I know this isn't really anything to do with teaching, but all of the rumors currently swirling about the possibility of a general indult for the 1962 missal have got me thinking a bit...
About six months ago, I started attending a Byzantine Catholic church full-time. One of the primary differences between the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and the Novus Ordo Liturgy is that the priest faces the altar during the Consecration in the Eastern rite.
Having been brought up in the post-Vatican II Roman rite, I'd always heard that to have the priest facing away from the congregation was a bad thing (or if not precisely bad, then certainly undesirable). Now, it's one of the things I cherish in the liturgy.
In the back of my mind, I had a sense that the priest facing the people turned the liturgy into a bit of theater, with the community focusing on him and his gestures instead of on the Eucharist. When I went to a Roman rite Mass after having spent six months away from it, that sense intensified sharply, and I found the priest facing the congregation most distracting.
When the priest faces the altar, it creates a sense of community -- he is leading us, but the focus is on the Holy Mystery taking place in the room and the words of the prayers, reducing the "spectator sport" aspect.
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2 comments:
Sometimes I wish I lived closer to a big city, so that I would have the opportunity to attend a similar service on occasion.
What are the canonical implications of attending a different rite's Mass? I'm pretty sure you can't switch rites...
Since the Eastern rites of the Catholic church are in full communion with Rome, it's valid for both Byzantine and Latin Catholics to attend and receive communion at each other's churches.
To switch rites formally, a Roman Catholic, working with his/her priest at the Byzantine church, would write to the local Roman and Byzantine bishops, explaining the theological reasons for wanting to change, and then those two bishops would exchange letters permitting the change.
Priests can also be bi-ritual -- the priest who celebrated our wedding is a former Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism, is a Melkite archpriest, and is bi-ritual for the Roman rite. (He's also a longtime family friend, which is why I've learned a bit about the Byzantine rites.)
Check out www.byzantines.net if you want to read some articles about the Byzantine churches...they've got some good overviews of the different rites.
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