Saturday, March 14, 2020

Disorientation

Some Catholics, in common with the Protestant revolutionaries of the 16th century, hate Mass celebrated ad orientem.  Some bishops have gone as far as to forbid their priests to celebrate the New Mass ad orientem.  But I submit that that orientation in the Mass whereby the priest faces the people not only goes against century upon century of tradition, but is inherently disordered.

First, versus populum makes the priest the center of attention, instead of God.  That makes no sense, when we are there to worship God.

Second, the prayers of the Mass are addressed to God, not to the people in the pews.  How do you like having somebody turn his back on you and face someone else while he talks to you?

Third, it gets even worse.  Since the Tabernacle behind the altar contains Jesus in the Eucharist, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, every time the priest bends over at the altar, while facing the people, such as to kiss the altar, he is raising his rear end to  Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

Ever think of that?  Let this sink in.

Every time the priest bends over at the altar while facing the people, he is brandishing his butt at God.  He is directing his derrière at the Divine.  He is mooning the Messiah.  He is flashing the vertical smile at the Almighty.  (Don’t talk to me about the layers of vestments: God knows and sees what all is underneath those, right down to the racing stripes.)

Has this ever, in the two-thousand-year history of the Church, or during the millennia of the Old Covenant, ever been an accepted method of paying God the respect He is due?  How does it make you feel to be suddenly confronted with someone’s great big ass, whether they intended to point it at you or not?  And, since God made us in His image and likeness, why should we think He likes that any more than we do?

There are those who might think the solution to this problem would be to remove the Tabernacle to some other location, and continue to have the priest celebrate Mass facing the people.  But the removal of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament from His place of honor inside His own house is only a further progression of this whole disorder.

If Jesus cannot have the place of honor inside His own house, with nobody sticking their butt in His Face, it is that much harder for us to give Him the place of honor in our hearts, in our lives, and in society.  And when Jesus is denied His rightful place, the inevitable result is strange times like the ones we are now living in.

3 comments:

  1. And the usual complaints from the NO Catholics. I don't understand Latin. I want to see what the priest is doing. I want to be part of a "community."
    The whole thing has become so abhorrent to me that even the thought of someone grabbing my hand at the Our Father makes me break out in a sweat.

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  2. I haven’t permitted anybody to grab my hand for years. Blech.

    You can’t bring about intimacy among people by forcing them to do things with each other that you only do with persons you’re on intimate terms with. Nor do I see a need to be on intimate terms with everyone. In fact, it would be spectacularly imprudent.

    And that’s the name of that tune!

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