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 6-10 of 50
... priest and people facing each other for the Introductory Rites, the Liturgy of the Word, parts of the Communion Rite, and the Concluding Rite, and a common direction of prayer for the Liturgy of the Eucharist in the strict sense ...
... priest is before the Lord to offer the sac- rifice of Christ and of the Church.15 I The Reform of the Liturgy and the Position of. 15In his very personal attack on Cardinal Ratzinger's book The Spirit of the Liturgy, Pierre-Marie Gy also ...
... priest's 'turning his back on the people' is characteristic of the rite of Mass according to the Missal of Pope Saint Pius V whereas the priest's 'turning towards the people' belongs to the Novus Ordo Mass of Pope Paul VI. It is also ...
... priest can walk around it easily and a celebration facing the people is possible. Josef Andreas Jung- mann asks us to consider this: It is only the possibility that is emphasised. And this [separation of the altar from the wall] is not ...
... priest and people for the core of the eucharistic liturgy. This is. 4G. Lercaro, 'L'Heureux Développement', Not 2 ~1966!:160; English translation: Documents on the Liturgy, 122, no. 428. 5Translating Jungmann, 'Der neue Altar', 380; see ...