Although Vatican II said nothing about changing the priest’s direction during Mass, ad orientem has become a symbol of more traditional liturgy, leading some to see it as voicing hesitation or even a rejection of the new liturgy
Priest celebrating the traditional Latin Mass at the church of St Pancratius, Rome / Thoom/Shutterstock
Until the 1960s, Catholics worshipped ad orientem, with priest and congregation facing the East during Mass. Originally Christians celebrated Mass before daybreak Sunday morning with the rising sun serving as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection (testified by Pliny the Younger’s letter to the Emperor Trajan in 112 A.D.). The common liturgical direction toward the East honored the resurrection and anticipated the Lord’s coming in glory.
The oldest Christian church discovered in the world (without a later structure built over it), the house church at Dura-Europos in Syria, dating from the early 200s, was found with its altar touching the wall, facing East. Churches were constructed throughout history in this same fashion, with the altar (whether against the wall or not) oriented toward the East.
Even though there were more exceptions to a strict interpretation of this geographical direction in recent times, priest and people still worshipped facing the Lord together throughout the entire history of Catholic worship. Services facing the people arose during the Reformation, because ministers were focused on speaking to and leading the congregation. The priest during Catholic worship, however, acts in the person of Christ and leads the members of the Body in a common approach to the Father. The Mass does not focus on the people but seeks to give glory to the Father through Christ and in the Holy Spirit. The Mass is not about us ultimately but about coming into communion with God, worshipping him and being drawn into his life.
Why, then, did we change the direction of Catholic worship to face the people, called ad populum, in contrast to ad orientem?
The Second Vatican Council did not mention this change and there is no official liturgical document from the 1960s that directed it. The thought following Vatican II’s constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, was that the Mass, which had been celebrated in an oft-inaudible Latin, should be more accessible to the people. In the experimental period between the constitution in 1963 and the promulgation of the reformed Mass of Pope Paul VI in 1969, the posture of facing the people had already become standard as a kind of spontaneous reaction to the liturgical mood of greater transparency and accessibility.
It is truly amazing that a timeless practice of Christian worship, such as the posture of ad orientem, would be abandoned without the directives of a Council or even any deliberation from authoritative bodies. Over the last 50 years, it has become the absolute norm.
At the same time, works such as Pope Benedict XVI’s Spirit of the Liturgyand Uwe Michael Lang’s Turning Towards the Lord (both published by Ignatius Press) have pointed to the implications of this change for the way Catholics perceive the meaning of liturgy. It appears to have become more human-centered rather than God-centered, indicating more of an enclosed circle than a transcendent action that draws us beyond the confines of the church. Inspired by these reflections, some priests have been seeking to recover the ad orientem posture.
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