Facing the Father ("People, look East")

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Robert Cardinal Sarah celebrating holy Mass facing East

There is a popular folk Advent Christmas carol written in the early 20th century by a British lady named Eleanor Farjeon.  It's entitled, People, Look East!  That's because of the ancient tradition in Christianity and Judaism before it that the Savior of the world would come from the East, as well as the association with Jesus the Son of God with the rising sun, since God is the source of all life.

This belief has long been associated with the celebration of the holy sacrifice of the Mass, as throughout most of our Roman Catholic tradition and other Christian traditions, the priest and people together faced eastward.  This is often referred to by its Latin name, 

The Wikipedia article on the topic delves deep into this history if you are interested in that.

It is only in very recent times (since the 1960s) that the option for the priest to face the people has been introduced in the Roman rite, after centuries of .  It is not required (the priest has the option to celebrate the Mass oriented either direction) and both Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and the Cardinal serving both him and Pope Francis have encouraged priests to celebrate the Mass facing Eastward, that is, toward the tabernacle and crucifix.

This direction is sometimes (inaccurately) called "the priest celebrating Mass with his back to the people."  A better way to describe it is, the priest as the head and the people the body of Christ, facing the Father together.  (I know one priest who celebrates Mass this way on Fridays and calls this, alliteratively, "Facing the Father Fridays." 

The comparison might be to a general leading his troops into battle, facing the same direction with the same goal, or an engineer on a train facing the same destination as his people.  That's because the idea is that the Mass is in a sense a journey toward Heaven, a movement toward Heaven as together the priest and people enter into the most sacred event on earth, the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross made present.  (It's no accident then that the priest and people are both facing the crucifix together).

During Advent, when the Church especially emphasizes the coming of the Christ, I am celebrating daily Masses in the region facing East, according to this ancient tradition.

Interestingly enough, I have found that, among the faithful, younger Catholics and Catholic converts generally like this way of celebrating Mass, while often, elderly cradle Catholics not so much.  I think that's because they were taught in the 1960s and 1970s (falsely, unfortunately) that this is "excluding the people" or "turning your back to the people."  One unfortunate thing about this is that it reflects a misunderstanding of the Mass.  The parts of the Mass where the priest is facing East toward the crucifix are not addressed to the people.  They are addressed to God the Father.  (If you listen carefully to the words of the Eucharistic prayer, you will notice this).  So a disadvantage of celebrating the Mass facing the people is that it looks like the prayers are being addressed in a conversation to the people, just as a stage actor or lecturer would make sure to do this.  As a result, the faithful might not understand what is happening in this part of the Mass:  they too, joined with their priest who stands in the person of Christ the head of the Church (in persona Christi capitis to use the theological phrase), are lifting up their prayers to God the Father.

Most of the newly ordained priests prefer to celebrate the Mass according to this traditional posture,  and many of them are starting to do so on a fairly regular basis in their parishes, so I expect that this will become more common over the next several years. 

I have been giving some thought to celebrating Mass this way for Sunday Masses of the Advent season next year. 

As always, if you have any questions about this, please don't hesitate to ask me.