Ad Orientem ad infinitum

Pardon the greatest hits mode of this week, but as I’ve said, I’m occupied with some quite onerous duties:

Left: Isle of Palms, Right, Edisto Beach State Park. Making the rounds.

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So, the repeat here involves a couple of posts that address the ad orientem issues. There are numerous elements of the recently promulgated restrictions of the celebration of the TLM that are incoherent, unjust and borderline insane – I mean, do these folks realized how literally crazy it looks and is for a system that routinely waves away clerical sexual abuse and financial improprieties to micromanage….bulletin announcements?

Some of the recent restrictions go beyond the TLM to forbidding the ad orientem posture during celebration of the Mass of Paul VI. I could go on about this, but I won’t, partly because at the moment, well, I just can’t (see above). So here are some links for you:

A Man With a Cross on his back.

I cannot emphasize enough that the ad orientem posture during worship is not simply a relic of the pre-Vatican II Latin Rite. See that post for more, as well as other reflections and links.

Last year, I found a vintage Irish film of an early folk Mass – with the priest celebrating ad orientem. Fascinating moment in time.

Coincidentally, a 2014 blog post about a Mass on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina. I haven’t been back to that parish since, and don’t know if things have changed, but that’s the way it was then. Short version: ad orientem, and not a big deal.

Finally, a post from earlier this year that is not directly about ad orientem, but related. It’s about one of the dead horses I regularly beat around here: ego and its impact on religious practice (both among laity and clerics).

From that post, and a quote about about all kinds of ritual:

Han writes of the Japanese tea ceremony:

The proper movements of the hands and body have a graphic clarity, and there is no uncertainty about them deriving from the influence of the mind or soul. The actors immerse themselves in ritual gestures, and these gestures create an absence, a forgetfulness of self.