Early Mass compared to Tridentine and Novus Ordo Masses

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AndrewAxland said:
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semper_catholicus:
First off, EVERYBODY faced east, including the priests. There was no versus populum mass.
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I don’t know where you pulled that out of. Throughout it’s entire 1200 odd-year history, in Old St. Peter’s in Rome, the priest always faced the people, over a free-standing altar, and the people always faced west. Same in many other of the old churches in Rome. Ad orientem and versus populi were both Frankish innovations that didn’t catch on until the 9th century. Other Frankish innovations from the same time were Gregorian Chant and the use of the organ in church.
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???

If this is the case, can you explain why the other Apostolic churches all face East, including the Oriental Orthodox, who have not been in Communion with either Catholic or Orthodox since 451? How can this be a Frankish innovation?

Jews prayed facing East and so did the earliest Christians. The churches that you refer to have their altars at the west ends of the building, but they still prayed facing East.
 
babochka said:
he churches that you refer to have their altars at the west ends of the building, but they still prayed facing East.
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Please do read your history. It’s so much more interesting than making stuff up.

All this stuff is explained in any introductory level history of the liturgy.
 
AndrewAxland said:
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babochka:
he churches that you refer to have their altars at the west ends of the building, but they still prayed facing East.
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Please do read your history. It’s so much more interesting than making stuff up.

All this stuff is explained in any introductory level history of the liturgy.
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I have, thank you. The Frankish innovation that you refer to is the concept of liturgical East, in which it doest actually matter what direction the priest is facing. as long as priest and people are facing it together.

I know that many churches in Rome were built with a free-standing altar in the west end of the building. We do not really know for sure which direction the priest faced. We do know that many Church fathers, West and East, emphasized the importance of prayer facing East, from the earliest times. The architectural arrangement of the buildings also seems to have been unique to the diocese of Rome and was not normative for the whole Church.

Of course, you didn’t answer my question. How is it that all Apostolic churches pray facing East, yet in the West this ancient custom, which predates the Church, was a late innovation?

And what did I make up?
 
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The liturgy is a living and growing organism. To go backward is not how the liturgy works. Think of how a parent cares for their child. In the child’s infancy, you give it the proper care it needs for that point in their life. You won’t give the child a car because they don’t need it yet. Likewise, when they’re
more grown up, you won’t buy toys for them because they don’t need toys for that state in their life.

The liturgy continually grows and is alive. It has grown so much compared to other earlier times. countless popes have spoken on this topic, that going back to the early Church would not be ideal. There’s a reason we change things and put in place certain practices, not because they’re “trendy” or “vogue” or a unique personal preference, or that it would cool to see and experience. It’s because it’s what’s best for the Church.
 
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Your priest might profit from reading Pius XII on the dangers of archaeologism.

That said, the Novus Ordo does not represent some return to antiquity (of which we know relatively little in terms of liturgy).
 
Yeah, the people faces east, because that was the direction of the altar. And get this, the people actually turned around and feared east when it came time for the Roman Canon. That’s something a lot of people don’t know.

They only said mass like that because of the way St. Peter’s Basillica is built. It’s an exception to the rule.
 
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babochka said:
The Frankish innovation that you refer to is the concept of liturgical East, in which it doest actually matter what direction the priest is facing. as long as priest and people are facing it together.
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That’s incorrect. The Frankish innovation building churches facing true geographical east, with the priest facing turned with his back to the people. The concept of “liturgical east” you refer to came much later.

In the early church, the orientation of churches was irrelevant. It was not until the fourth century that this became an issue. Two traditions of church orientation arose, both related to Solomon’s temple. Neither of them involved orienting the church with the altar towards the east. The first tradition was to have the altar in the west in imitation of the Temple of Solomon. The second tradition was to have the church oriented in the direction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Both of these traditions were derived from Jewish customs of orienting synagogues.

The first tradition caught on in Rome. In the eastern part of the empire, and in the Frankish Empire, a third tradition later arose of orienting churches to face true geographically east. In Rome this did not become the rule until sometime in the eighth or ninth centuries, replacing the earlier tradition of churches facing west and priests facing the congregation, facing eastward.

In short, eastward orientated churches were an later innovation in both the Frankish and the Byzantine empires.

In Old St. Peters, at least, there was no way for the Priest to stand with his back to the people. In front of the altar was a deep stairwell leading down to the tomb of St. Peter. Doing so would also mean he was not standing ad orientem.

This is all explained in any textbook of early church architecture or on the history of the liturgy.
 
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We are the same Church as the early Church. We ate not protestants trying to get as close to the early Church as possible, since we are already the exact same Church.
 
semper_catholicus said:
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This doesn’t explain why the Oriental Rites “face East” - Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, etc… they have been in schism with both Rome and Byzantium since the 5th century. There is NO way that they would have universally adopted a Frankish novelty.
 
twf said:
There is NO way that they would have universally adopted a Frankish novelty.
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I didn’t say they did. I said that it was a parallel independent development in the east and in the Frankish empire. The development in the east predates the Frankish innovation by a several centuries, and arose in the late fourth or early fifth century. The Frankish tradition did not arise until later, perhaps in imitation of the tradition in the east, and not the other way around.
 
I understood that more recent scholarship suggested that Ad Orientem went back much earlier, at least in some places.
 
twf said:
Ad Orientem went back much earlier, at least in some places.
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That’s true. The earliest traditions were either with the priest facing east, or facing the Temple of Solomon. In the case of early western churches, with the aspe in the west, “ad orientem” meant the same thing as “versus populum”, not the opposite.
 
From “The Spirit of the Liturgy” by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger:

“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 on what lies ahead and above, but is locked into 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 in the synagogue looked together toward Jerusalem, so in the Christian Liturgy the congregation looked together “toward the Lord”. 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. They did not lock themselves into a circle, they did not gaze at one another, but as the pilgrim People of God they set off for the Oriens, for the Christ who comes to meet us….”
 
You’ve got to cook them right, otherwise they can be quite tough! The secret is marinating them overnight in red wine and lemon juice.
 
AndrewAxland said:
That’s true. The earliest traditions were either with the priest facing east, or facing the Temple of Solomon. In the case of early western churches, with the aspe in the west, “ad orientem” meant the same thing as “versus populum”, not the opposite.
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I’ve was not about the orientation of the churches, I’m talking about the orientation of the priest in prayer. Architectural orientation is a different matter.
 
You could begin your argument by saying that the Tridentine Mass is the one that kept almost intact the rites of the early Church, whereas the Novus Ordo Mass changed abruptly the liturgy.

And this can be proven by comparing both Latin rites with others from the east, such as the Maronite, the Armenian, the Ukranian Greek, and so on. Even the Bizantine rite could be mentioned in the comparison, since their rite is valid in respect of form. All of the eastern rites are ancient and witnesses of the Early Church.
 
Receiving in the hand was permitted by an indult. Communion on the tongue is preferable. To make sure no fragments fell to the ground/floor, the priest held a circular container under the chin, removed the Host and placed it on the tongue. In the alternative, a metal platen with a shallow curve toward the middle was placed under the chin by an altar boy and any fragments were gently poured into the metal container held by the priest.

Contemporary songs were introduced in my Church in the 1970s. They did not belong.
 
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