Lay people don't have any rights, and the clergy can do whatever they like... right?

On the contrary, it is the right of all of Christ’s faithful that the Liturgy, and in particular the celebration of Holy Mass, should truly be as the Church wishes, according to her stipulations as prescribed in the liturgical books and in the other laws and norms. Likewise, the Catholic people have the right that the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass should be celebrated for them in an integral manner, according to the entire doctrine of the Church’s Magisterium. Finally, it is the Catholic community’s right that the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist should be carried out for it in such a manner that it truly stands out as a sacrament of unity, to the exclusion of all blemishes and actions that might engender divisions and factions in the Church.

Redemptionis Sacramentum 11

But we don't have a right that Bishop's do anything about anything? Do we?

Christ’s faithful have the right that ecclesiastical authority should fully and efficaciously regulate the Sacred Liturgy lest it should ever seem to be “anyone’s private property, whether of the celebrant or of the community in which the mysteries are celebrated”

Redemptionis Sacramentum 18

It is the right of the Christian people themselves that their diocesan Bishop should take care to prevent the occurrence of abuses in ecclesiastical discipline, especially as regards the ministry of the word, the celebration of the sacraments and sacramentals, the worship of God and devotion to the Saints.

Redemptionis Sacramentum 24

Do we have the right to a decent liturgy?

It is the right of the community of Christ’s faithful that especially in the Sunday celebration there should customarily be true and suitable sacred music, and that there should always be an altar, vestments and sacred linens that are dignified, proper, and clean, in accordance with the norms.

Redemptionis Sacramentum 57

All of Christ’s faithful likewise have the right to a celebration of the Eucharist that has been so carefully prepared in all its parts that the word of God is properly and efficaciously proclaimed and explained in it; that the faculty for selecting the liturgical texts and rites is carried out with care according to the norms; and that their faith is duly safeguarded and nourished by the words that are sung in the celebration of the Liturgy.

Redemptionis Sacramentum 58

Any clergy reading?

Have you respected our rights?

Let each one of the sacred ministers ask himself, even with severity, whether he has respected the rights of the lay members of Christ’s faithful, who confidently entrust themselves and their children to him, relying on him to fulfil for the faithful those sacred functions that the Church intends to carry out in celebrating the sacred Liturgy at Christ’s command. For each one should always remember that he is a servant of the Sacred Liturgy.

Redemptionis Sacramentum 186

The other day I blogged the words of St John of Damascus who wrote...

I may not have many books, nor much time to read, but, strangled with thoughts, as if with thorns, I come into the common surgery of the soul, the church; the luster of the painting draws me to vision and delights my sight like a meadow and imperceptibly introduces my soul to the glory of God.

I said that it's a good job he didn't live around here because in my view, there is a clear and definite link between the lack of beauty in our Churches and the lack of people. Fr Massie responded to ask "In that case, why aren't most Anglican churches bursting at the seams?"

It's a reasonable question, so I gave him an unreasonable answer and then thought better of it and decided I should probably write this blog entry...

The words of St John of Damascus put me in mind of a passage from GK Chesterton in which he discusses the difficulty most people have in understanding the rational compared with the ease with which they understand the mystical...

...to judge of the aims of a thing like the Salvation Army is very difficult, to judge of their ritual and atmosphere very easy. No one, perhaps, but a sociologist can see whether General Booth’s housing scheme is right. But any healthy person can see that banging brass cymbals together must be right. A page of statistics, a plan of model dwellings, anything which is rational, is always difficult for the lay mind. But the thing which is irrational any one can understand. That is why religion came so early into the world and spread so far, while science came so late into the world and has not spread at all. History unanimously attests the fact that it is only mysticism which stands the smallest chance of being understanded of the people.

[link]

For example, it would take me a very long time to explain to my two year old daughter that it is a very difficult thing to build a huge Cathedral because it requires many people to spend a lot of time planning, understanding physics and architecture, carving stone and so on. At the end when I told her that such things exist she would probably yawn and as me to let her watch a Pingu DVD. She would not be terribly impressed.

But when we went to Beverley and walked around the corner and the great Minster loomed in the sky above her, two towering pillars of golden sandstone in the crisp autumn sun, she stopped in her tracks and said "wow".

Forgive me if I bold my own paragraph but this is important...

Despite the fact that the modernist liberal church prides itself on having broken free of the tedious dry dogma of the past it has in fact achieved the very opposite. It is now in fact, almost impossible to wander in off the street in the middle of a Catholic Mass and say, with all the wisdom of a two year old, "wow".

In order to have a sense of wonder at the Mass now we must go the intellectual route, it is all they have left us. St John of Damascus was without many books but before we can see anything special about the elderly gentleman with the bread and wine we must read many books, listen to talks, go on courses and study our Bible. You will point out that most people don't do that sort of thing, I will point out that most people are not saying "wow" to the Mass.

Trying to get young people to be impressed at the Mass is like trying to get them to be impressed at the technology inside a laptop computer. The fact that entire libraries of information can be stored in a space the size of a pen lid is hardly impressive because it just works. We have done something similar with the Eucharist, we have placed it inside a plastic case and made it a simple matter of pushing a button.

Our liturgy is as impressive to the untrained eye as a beige box with a whirring fan and a small group of excited nerds crowded around it crowing about how much RAM it has.

If the Church is ever to grow beyond a small band of nerdy bookish people it is vital that we re-learn how to speak the language of the soul. We need to make it clear at first sight that this is a thing that is special, holy, important and impressive. It is not enough for the computer scientists to understand that the modern microchip is a marvel of engineering, it is not enough for the theologians to be impressed at the symbolism in the way they have laid the chairs out in a half circle...

This is why things like art and incense, vestments and kneeling are so important, because you don't need to be a technical person to understand.

I am reminded of the time we went with young people to visit the Church with the frescoes in Pickering and more than one of them said "why isn't our Church like that?" Any healthy person can see that a 20ft high painting of St George slaying the dragon must be right. It takes a special kind of madness to think a clever abstract painting that has to be explained is preferable.

So when I say there is a link between the lack of beauty in our churches and the lack of people - this is what I am getting at. We have removed the things that are obviously good and right and left something that only those who are already "in" (or willing to make the effort) can begin to look at and say "this is important", "this means something".

Not long ago on this blog I bemoaned the lack of incense on Christmas day and somebody said in the comments...

Whatever happens in your parish and however discouraged you may be remember the incense is a symbol but Our Lord in the Eucharist is real, despite the faith of the priest confector.

I know that and you know that but unless the signs and symbols and trappings scream out "this is the most important thing in the world" it is unlikely that the bloke down the road who didn't learn to read properly at school and now sits at home all day playing on his PS3 is ever going to work it out.

I can't help thinking the world would be a better place if all those involved in the liturgy were invited to launch an anvil 200ft in the air.

Anybody who said "What's the point?" would fail the test.

The sort of priest who decides, for example, not to have incense any more, would be caught out by this test and sent to a re-education camp where he would be made to play with matches and use a big knife to sharpen sticks.

You know, man stuff.

Oof - It was an iron bar! No seriously, Paul Inwood walks in to his local and the barman... the barperson asks him what he would like to drink. Ordering a small glass of his favourite fair trade sparkling white wine he takes a seat at the bar. Over the next few hours he drinks heavily - three, maybe four sips before he starts to sing. His singing is bothering the other customers and one of them complains to the barperson who wanders over to where Paul is sitting and asks him to stop.

"Do you know who I am?" he says. "I'm Paul Inwood, I'm Director of Liturgy at Portsmouth Diocese. My name is in the back of hymnals and song books. If I want to sing, I'm going to sing!" "Yeah right" says the barman, "and I'm the King of England. I think you've had enough to drink today."

"I can prove it to you" says Inwood, "You pick any word you like, and I will get it sung at Church - though obviously it can't be a swearword". "That's easy", the barperson retorts. "You'll just slip my word in to verse three and have it sung at a youth mass, you can get people to sing anything at those".

"Wow..." says Paul, "You seem to know a lot about liturgy! Have you been to one of my days for Musicians?"

"Listen", says the barperson. "If you really want to prove yourself as undisputed Lord of the Sings, you're going to have to do something really special". "Like what?" Inwood asks. "Well, for a start, hymns are too easy - you can have any words you like, if you want to impress me you will need to get my word in to the Gospel Acclamation. The Church provides the words of the Gospel Acclamation as part of the Mass so it's not like you can just write your own."

"That's easy" Paul responds, "We've been writing our own Gospel Acclamations for ages, though we call them 'Alleluias' because 'Acclamations' is a long word so it's a bit exclusive. We also write our own Glorias and Holy Holies..." The barperson interrupts "Holy Holies? Do you mean the Sanctus?" "Now that sounds like Latin" replies Inwood. "You're not one of those traditionalists are you?"

"You also have to get it published by a proper music publisher" the barman adds, "Somebody with a website". "That's easy as well" says Paul Inwood. "My mates at OCP will publish anything".

"Well" says the barperson. "You haven't heard my choice of word yet. Before I tell you, let's make a deal. If you manage to get this word in a published alleluia you get free drinks here for a year. If you fail, you are barred - for life"

"Sounds fair" says Paul Inwood. "What's the word?"

So the barman says... "Well, I'm a big David Bowie fan. You know his song: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes?"

"Changes? Inwood replies, "As in... The changes after Vatican II? Surely that's too easy."

"No" the barman says "Not 'changes' - that would be easy!"

"So what's the word then?"

"Ch-Ch."

"Ch-Ch?"

"Ch-Ch."

"Really?"

"Yes"

"Is that even a word?" Paul Inwood asks. The barperson leans forward.. "It's my bar and my challenge. If I say it's a word, it's a word. Now finish your fair trade wine and don't come back unless you get that alleluia published."

So Paul Inwood gets up to leave and the barperson says... "Why the long face?"

...

As punchlines go, that one's not very good.

Speaking of not very good. Have you heard the latest alleluia by Paul Inwood?

Via Catholic Action UK...

Will Heaven, York student and Catholic Herald contributor:

I went to a Mass in York Minster on Thursday to celebrate 400 years since Mary Ward founded the Loreto sisters. It was a historic occasion - it's not often the Anglican dean and chapter lend the magnificent building to the Catholic Church for Mass.

But we blew it. Although most of the service was lovely, just before the Gospel the Bible was danced down the nave by five teenage girls in sashes doing a sort of modern expressive dance.

Mickens [ghastly Rome correspondent of the Tablet] would have loved it. And Cormac Murphy-O'Connor sure looked as if he enjoyed the show from his throne. But it was clearly a youth mass, so did young Catholics like what they saw? The Catholic girls I went with - all educated by Mary Ward sisters - buried their heads in their hands when the dance started. I tried to speak to one of the dancers at the end, but she rushed out of the Church very quickly. I wonder why.

Will Heaven is a twenty-something year old man, like myself. If only we were both sixty year old women we would probably get votes. But we don't.

Anyway, Catholic Action UK is asking that everybody write to Bishop Drainey about this. They've even provided a picture so we will recognise him if we happen to pass in the street...

They write...

Action: readers in the diocese of Middlesbrough should complain to the newly ordained Bishop Drainey, and copy their letters to the Congregation for Divine Worship. Refresh your memories of Cardinal Arinze's views on liturgical dance here.

Curial Office, 50a The Avenue,
Linthorpe, Middlesbrough TS5 6QT
E-mail: financialsecretary@dioceseofmiddlesbrough.co.uk

Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments
10 Piazza Pio XII
00120 Vatican
Italy

Bishop Drainey, the Cardinal and several other Bishops were there for heaven's sake. They know what happened.

If they are going to do anything about it, they will do it secretly behind closed doors. That's the modern way. Leave as many laypeople as possible thinking something is allowed by not condemning it and then quietly in private if pushed admit that it's not okay. That way you have laypeople in parishes saying "it happened in York and the Bishop was there so it must be okay" and priests saying "well it's not allowed". Good way to create unity in the Church - give a different message to different people.

Confusion is the way of the future!

Personally, I think Bishops are public teachers and are supposed to teach. If liturgical dancing is unacceptable, it should be made clear. We need to see headlines in newspapers: "Grumpy Bishops Ban Dance". Then we'll know where we stand.

I stumbled across this today. I sometimes think this sort of thing but I tone it down for fear of coming across as some kind of extreme traditionalist...

The liturgical reform, in its concrete realization, has certainly strayed from its origin. The result has not been a reanimation (renewal), but a devastation. On one hand, there is a liturgy that has degenerated into a "show", in which one tries to render religion interesting with the aide of trendy amusements and maxims that arouse morals - which meets with temporary success within the group of liturgical manufacturers, but which encounters an attitude of very pronounced rejection by those who seek to find in the liturgy, not a spiritual "show-master", but an encounter with the living God before whom all "fabricating" becomes insignificant - an encounter which alone is capable of allowing us to reach the true richness of existence.

...

What happened after the Council was altogether different: instead of a liturgy, which was the fruit of continuous development, a fabricated liturgy was put in its place. A living, growing process was abandoned and the fabrication was begun. There was no further wish to continue the organic evolution and maturation of the living being throughout the centuries, and it was replaced -- as if in a technical production -- by a fabrication, a banal product of the moment.

J. Card. Ratzinger, Preface to Klaus Gamber's "The Reform of the Roman Rite"

[link]

Dearest Older Generation...

I know you've had a lot of fun with the Church, but do you think you could put it back together again when you've finished playing? It will be Leona's turn soon and I don't think she knows where all the pieces go.

Thanks

You guard me from the foe,
And you lead me in ways everlasting.

(I actually quite like that hymn)

On Friday, 8 August 2008, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments communicated to the relevant ecclesial authorities (i.e., Bishops' Conferences and therefore Diocesan Bishops) that the Holy Father in accord with the same congregation and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the norms for the liturgical use of "...the Divine Name signified in the sacred tetragrammaton...." The document is called "Letter to the Bishops' Conferences on the 'Name of God'"

[link]

Interesting...

1. In liturgical celebrations, in songs and prayers the name of God in the form of the tetragrammaton YHWH is neither to be used or pronounced.

2. For the translation of the Biblical text in modern languages, destined for liturgical usage of the Church, what is already prescribed by n. 41 of the Instruction Liturgiam authenticam is to be followed; that is, the divine tetragrammaton is to be rendered by the equivalent of Adonai/Kyrios: "Lord", "Signore", "Seigneur", "Herr", "Señor", etc.

3. In translating, in the liturgical context, texts in which are present, one after the other, either the Hebrew term Adonai or the tetragrammaton YHWH, Adonai is to be translated "Lord" and the form God" is to be used for the tetragrammaton YHWH, similar to what happens in the Greek translation of the Septuagint and in the Latin translation of the Vulgate.

You can read the original letter signed Francis Cardinal Arinze himself in gruesome PDF here.

I always thought there was something fishy about singing 'Yahweh', though I doubt this letter will make the slightest bit of difference. Let's give it a few months and see what happens but I think we'll be filing this one under 'silence of dissent' or more likely 'silence of can't be bothered with it'.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has released the new translations for the text of the mass here. On the one hand, these texts are being released in the US and not the UK, so we shouldn't read to much in to them. On the other hand, these texts are produced by the International Committee for English in the Liturgy so we can expect something pretty similar ourselves.

So why do we need new mass texts? In short.. because the current mass texts are appalling and fail to convey the meaning of the latin original. I'm no latin linguist, but 'Et cum spirito tuo' blatantly has the word 'spirit' in it. In spanish they say 'Y con tu espiritu'. So why do we say 'And also with you'? In these new translations 'Et cum spirito tuo' is translated 'And with your spirit'... 'The Lord be with you. And with your spirit.'

It doesn't just sound nicer, it adds depth to the mass. The response is a reference to the closing lines of the Second Letter of St Paul to Timothy which in the latin vulgate reads 'Dominus Iesum cum spiritu tuo'.

I'm going to avoid speculation on why the current translation is so bad but I don't think Francis Cardinal Arinze is wrong when he writes "this Congregation is confident that the universal use of these texts will greatly contribute to the building up of the faith througout the broad and diverse English-speaking world" [pdf]

A quick flick through (as quickly as one can through a stupid PDF - why don't these people use HTML) and I notice the following changes...

Fellowship is not the same as communion...

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit
be with you all.

The threefold repetition here is obvious in the Latin... Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...

I confess to almighty God
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have greatly sinned
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and in what I have failed to do,
through my fault, through my fault,
through my most grievous fault;
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.

I think the 'new' gloria is beautiful, though it's going to play merry-hell with the clappy one...

Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to people of good will.
We praise you,
we bless you,
we adore you,
we glorify you,
we give you thanks for your great glory,
Lord God, heavenly King,
O God, almighty Father.
Lord Jesus Christ, Only Begotten Son,
Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father,
you take away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us;
you take away the sins of the world,
receive our prayer;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father,
have mercy on us.
For you alone are the Holy One,
you alone are the Lord,
you alone are the Most High,
Jesus Christ,
with the Holy Spirit,
in the glory of God the Father.

God of hosts... Old Testament reference perhaps?

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

A bit of rearranging...

Through him, and with him, and in him,
to you, O God, almighty Father,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
is all honor and glory,
for ever and ever.

This one is going to raise a few eyebrows. I'm not sure why it's in BLOCK CAPITALS. Is the priest supposed to shout it or are the ICEL translators simply unfamiliar with Netiquette? Anyway, "cup" now reads "chalice" which isn't a big deal but it sounds more like the latin word for cup... "is shed" becomes "will be poured out" which changes the tense from present to future.

Most significant and most likely to cause upset is this... "for all" has become "for many". Which is not the same thing.

TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT,
FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD,
THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT,
WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY
FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.
DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.

The words before the Lord's prayer are just about recognisable...

At the Savior's command
and formed by divine teaching,
we dare to say:

The lines after the Lord's prayer have changed quite significantly. Where it used to read "as we wait in joyful hope" it now reads "as we await the blessed hope". Again, the present tense becomes the future...

Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil,
graciously grant peace in our days,
that, by the help of your mercy,
we may be always free from sin
and safe from all distress,
as we await the blessed hope
and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Nice reference to Revelation here...

Behold the Lamb of God,
behold him who takes away the sins of the world.
Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.

Nice quote from the Roman Centurian in Matthew 8:8 now restored...

Lord, I am not worthy
that you should enter under my roof,
but only say the word
and my soul shall be healed.

It's going to be five, maybe ten, maybe a hundred years until we actually use these, but it's interesting to see where things are going. You can read the whole thing for yourself in hideous PDF here. Thanks to Fr Ray Blake for spotting this.

Ella and I went to York today to be commissioned as Ministers of the Word

It's always been a concern to me that reading isn't taken very seriously. Reading and singing. You only have to mention reading and singing and people say things like "wouldn't it be lovely to have the children do it?". There's this idea that reading and singing are mickey mouse jobs for getting as many people participating as possible. No. They are not. As it says in the General Introduction to the Lectionary: The ministry of reader, conferred through a liturgical rite, must be held in respect.

So, while many people were wailing and gnashing their teeth and saying things like "Why does the silly Church want to train me to read? I know how to read? I've been reading for years!" I was thinking "Thank goodness they are taking reading seriously."

All in all it was a good day. In the morning session Caroline and Kit Dollard did a fantastic exposition of what "ministry" means. They focussed on the spiritual preparation side of things talking about things like how to pray with the scriptures. Then Fr John Wood... I owe Fr John Wood an apology. I've only ever encountered him in the context of "listening" type events where he chaired and had to be seen to "listen". I kept thinking "why doesn't this silly priest tell these silly people how silly they are being". Well, it turns out Fr John Wood isn't a silly priest at all. His talk on the practical side of reading during mass was frank, engaging, illuminating and educational. We were impressed.

We stopped for lunch and after lunch we had a reflection to make sure there was a suitable gap between lunch and mass. I thought the altar arrangements were, well, poor...

Maybe I have ridiculously high expectations, but it surely wouldn't have been hard to have put a bit of effort in. I mean, two tea-light candles? Somebody needs to put together a diocesan mobile mass kit with a decent cloth that makes the altar look a bit more special and some decent candles. It would have been good to have had a cross for us to focus on... That said, I was very impressed to see Bishop Drainey saying mass with an altar cross...

Perhaps he's been reading "Spirit of the Liturgy"?

So, resolved to read more I have been reading. Not lots but while Ella was away at Stonyhurst and once Leona goes to bed I had more peace and quiet than I've had in aeons. I'm reading The Spirit of the Liturgy by one Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

It raises a question and I believe it is a serious question. Which way should the priest face during the mass? Come to think of it... which way should the people face during mass?

Cue scoffing. I sort of half asked why the priest switched direction a while back. We've done this one James... before you were born... we used to say mass "facing away from the people" (ad orientem) and now we say mass "facing the people" (versus populum). The only rational explanation I have been able to aquire is "you are too young to remember it so I must know best". And on an on and ad hominem. If I am wrong about this, perhaps somebody could explain my mistake instead of simply pointing out the difference in our respective ages.

Cardinal Razinger quotes Bouyer:

"Never, and nowhere, before [that is, before the sixteenth century] have we any indication that any importance, or even attention, was given to whether the priest celebrated with the people before him or behind him. As Professor Cyrille Vogel has recently deomonstrated it, the only thing the insisted upon, or even mentioned, was that he should say the eucharistic prayer, as all the other prayers, facing East... Even when the orientation of the church enabled the celebrant to pray turned toward the people, when at the altar, we must not forget that it was not the priest alone who, then, turned East: it was the whole congregation together with him."

Then Ratzinger says himself...

Admittedly, these connections were obscured or fell into total oblivion in the church buildings and liturgical practices of the modern age. This is the only explanation for the fact that the common direction of prayer of priests and people were labelled as "celebrating toward the wall" or "turning your back on the people" and came to seem absurd and totally unacceptable.

...

In reality what happened was that an unprecedented clericalization came on the scene. Now the priest - the "presider", as they now prefer to call him - becomes the real point of reference for the whole liturgy. Everything depends on him. We have to see him, respond to him, to be involved in what he is doing. His creativity sustains the whole thing. Not suprisingly, people try to reduce this newly created role by assigning all kinds of liturgical functions to different individuals and entrusting the "creative" planning of the liturgy to groups of people who like to, and are supposed to, "make their own contribution".

Less and less is God in the picture. More and more important is what is done by the human beings who meet here and do not like to subject themselves to a "pre-determined pattern". The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out to what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself. The common turning toward the east was not a "celebration toward the wall"; it did not mean that the priest "had his back to the people": the priest himself was not regarded as so important. For just as the congregation of the synagogue looked together toward Jerusalem, so in the Christian liturgy the congregation looked together "toward the Lord".

But Raztinger (like myself) is not a member of the Traditionalists for the Mass as a Historical Recreation of the Past Society. He continues...

It would surely be a mistake to reject all the reforms of our century wholesale. When the altar was very remote from the faithful, it was right to move it back to the people. In cathedrals this made it possible to recover the tradition of having the altar at the crossing, the meeting place of the nave and the presbyterium. It was also important clearly to distinguish the place for the Liturgy of the Word from the place for the properly Eucharistic liturtgy. For the Liturgy of the Word is about speaking and responding, and so a face-to-face exchange between proclaimer and hearer does make sense. In the psalm the hearer internalizes what he has heard, takes it into himself, and transforms it into prayer, so that it becomes a response.

On the other hand, a common turning to the east during the Eucharistic Prayer remains essential. This is not a case of something accidental, but of what is essential. Looking at the priest has no importance. What matters is looking together at the Lord. It is not now a question of dialogue but of common worship, of setting off toward the One who is to come. What corresponds to reality of what is happening is not the closed circle but the common movement forward, expressed in a common direction for prayer.

I didn't write the paragraph above. The present Pope did. He says that turning to the east is "essential". If I was a priest, I would feel the need to have a bloody good reason for disagreeing. As Cardinal Ratzinger, he encountered some objections and he covers them in his book...

Haussling thinks that turning to the east, towards the rising sun, is something that nowadays we just cannot bring into the liturgy.

Is that really the case? Are we not interested in the cosmos any more? Are we today really hopelessly huddled in our own little circle? Is it not important, precisely today, to find room for the dimension of the future, for hope in the Lord who is to come again, to recognise again, indeed to live, the dynamism of the new creation as an essential form of the liturgy?

Another argument is that we do not need to look toward the east, toward the crucifix - that, when priest and faithful look at one another they are looking at the image of God in man, and so facing each other is the right direction for prayer.

I find it hard to believe that the famous critic thought this was a serious argument. For we do not see the image of God in man in such a simplistic way. The "image of God" in man is not, of course, something that we can photograph or see with a merely photographic kind of perception. We can indeed see it, just as we can see the goodness in a man, his honesty, interior truth, humiliy, love - everything, in fact, that gives him a certain likeness to God. But if we are to do this, we must learn a new kind of seeing, and that is what the Eucharist is for.

A more important objection is the practical order. Ought we really to be rearranging everything all over again? Nothing is more harmfull to the liturgy than a constant activism, even if it seems to be for the sake of genuine renewal.

Here's the part where it gets really interesting. Here's the part that affects us. Now. Today.

Facing east, as we heard, was linked with the "sign of the Son of Man", with the Cross, which announces the Lord's Second Coming. That is why very early on the east was linked with the sign of the Cross. Where a direct common turning toward the east is not possible, the cross can serve as an interior "east" of faith. It should stand in the middle of the altar and be the common point of focus for both priest and praying community. In this way we obey the ancient call to prayer: "Conversi ad Dominum", Turn toward the Lord! In this way we look together at the One whose death tore the veil of the Temple - the One who stands before the Father for us and encloses us in his arms in order to make us the new and living Temple.

Moving the altar cross to the side to give an uninterrupted view of the priest is something I regard as one of the truly absurd phenomena of recent decades. Is the cross disruptive during mass? Is the priest more important than the Lord? This mistake should be corrected as quickly as possible; it can be done without further rebuilding. The Lord is the point of reference. He is the rising sun of History. That is why there could be a cross of the Passion, which represents the suffering Lord who for us let his side be pierced, from which flowed Blood and Water (Eucharist and Baptism), as well as a cross of triumph, which expresses the idea of the Second Coming and guides our eyes toward it. For it is always the one Lord: Christ yesterday, today, and forever.

I don't have anything to add. He has spelled it out. However, one final objection remains. When Cardinal Ratzinger wrote this book he was only a Cardinal and we can ignore him because, you know, it's convenient. Has he said anything telling us to put a cross in the middle of the altar since he became Pope?

Well, a picture is worth a thousand words...

So here's a question... Should we not be doing what the Pope does? If not, why not?