“Turning Towards the Lord”

The theological and liturgical significance of Mass facing ‘towards the east’

Last week we examined the Christo-centric nature of the liturgy, and the danger of the liturgy being reduced to a sociological, or man-centred activity, stripped of the sense of the sacred.   When the personality of the priest becomes the focus of the congregation’s attention rather than the sacred action of the Paschal Mystery made present on the altar, the priest runs the risk of being a sign that points to ourselves rather than heaven. The Second Vatican Council’s Sacred Constitution on the Divine Liturgy explains the Mass using the image of the people of God on pilgrimage toward the eternal ‘Promised Land’: “In the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, a minister of the holies and of the true tabernacle.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n.8). This calls to mind one of the Old Testament images of Israel as the pilgrim people of God wandering through the Sinai desert in the great ‘Exodus’ from slavery to freedom. They were led by Moses out of Egypt and travelled east all the way to the threshold of the Promised Land. When the Church gathers at Mass it too understands itself to be the pilgrim people of God, walking towards the light of the Resurrection, symbolised by the rising sun. This image of the Church as a pilgrim people is also conveyed through her various liturgical processions (eg. Palm Sunday, Corpus Christi, Feast of Presentation, etc.) generally with the priest leading the way.
In spite of the ancient custom of the priest facing ‘liturgical east’ which may be observed in all the ancient liturgies of both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Rites, in the years after the Second Vatican Council this came to be derisively described as “the priest having his back to the people”. This was a dishonest misrepresentation of the priest’s orientation to liturgical east, yet notwithstanding almost 2000 years of the Church universally observing this custom, the notion of “the priest having his back to the people” became firmly entrenched in the psyche of an entire generation of post-Conciliar Catholics. As Ratzinger attests, “Despite all the variations in practice that have taken place far into the second millennium, one thing has remained clear for the whole of Christendom: praying towards the east is a tradition that goes back to the beginning.” (Ratzinger, Spirit of the Liturgy, p.75). To describe the priest as having his back to the people would be as disingenuous as describing someone sitting in the front pew of the congregation as rudely having his back to everyone sitting behind him. Technically he does, but that’s not the point – in reality he is facing the altar. As others have pointed out, it is be comparable to being offended that a bus driver has his back to his passengers when driving the bus (my, how rude!!!). The priest’s aim was not (believe it or not) to snub his entire congregation, but to direct his own attention and the attention of the entire congregation to God, represented symbolically in the direction of ‘the East’.

The ‘east’ here has an obvious liturgical significance, symbolising the light of Christ’s resurrection at dawn on Easter Sunday. It also expresses our hope and expectation of Christ’s Second Coming at the end of time. Thus, as Ratzinger explains, facing liturgical east “was much more a question of priest and the people facing in the same direction, knowing that together they were in procession towards the Lord. They did not close themselves in a circle; they did not gaze at one another, but as the pilgrim people of God they set off for the Oriens, for the Christ who comes to meet us.” (Ratzinger, Spirit of the Liturgy, 80.)

As early as the 2^nd century Tertullian speaks of Christians turning East for prayer, and describes Christian churches as being always situated “in high and open places facing the light.” Origen, a slightly younger contemporary of Tertullian says it should be obvious that we Christians pray facing east where the sun rises, since it is “an act which symbolises the soul looking towards where the true light [Christ] arises.” In the fourth century Gregory of Nyssa says we turn east to pray, because “our first homeland is in the east; I mean our sojourn in paradise from which we have fallen, for God planted a paradise in Eden towards the east.” St Augustine, a contemporary of St Gregory, also writes: “When we rise for prayer we turn towards the east, from which heaven arises...that the spirit might be reminded to turn itself to a higher nature, namely God.” Later Saint Thomas Aquinas identified three reasons why the eastward direction was considered most fitting for Christian prayer:

1. the rising sun symbolises God’s majesty, and the victory of light over darkness;
2. It symbolises our desire to return to paradise;
3. Christ the light of the world is expected to return from the east.

Due to the practical difficulty of having every altar of every church facing east (since in many churches there were multiple side altars facing in various directions) the custom developed of placing a crucifix in the centre of the altar as the point of focus. This became known as liturgical east (as distinct from geographical east) and formed a symbolic but practical point of reference. The Missal directed the priest to gaze at the cross at various points throughout the Mass, particularly during the Eucharistic prayer, to reinforce this point of liturgical orientation.

There is another disconcerting consequence of the versus populum orientation and advent of the free-standing altar, that is deserving of consideration: namely that it forces the priest to have his back to the tabernacle containing the Blessed Sacrament. In fact, I am amazed that this liturgical anomaly is not more widely commented upon. I can only speak from my own personal experience as a priest how confusing and disorientating it is to have my back to the Blessed Sacrament for almost the entire Eucharistic Prayer. In some modern chuches the tabernacle is essentially relegated to a broom closet off to the side. The Second Vatican Council taught that “the Eucharist is the source and summit of the entire Christian life” (Lumen Gentium, n.3) and yet it is essentially ignored by the priest for the whole Mass up until the moment before the Rite of Communion. For the priest to convey to the people of God a sense of the centrality of the Eucharist it is (to say the least) counterintuitive for the priest to have his back to the Blessed Sacrament for the entire duration of the Mass.

The strength of the custom of versus populum in the Novus Ordo Mass today is such that it would be pastorally difficult to implement a return to ad orientem as a normative practice. By trialling the “experiment of tradition” with a Saturday morning ad orientem Mass it is hoped this will help foster an awareness of the theology and praxis behind this ancient custom, so as not to be intimidated or confused by it. In a world that has in so many ways profoundly and decisively turned away from God it may be especially timely for the Church to symbolically reorient itself to Christ. If the past sixty years are any indication, it would seem the self-referential liturgies of modernity have proven to be sterile – they did not produce the expected fruit of a renewed love for and attention to the liturgy. On the contrary, Mass attendance has fallen precipitously, alongside a sense of the sacred. As the faithful search amidst the ruins of Christendom for authentic expressions of Christian worship there is perhaps much to be learnt by being willing to look back to the wisdom of past customs whilst striving to orient ourselves forward to Jesus Christ, who is the same, yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8).