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malphono
Guest
Perhaps for the reading themselves. Beyond that, no.
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ProVobis
Guest
The homily is given versus populum. The readings at the EF are repeated at the homily versus populum, just like the OF.
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ConstantineTG
Guest
I’ll probably draw ire here for saying this, but something like the Divine Liturgy
*runs and hides in a nuclear bunker
I always thought its the reason why they wanted the free standing altar where the preist can walk around it so that he can face the people in certain parts and lead the people in others. Proclaiming the Gospel is obvious for facing the people. Offertory to Communion would be obvious for ad orientem since it is the Sacrifce part of the Mass.
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malphono
Guest
True, and I’d even be willing to accept the formal proclamation of the readings that way, which would be the restoration of the ancient practice. But that’s as far as I go. I’m not a big fan of podia and presidential chairs (unless the latter is in the Oval Office
…)
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ConstantineTG
Guest
The priest didn’t repeat the readings in the vernacular nor delivered the Homily. It was a High Mass but for First Friday and not Sunday. I don’t know if they read the Gospel in English on Sundays.
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malphono
Guest
I don’t see a parallel.
No. The free-standing altar is very ancient and is common to all Churches, (even in the West: notice the great Cathedrals of Europe, for example, and even some in North America: the altar is free-standing and can be circumnavigated, and sits under a ciborium or baldachino)). It (a free-standing altar) has absolutely nothing to do with versus populum.
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ConstantineTG
Guest
Thanks! The ancient practice noted here seems to have been preserved faithfully by Eastern Liturgies. I’m more in favor to going back to that instead of purely ad orientem.
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ConstantineTG
Guest
I mean in the Divine Liturgy the priest would face the people for the Gospel readings. In fact he steps out of the Iconostasis. I think this is consistent with what ProVobis has posted as the more ancient way done in the Roman Rite as well.
Right, although you can’t really do versus populum if the altar is against the wall without turning your back on the altar.
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malphono
Guest
Yes, I’m quite familiar with how it’s done in the East and Orient.
So? The point of this entire thread is ad orientem not versus populum.
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patrick457
Guest
Current practice does stipulate that the deacon should read the Gospel while facing the north, but the opposite was true in the early centuries in the Roman Rite.
The Roman custom of the 8th-12th centuries (as mentioned in Ordo Romanus II, a Gallican recension of a Roman Ordo) was actually that the deacon reading the Gospel should turn to the south, where the men are standing (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:35) - back then, men and women stood separately at different sides of the nave - and not to the north. Where there were two ambos, the northern one was reserved for the gospel, with that on the south for the epistle. A reader in turning towards the greater number of persons would naturally turn more or less southwards in the north ambo, and northwards in the other. Now, at a later period the rubrics are indeed unanimous in directing a northward position. Micrologus suggests that the change arose in this way: when there was no deacon, the celebrant read the gospel at the altar, on which the book rested at the north end, and so he apparently turned northwards. The deacons, emulous of their superiors, took to turning in the same direction; and by degrees the custom of facing the north became the rule, and eventually, mystical meanings were ascribed to it (preaching to the heathens, etc.)
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patrick457
Guest
Personally, I think the reason for this is because, simply, it’s the deacon’s job to proclaim the Gospel to the people. Even in Masses without deacons, the priest pretty much performs many of the same rubrics as with Masses that had one (with the server taking the place of both deacon and subdeacon in responses), and because in Solemn Masses, it was the deacon that read the Gospel as the priest followed along with his Missal (pre-1962; the 1962 rubrics stipulate that the priest listen), if I remember correctly.
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