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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... 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 Architecture 71 III The Common Direction of Liturgical Prayer: Its Theological and ...
... east. The latter is often perceived as merely artificial, though 'objectively speaking', no less 'right'.4 In response to this criticism, I should like to note first that Häußling'sreferencetothe'intentionoftheCouncil'doesnot holdgood ...
... East and the West. Second, I should like to argue, relying on the thought of contemporary theologians, that the permanent face-to-face position of priest and people is not beneficial for a real participation of the faithful in the ...
... east and, at the same time, towards the people (altare sit ad ori- entem, versus populum). This is indeed the state of affairs in the major Roman basilicas with the entrance facing east and the apse facing west. Here versus populum is ...
... facing east'.28 My claim is that the intrinsic sense of facing. 26Congregatio de Cultu Divino et Disciplina Sacramentorum, 'Editoriale', 249. 27J. Ratzinger, The Feast of Faith: Approaches to a Theology of the Liturgy, trans. G. Harrison ...