Ok, I did not explain myself clearly enough. I was not referring to Da Vinci’s painting. I referred to the customary Jewish setting of the time.
The most prominent feature of the room would have been a low table in the shape of a “U” called a triclinium, a Roman styled table, of various sizes and styles, that had been adopted by the Jews of the first century. The table had large couches, or cushions, placed on each of the three sides.
The guests approached the table from behind the couches, then reclined on their left side, supporting their head on their left elbow, leaving their right hand free to take the food. Their feet would stretch out behind them, away from the table.
A man’s head would be in line with the chest of the person reclining to his left, making it easy for that person to lean back and speak to the person on his left without anyone else hearing what is said.
Everyone sat on one side on the outside of the table (all facing in the same direction, that is) allowing the inside of the table to open for servers.
The host of the feast would not sit in the middle, but instead second to the left, with the guest of honor on his left, and a trusted friend to his right. The seating then continued around the triclinium, the most important guests seated on the left, then going around the table, with the least important sitting on the far right. If this seating arrangement was followed, John the beloved was seated to Jesus’ right (the place of the trusted friend), Peter on the opposite end (the place of the servant), and to the left of Christ, in the seat of honor, as both Jesus and Judas were able to eat from the same bowl.
Thus, Christ was not directly facing the apostles, and the only one who was farther to the end of the table was John, who could thus recline back on the Lord’s chest and see the Lord’s face.
http://forums.catholic-questions.org/picture.php?albumid=2066&pictureid=15108
From “Food at the Time of the Bible” by Miriam Vamosh
I would like to add that nothing in any of the documents of the Second Vatican Council call for a change in orientation of the priest. In fact, there is no Church document that calls for it. Even the Missal used for the Ordinary Form seems to assumed that the priest is facing ad orientem when it instructs him at the “Pray Brethren” and “Behold the Lamb of God” to say these prayers “facing the people.” The only document that seems to imply that this is preferred is paragraph 299 of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) which reads, “
The altar should be built separate from the wall, in such a way that it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people, which is desirable wherever possible.” However, as clarified by the Congregation for Divine Worship, this is a misleading translation. When one looks at the Latin the clause “which is desirable,” it refers back to the first part of the sentence (that the altar should be built away from the wall, which is desirable wherever possible).
Contrary to a prevailing misconception there is no evidence for celebration of Mass versus populum in the first nineteen centuries of the Church’s history, with rare exceptions (see The Spirit of the Liturgy, by Cardinal Ratzinger, pp. 74-8). It is true that when Christians in fourth-century Rome could first freely begin to build churches, they customarily located the sanctuary towards the west (a Christian replication of the layout and the orientation of the Jerusalem Temple), however the people initially stood in the side naves and faced the centrally located altar for the first portion of the service, and later -at the approach of the Consecration - they all turned to face east towards the open church doors, the same direction the priest faced throughout the Eucharistic liturgy.
The idea of having the people face the priest and the priest face the people began only in the 16th century, with Martin Luther. In his
Deutsche Messe und Ordnung des Gottesdienstes of 1526 he writes:
We shall keep the priestly ornaments, the altar, the lights …] but in the true Mass, among true Christians, it would be necessary that the altar did not remain as it currently is and that the priest faced the people
This homily given in the Cathedral of Marquette, MI by Bishop Alexander Sample, while he celebrated the Extraordinary Form on Sept 7, 2011, explains some of the reasons for praying the Mass Ad Orientem, and how doing so directs our attention outwardly towards Christ.
Does it really matter? Jesus celebrated according to His culture, facing his disciples, which matters far more than the manner used by the high priest in ancient Israel.
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that looks like the floor plan for our church!