=mgrfin;3304845]I have no opinion on your quote. Nor do I want to have an opinion on it.
As a boy of 8, or as a grown man, I always felt it was rude for the Priest to have his back turned away from us, even in his readings of the Epistle, Gospel and prayers. Like our understanding didn’t matter.
There are some indefensible things about the old Roman rite, so why are you defending them.
Like what?
Ring the bells at the “Hanc Igitur” to warn the uneducated that we were about to enter into the Consecration
.
You say “warn” I say “announce”
As for facing the East. Would you care to comment on this?
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger -
The Spirit of the LiturgyThe Altar and the Direction of Liturgical Prayer
adoremus.org/0500-Ratzinger.html
…Despite all the variations in practice that have taken place far into the second praying toward the East is a tradition that goes back to the beginning. Moreover, it is a fundamental expression of the Christian synthesis of cosmos and history, of being rooted in the once-for-all events of salvation history while going out to meet the Lord who is to come again. …millennium, one thing has remained clear for the whole of Christendom: The liturgical renewal in our own century took up this alleged model and developed from it a new idea for the form of the Liturgy. The Eucharist, so it was said, had to be celebrated versus populum (towards the people). The altar – as can be seen in the normative model of Saint Peter’s – had to be positioned in such a way that priest and people looked at each other and formed together the circle of the celebrating community. This alone, so it was said, was compatible with the meaning of the Christian Liturgy, with the requirement of active participation. This alone conformed to the primordial model of the Last Supper.
These arguments seemed in the end so persuasive that after the Council (which says nothing about “turning to the people”) new altars were set up everywhere, and today celebration versus populum really does look like the characteristic fruit of Vatican II’s liturgical renewal. In fact it is the most conspicuous consequence of a re-ordering that not only signifies a new external arrangement of the places dedicated to the Liturgy, but also brings with it a new idea of the essence of the Liturgy – the Liturgy as a communal meal…This is, of course, a misunderstanding of the significance of the Roman basilica and of the positioning of its altar, and the representation of the Last Supper is also, to say the least, inaccurate…Once again let me quote Bouyer:
“Never and nowhere before (that is, before the sixteenth century) is there any indication of the slightest importance being attached, or even attention given, to the question of whether the priest should celebrate with the people behind him or in front of him. Professor Cyril Vogel has proved that, “if anything was stressed, it was that the priest should recite the Eucharistic Prayer, like all other prayers, turned towards the East Even when the orientation of the church allowed the priest to pray facing the people, we must not forget that it was not just the priest who turned to the East, but the whole congregation with him”
As one of the fathers of Vatican II’s Constitution on the Liturgy, J.A. Jungmann, put it, it was much more a question of priest and people facing in the same direction, knowing that together they were in a procession toward the Lord.
Turn to the East is essential
On the other hand, a common turning to the East during the Eucharistic Prayer remains essential. This is not a case of accidentals, but of essentials. 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 towards the One who is to come. What corresponds with the reality of what is happening is not the closed circle, but the common movement forward expressed in a common direction for prayer…
