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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... Wallraff, and Bruce Griffin, as well as to Charles Scott Gibson, for their encouragement and criticism. I am most grateful to Rupert McHardy and Richard and Elisabeth Dobbins for their invaluable help with translating my work from ...
... Wallraff ~Christus verus sol: Sonnenverehrung und Christentum in der Spätan- tike, JAC.E 32 @Münster: Aschendorff, 2001#, 60–88!. 3Cf. A. A. Häußling, review of U.M. Lang, 'Conversi ad Dominum: Zu Gebetsostung, Stellung des Liturgen am ...
... 2003!, 27–30; likewise M. Wallraff, Christ- us verus sol: Sonnenverehrung und Christentum in der Spätantike, JAC.E 32 ~Mün- ster: Aschendorff, 2001!, 72, n. 53. 33 The Reform of the Liturgy and Position of the Celebrant.
... Wallraff, Christus verus sol: Sonnenverehrung und Christentum in der Spätantike, JAC.E32 ~Münster:Aschendorff, 2001!, 60–88. 2Dölger, Sol salutis, 20–38. On the difficult question of sun-worship and the cult of Yahweh in ancient Israel ...
... Wallraff maintains that up to the second century, prayer towards the east was just as common in Judaism as prayer towards Jerusalem. He also argues that this was similar in early Christianity, as shown by the practice of the Elcha ...