemporary debate about the Catholic liturgy. Lang, a member of the London Oratory, studies the direction of liturgical prayer from an historical, theological, and pastoral point of view. At a propitious moment, this book resumes a debate that, despite appearances to the contrary, has never really gone away, not even after the Second Vatican Council. 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. In this situation, Lang's delightfully objective and wholly unpolemical book is a valuable guide. Without claiming to offer major new insights, Lang carefully presents the results of recent research and provides the material necessary for making an informed judgment. It is from such historical evidence that the author elicits the theological answers that he proposes. |
From inside the book
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... Meßner refers to the 'eminentlyeschatologicalmeaning'oforientationatprayer;itdirects Christian. 4Translating ibid., 157. 5Cf. J. Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. J. 16 Turning towards the Lord Turning to the Lord.
... Meßner adds that the almost total loss of this liturgical tradition in the Roman Catholic Church of today indicates ... Meßner, Einführung in die Liturgiewissenschaft, UTB 2173 ~Paderborn:Schöningh, 2001!, 198; see now also R. Meßner ...
... Meßner notes that what is at issue is not the celebratio versus populum, but the direction of liturgical prayer that has been known in the Christian tradition as 'facing east'.28 My claim is that the intrinsic sense of facing.
... Meßner, 'Probleme des eucharistischen Hochgebets', in Bewahren und Erneuern: Studien zur Meßliturgie: Festschrift für Hans Bernhard Meyer SJ zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. R. Meßner, E. Nagel, and R. Pacik, IThS 42 ~Innsbruck and Vienna ...
... Meßner, 'Gebetsrichtung, Altar und die exzentrische Mitte der Gemeinde', in Communio- Räume:Auf der Suche nach der angemessenen Raumgestalt katholischer Liturgie, ed. A. Gerhards, T. Sternberg, and W. Zahner, Bild—Raum—Feier: Studien zu ...