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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... Zech 14:4). Kretschmar notes that in the Synoptic Gospels Jesus' messianic entrance into Jerusalem begins on the Mount of Olives and is aimed at the Temple (Mk 11:1 and 11; Mt 21:1 and 12; Lk 19:29 and 45), with the account of the ...
... (Zech. 14.4). (2) He obtained a colt and rode upon it into the city (Zech. 9.9). (3) The crowds carried branches as at the feast of Tabernacles (Zech. 14.16-19). (4) He went into the temple and drove out traders from it (Zech. 14.21c) ...
... Zechariah christologically, or did not read it at all; both conjectures are hardly credible. If, then, the prophecy about the Lord's feet standing on the Mount of Olives was read in the primitive Christian community in Jerusalem before ...
... Zechariah 14. The emergence of the Egyptian prophet can be placed in the early reign of Nero, between A.D. 54 and 57, depending on the date of the Apostle Paul's arrest in Jerusalem.15 In conclusion, the clear hope for the Lord's return ...
... (Zech 14:4), the day dawning from on high (Lk 1:78; cf. Zech 3:8 and 6:12 LXX),27 the angel ascending from the rising of the sun with the seal of the living God (Rev 7:2), not to mention the Johannine light imagery. According to early ...