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
Results 1-5 of 47
... century (in which the conversion of John Henry Newman ma- tured). It is from such historical evidence that the author elicits the theological answers that he proposes, and I hope that the book, the work of a young scholar, will help the ...
... century! 24 are also. 20Congregatio de Cultu Divino et Disciplina Sacramentorum, 'Editoriale', 249. 21Johannes Burckard, Ordo Missae Ioannis Burckardi, ed. J.W. Legg, Tracts on the Mass, HBS 27 ~London: Harrison, 1904!, 142; cf. Nußbaum ...
Orientation in Liturgical Prayer Michael Lang. ~towards the end of the thirteenth century! 24 are also to be understood. When these texts use the phrase versus populum, they do not necessarily mean a visual connection between the people ...
... century.32 Let us now turn to the literary sources for the Christian principle of praying towards the east. There is strong evidence for eastward prayer from most parts of the Christian world from the second century onwards. We shall ...
... century there were several prophets who went with their disciples to the Mount of Olives, where they expected the fulfilment of the signs they had predicted.14 For our argument, the most interesting of these prophets is the Egyptian who ...