Sacred Direction

“If then you have been raised with Christ seek those things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” (Colossians 3:1)

If you want to get people excited, or just get their attention, bring up something having to do with the liturgy.

In August Bishop Michael Slattery of the diocese of Tulsa wrote an article about celebrating the Mass ad orientem (“toward the east”). One of the reasons he celebrates the Mass that way, he said, besides the fact that it’s been the constant practice of the Church for two millennia, is that it magnifies the sacredness of the Mass by focusing on the transcendence of God. In the last 40 years as the priest and people celebrated the Eucharist facing each other, the sense of God’s majesty and transcendence has diminished. The lessening of a sense of the sacred is reflected, I believe, in the way people dress. If you’re having a picnic together, it doesn’t matter how you dress. In fact, in that situation casual attire is quite appropriate. But if you’re going to worship the King of kings and Lord of lords, you’d be inclined to dress differently. True, God is near us, for “in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28). But to suppose that such closeness means that we are identical with God is a serious mistake. God remains, even in his closeness, wholly other.


Bishop Slattery opined that when the priest and people face each other it can give the impression that they are talking to each other about God, rather than directing their prayers and petitions to God himself. In the liturgy God addresses us and we respond. The trouble with constantly facing each other is that we can become self-absorbed, leading us to believe that there is essentially no distinction between us and God and therefore no need to change; no need for repentance and conversion. The community can turn into a self-enclosed circle. “Of all horrible religions,” G.K. Chesterton wrote, “the most horrible is the worship of the god within. That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Christianity asserts that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain.” Christ calls us to take up our cross and follow him. The cross, whose arms radiate outward to infinity, invites us to do the same. A circle, on the other hand, is closed in on itself and finite. “What corresponds with reality of what is happening [in the Mass] is not the closed circle but the common movement forward, expressed in a common direction for prayer.” (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Spirit of the Liturgy, p.81)

Bishop Slattery doesn’t celebrate ad orientem at every Mass mind you, nor does he require his priests to celebrate that way. Versus populum is still the norm. But he does value the traditional posture and explains why it’s important. As an important aside, it’s worth noting that in Eucharistic Adoration we focus our attention on Christ, not each other. Since Adoration is an extension of the Eucharist, this form of devotion is highly instructive. Knowing the significance of ad orientem can help us better understand the Mass, no matter what direction the priest faces.

The essential elements of the Eucharist can be summarized in the following five points:

1. The Mass is a participation in the Most Holy Trinity: In the Eucharistic sacrifice Christ offers himself to the Father in the Holy Spirit.

2. The whole Christ offers himself to the Father. The priest visibly represents the “head” (in persona Christi capitas) while the people visibly represent the Lord’s body. Priest and people, head and body together offer the one sacrifice of Christ. United to Christ in Baptism we, the members of his body, participate in his unique, unrepeatable sacrifice.

3. In statu viae. The whole created order is in a “state of journeying.” (Catechism, 302). It has not yet reached its perfection. We are a pilgrim people journeying toward the Promised Land; we are a people ‘on the march.’ Some people think that ad orientem represents a step backward. On the contrary, ad orientem is a “progressive” posture because it conveys the idea of moving forward. It is not static or regressive, but dynamic and progressive. In the liturgy, we are going somewhere. As Jesus said, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Lk. 9:62).

4. “Thy Kingdom Come:” One of the most common prayers of the early Church was Marana tha – “Come, Lord!” The Mass orients us toward the eschatological future as we look with “joyful hope to the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.” Worship anticipates the coming of the Son of man who will come as “the lightning from the east” (Mal 4:1-2; Mt. 24:27).

5.Facing the same direction has been the practice of the Church since ancient times and is still the norm in eastern rite churches. As then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in Spirit of the Liturgy, “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 toward the east is a tradition that goes back to the beginning.”

As catechists we should understand the symbolism that underlies the ancient tradition, appreciate its value and be able to explain it clearly and sympathetically.

The reordering of the liturgical posture following Vatican II (which was never mandated by the Council, by the way) introduced a new idea about the Mass that didn’t exist before 1965: that of a communal meal. The notion that the Eucharist is meant to replicate the Last Supper where the disciples sat around a common table has no basis in history, according to Louis Boyer. “In no meal of the early Christian era,” he says, “did the president of the banqueting assembly ever face the other participants. They were all sitting, or reclining, on the convex side of a C-shaped table. The other side was left empty for service. The communal character of a meal was emphasized just by the opposite disposition: all the participants were on the same side of the table.” (Spirit of the Liturgy p. 78; my emphasis).

Let me be clear, I am not advocating nor even suggesting that priests change where they stand when they celebrate the Eucharist. The norm is versus populum and will likely stay that way. I am saying, however, that as catechists we should understand the symbolism that underlies the ancient tradition, appreciate its value and be able to explain it clearly and sympathetically. For even if the priest and the people “face each other” during the Eucharist, the fundamental orientation is not toward each other, but toward God. “Liturgy,” Pope Benedict XVI said, “implies a real relationship with Another, who reveals himself to us and gives our existence a new direction.” The Mass is intended to orient us to what lies ahead and above. “Lift up your hearts” the celebrant exhorts us, and we respond, “We lift them up to the Lord.” If there is any direction suggested by versus populum it is not at each other, but up to God.