for the abbot Barthe, it would be the beginning of a liturgical transition :
The fact, for a parish priest, to celebrate again towards the Lord and no longer towards the people is a trivial thing in comparison with what would be the adoption by this priest of the ancient rite, but it is nevertheless already enormous in itself. Everyone understands in fact that in doing so we are pulling on the thread of a ball, that of liturgical reform, which will then unravel completely.
This is why the reversal of the celebration is the first and decisive act of what is called the reform of the reform, which is, as we have had occasion to say, a process of transition[1]. In a book of interviews that we published in this perspective in 1997, Rebuild the liturgy[2], most of the speakers said that indeed the resumption of the celebration towards the liturgical East was the first act to be accomplished[3].
Who should initiate this process? Eventually, by a pope and bishops who want to devote themselves to this reconstruction. In the near future, by diocesan or non-diocesan bishops, better still cardinals, who will launch this process in a decided manner, drawing in their wake – and supporting in the considerable difficulties they will encounter – the greatest possible number of parish priests.
A historical debate settled
Archaeologists wonder about the place of the altar inside the building in Christian Antiquity. But wherever the altar was, the fact that ancient prayer (mass, various offices) was oriented to manifest watchful expectation of Christ’s return at the end of time is powerfully attested[4] : “For as the lightning comes from the East and appears to the West, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24, 27).
Joseph Andreas Jungmann, one of the major players in the Liturgical Movement, had also observed that in the patristic period, the position of the celebrant facing the east was more strongly attested, in Syria for example, where the sacrificial dimension of the Eucharist was the most explicit by the Fathers. And he remarked: “The oft-repeated assertion that the altar of the early Church always assumed that the priest was facing the people, turns out to be a legend.[5]. Moreover, in the Anglican Church, in the nineteenthe century, for a certain number of members of the Oxford Movement, notes Uwe Lang, one of the ways of restoring the Catholic heritage and underlining the expression of the sacrificial character of the Eucharist was to rediscover theorientation of worship.
It was out of rigorous traditionalism that in Saint Peter’s in Rome and in Saint John in Lateran, where the apse is to the west, the pope had preserved the habit of celebrating towards the geographical and not only the liturgical East. , thus turning towards the nave.
Facing the people, anticipation and symbol of reform
This was, and in a few other places, a versus population fact. On the other hand, the versus population intentional, which appeared within the framework of the Liturgical Movement, had, under the (erroneous) pretext of returning to the antique, ecumenical value. It was actually a borrowing from Protestantism (at least Calvinist, because the Lutheran cult was willingly oriented). We thus saw the development of face-to-face experiences with the people even before the Second World War, on altars arranged for the occasion, in pilgrimage stops, in the rural activities of youth movements, especially within scouting, but also in some “advanced” parishes.
Well known is the reaction of Paul Claudel, in an article in the Literary Figaro of January 29, 1955, protesting against “the practice which is spreading more and more in France of saying mass facing the public”, and of which the parish of Saint-Séverin, in Paris, gave the example. During large gatherings, such as that of the JAC, in 1950, at the Parc des Princes, it was customary to place the altar in the center of the assembly. Similarly, in the underground basilica of Saint-Pie-X in Lourdes, consecrated in 1958, the altar had been built in the middle of the nave, which necessarily established a celebration facing the people for half of the audience.
But it was at the beginning of the sixties that the celebrations in front of the people became more numerous in France, Germany and Belgium. They gradually became almost universal from 1964, the beginning of the liturgical reform. We can also speak here of a process of transition[6], the opposite of the one we recommend. So much so that the texts which promulgated the reform did not even need to mention the meaning of the celebration: it was assumed that the new mass was celebrated normally facing the people.
The obstacles to overcome for a return
Thus, even if, strictly speaking, facing the people is not compulsory within the framework of the reform, the fact remains that, according to common perception, the new mass has two salient characteristics: it is said in the vernacular and celebrated in front of the people. So that any attempt to return, on the ground of the parishes, to the celebration towards the Lord, is immediately opposed with the last energy by the defenders of the reform. We saw this during Cardinal Sarah’s attempt, which Philippe Maxence deals with in this issue of Res Novae. Furthermore, this process of reversal encounters the resistance of a certain number of faithful due to more than fifty years of opposing habit.
What is currently happening in Kerala, in southern India, within the Syro-Malabar Church (the most important Eastern Church united to Rome after the Greek-Ukrainian Church), is in this respect instructive. At the end of a long fight between ancients and moderns, the Syro-Malabar synod had opted for a compromise and decided, in 1999, that the priests would face the assembly until the Eucharistic prayer and would then face the altar during it, this recently approved by Pope Francis. But even this transaction seemed unbearable to the supporters of everything in front of the people, who try, not without violence, to block with this argument: “The mass in front of the people is our tradition”. The quarrel between the ancients and the moderns with reversed fronts…
Which is basically an advantage: the progressive reintroduction of a traditional liturgy in the parishes will have the attraction of a noveltyof a novelty not demagogic, this time, but of great spiritual quality.
Philippe Maxence remember the failed attempt of the cardinal Sarah :
[…] During the congress Sacra Liturgiaheld in London in April 2016, Cardinal Sarah, then Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, in the presence of Msgr. Raybishop of Fréjus-Toulon, called for a massive return to the celebration ad orientemsuggesting to priests who so wished to begin on the first Sunday of Advent 2016 to celebrate in this way.
But he was immediately contradicted by the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal nichols, who wrote to the priests of his diocese to advise them against following his advice. There followed a statement from the director of the Vatican Press Office on July 11, 2016, explaining that ” new liturgical directives (they were not) not planned then a summons of the cardinal by the pope for an interview during which it seems that the subject was barely broached, but which was considered by the media as a warning from the pope to the cardinal.
Clearly showered by these nonetheless foreseeable difficulties, the cardinal himself refrained from putting into practice the invitation he had made to the priests: in his numerous journeys, including during circumstances which would have allowed him without difficulty (in Lourdes, where Msgr. Brouwet expected such a gesture; more recently, in a church in Paris, surrounded by the most classic of clerics who hoped for this encouragement), he celebrated and still celebrates invariably before the people. Here again, words but not gestures.