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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Orientation in Liturgical Prayer Michael Lang. In the early Church there was a custom whereby the Bishop or the priest, after the homily, would cry out to the faithful: 'ConversiadDominum'—turnnowtowardstheLord.Thismeant in the first ...
... Direction of Prayer, Liturgy, and Church Architecture in the Early Church 35 1. Facing East: The Christian Direction of Prayer 35 2. The Direction of Prayer and the Position of the Celebrant at the Altar 61 3. Liturgy and Church ...
Orientation in Liturgical Prayer Michael Lang. made a suggestion. The physical orientation, the Congregation says, must be distinguished from the spiritual. Even if a priest celebrates versus populum, he should always be oriented versus ...
Orientation in Liturgical Prayer Michael Lang. Innsbruck liturgist Josef Andreas Jungmann, one of the ar- chitects of ... direction as the people. The Liturgy of the Word has the character of proclamation and dialogue, to which address ...
Orientation in Liturgical Prayer Michael Lang. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am happy to acknowledge my debt to all those who con- tributed in many ways to the completion of this study. Thanks are due especially to Sible de Blaauw, Peter Bruns ...