Symbolic East means the priests faces with his back to the people in a symbolic gesture of facing East toward Jerusalem
These are, frankly, words and ideas that are being advanced today (and recent past) regarding liturgy that really weren’t objects of discussion among laity when I was young – or among us when I was a seminarian and before I was ordained
My church had three altars. Before Vatican II, they faced south. The entrances faced north. After the council, three altars continued facing south and a
versus populum altar was added which faced north. In the other parish I went to very frequently (it was our neighbour and slightly farther from my home) the altar faced west before the council…Mass was said facing east, ironically, only after the liturgical reform
In the cathedral, on the other hand, the altar originally faced north. After the council, it faced south. The buildings were built the way they were because of the limitations of the building’s layout relative to the property at the time they were constructed. As a priest, I became aware of just how few churches actually faced east in the diocese
After the council, I was chosen to do studies in liturgy in order to implement the sort of formation that
Sacrosanctum Concilium mandated for the education of the clergy as well as the laity. I worked with clerics who were of the generation who built those buildings or no more than two generations removed from them – except our historic edifices that went way back
Given their backgrounds, they were not unaware of traditions…but neither were they going to see it as some diriment impediment if the building had to have a different orientation. Which is why we ended up with structures that are not
ad orientem. Neither, I hasten to add, are a number of the holy places in Rome and elsewhere. This was not “a value above all” for us…as when Muslims must face Mecca to pray. It is an important symbol and a useful image of the
Parousia. But it is not an absolute
Saying we “lost” something rings hollow for those who remember the council fathers at Vatican II citing that we had lost so much with the liturgy then in force in the West
Personally, the only time I use the expression
ad orientem is if, in fact, I am offering Mass
ad orientem. Normally, I say
ad absidem, if not facing people
If you say that you are offering
ad orientem, it really means (as words) that you are offering to the East. The East is rationally discernible by using science. If I am facing the East, I am facing East and I say that I am facing East
On the other hand, I would never allow my liturgy and sacrament students, as this term came into vogue in a certain era, no matter who had employed the expression, to employ the phrase “ad orientem”
if the compass is indicating the direction is actually north, south or west. They had to use a different term
I appreciate that there are those who wish to evoke a symbolic East or a “liturgical” East (which is the most enigmatic to me of all, as a liturgist and theologian; I do not speak of liturgical ocean or a liturgical heavens, although I have seen them artistically depicted in church buildings
First, of all, I refuse to use it from the perspective of the integrity of
Veritatis Splendor. It is fundamentally dishonest to speak of east that is only east in the imagination. I was very much a part of the world of moral theology of
Veritatis Splendor and the issues over consequentialism and proportionalism. I am a great proponent of the philosophical position that truth is not relative but is absolute
Granted, if you are in the International Space Station, one has to have fixed points of reference…however, for us mortals who do not orbit the earth 18 times per day hurtling hundreds of miles above its surface, I can discern if the direction I am facing is, in fact, East or North or West or South
A symbolic east that is, in fact, north simply does not serve. For good purposes that we are going to pretend that this is east has infelicitous consequences. If truth is absolute, it should not matter who of us is looking at the compass to discern that we are all facing one direction. To say that “your” east is not “my” east and that it is fine that something so fundamental as a compass direction yields different statements and that we cannot agree because you can have your east and I can have mine is a statement that I simply cannot accede to. It undermines the Church witness that truth is absolute
If the value truly is facing east, the achievement of that can be had with several rather atypical outcomes. That is one question
What becomes clear, usually, is that the value actually being sought is less the actual direction being faced – although that is the premise presented initially – but rather that all clergy and all assisting at the Mass are physically facing the same same direction. And that the clergy are at the lead position of this synaxis. (The priest and deacon could be facing the nave as the anaphora is prayed and either the people turn also and face east, ahead of the priest and deacon, or the laity could turn to face the central aisle so they are half facing the altar and half facing the East. That would, of course, require them though to stand given contemporary furnishing. This seems less felicitous as a solution)
Finally, I am not a great fan of theories derived from anagogical interpretations. Placements of missals so that at one moment they are on the “left hand” of Jesus and then move to his “right hand,” which is more favoured and then subsequently that the “right hand” favoured position is reinterpreted to afford a sort of fanciful proclamation to the Septentrion has to undergo reconsideration when one is working, for example, in Australia or Chile…a remote reality for these exotic locations of Europe
They never took out the old altar or added a new one.
