Look to the East

Gospel Reflection for December 8, 2024, the Second Sunday of Advent - Luke 3:1-6

Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Iturea, and the country of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilina;

Under the high priests Annas and Caiphas; the word of the Lord was made unto John, the son of Zachary, in the desert.

And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins;

As it was written in the book of the sayings of Isaias the prophet: A voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.

Every valley shall be filled; and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight; and the rough ways plain;

And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. (Luke 3:1-6 DRA)

For this reflection, I would like to take a cue from the first reading, specifically a certain verse of it:

Arise, O Jerusalem, and stand on high: and look about towards the east, and behold thy children gathered together from the rising to the setting sun, by the word of the Holy One rejoicing in the remembrance of God. (Baruch 5:5)

This verse highlights an essential element of the eschatological focus of Advent: the Second Coming of Christ will be from the East. This central reality of the Faith was reinforced at every Divine Liturgy, both in the East and West, for Catholics throughout history up until the mid-20^th century. Then, as one of the most egregious ruptures with Tradition in all of the liturgical reforms following from, but having little or nothing to do with, Vatican II, the Latin church suddenly abandoned the ancient practice of ad orientem (toward the East) worship.

Though Vatican II never taught or even mentioned this, and the Novus Ordo rubrics in fact presume an ad orientem posture for celebrant and congregation, it was already featured in the liturgical experimentations of the pre-Vatican II Liturgical Movement and was quickly inserted in the new reformed rite of the 60s-70s. Now, most Western Catholics have never experienced an ad orientem liturgy (a more correct term than “facing the altar”), believing instead that the new posture of versus populum (turned toward the people) is the more ancient form (as Liturgical Movement enthusiasts inaccurately claimed) and less “elitist” than the form used by all Catholics and Orthodox throughout the centuries. Churches and altars built since Vatican II are now designed specifically for this innovation, with custom rituals added to the rubrics to suit it (such as the celebrant looking out intently at the people during the consecration), and few priests would even know how to celebrate traditionally if given the option.

But what does this have to do with the verse from Baruch? A great deal! The Church, following from messianic prophecies in the Old Testament like this one, has always taught that Christ will return from the East with the rising Sun at the Second Coming, heralding the beginning of the End Times. Accordingly, the priest with the people faces eastward at Mass, participating in the Heavenly Liturgy and preparing for the future consummation of history. There are several reasons for this. One is that, as incarnate beings at once spiritual and physical, the posture of the body and what it expresses symbolically is important; it forms the mind and heart in the Faith. In this way, ad orientem is not “elitist” but communal, Christological and eschatological. As Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) explained,

Just as God assumed a body and entered the time and space of this world, so it is appropriate to prayer – at least to communal liturgical prayer – that our speaking to God should be “incarnational”, that it should be Christological, turned through the incarnate Word to the triune God.”… Doing really must stop when we come to the heart of the matter: the oratio. It must be plainly evident that the oratio is the heart of the matter, but that it is important precisely because it provide a space for the actio of God. Anyone who grasps this will easily see that it is not now a matter of looking at or toward the priest, but of looking together toward the Lord and going out to meet him… The body must be trained, so to speak, for the resurrection. … This training is an essential part of everyday life, but it has to find its inner support in the liturgy, in the liturgy’s ‘orientation’ toward the risen Christ. … The body has a place within the divine worship of the Word made flesh, and it is expressed liturgically in a certain discipline of the body, in gestures that have developed out of the liturgy’s inner demands that make the essence of the liturgy, as it were, bodily visible.

Scripture also testifies to this truth. Although the Israelites faced west toward Jerusalem, both in expectation of the Messiah and to correct the sun-worship of the Gentiles, Scripture also proves that the final advent of the Messiah will be from the East. As Br. Evagrius Hayden, OSB, summarizes in his masterful study of this apostolic tradition:

The verse from Psalm 67 where God is said to “mount above the heaven of heavens, to the east” (Ps. 67:34) is attributed by John Damascene, Augustine, Aquinas, Bellarmine, and the fathers in general, to Christ’s resurrection and ascension into heaven.51 It is stated that Christ will come again from the east just as he ascended (Acts 1:10-11) and that his appearance will be like lightning that comes “out of the east and appeareth even into the west” (Mt. 24:27). Christ is also referred to as “the light of the world” (Jn. 8:12; 9:5), a term that could only be derived from the sun which shines over all. At the transfiguration his face “shines like the sun” (Mt. 17:2). He is the “sun of justice” (Mal. 4:2). He even replaces the sun by becoming our “everlasting light” (Is. 60:19), and finally he is the very east itself, for “the orient is his name” (Zech. 6:11-12), and from the east he calls to us.52 And thus, as the great doctor of the Church Robert Bellarmine concludes, “so that we might signify in our prayer that we are illuminated by Christ, the sun of justice, thus just as those who look to the east are illuminated by the corporeal sun, so in the same way do we use this ceremony [of facing towards the east].”

As Br. Evagrius mentioned, the saints have also supported this understanding of and justification for ad orientem worship throughout history. To take just one example:

[Veneration of images] is an unwritten tradition, just as is also the worshiping towards the East and the worship [veneration] of the Cross, and very many other similar things. … Moreover that the Apostles handed down much that was unwritten, Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, tells us in these words: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you have been taught of us, whether by word or by epistle (2 Thes. 2:15).” And to the Corinthians he writes, “Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things, and keep the traditions as I have delivered them to you (1 Cor. 11:2).” (St. John Damascene)

Br. Evagrius also clarifies that this eastward orientation is necessary in the sense of being the best or most fitting and appropriate way to worship God – a Mass celebrated in another direction, whether due to the topography of the site or some other circumstance, can still be valid and licit, but only by ad orientem is the Mass celebrated most properly and beautifully, in full continuity with Scripture, Tradition and the cosmological dimensions of the liturgy, by which it is opened up to God and the Second Coming, not limited in what Cardinal Ratzinger once called the “closed circle” of versus populum which tends to turn the Mass into an anthropocentric stage performance rather than a participation in Christ’s perfect offering of Himself to the Father through the instrument of the priest.

This is not simply a matter of “taste” but of principle: our desire should be to worship God in the best way possible, not conceding to the minimalist and casual spirit of the age. For this reason, and in accordance with the principle of fidelity to Tradition and organic development of the liturgy in Vatican II, Pope Francis ordered the return of the Syro-Malabar church, which under Latin influence had adopted versus populum in recent decades, to return to its authentic tradition of ad orientem. If only the Latin tradition would receive the same respect!

This Advent, as we await the Second Coming of Christ as the eucatastrophe of His first coming at Christmas, may we earnestly pray and work for a return to ad orientem worship in the Latin church. After experiencing it for only a brief time while attending an Ordinariate parish, I can testify from personal experience of its great superiority, focusing the body and soul entirely on God in union with the priest and all the faithful. Christ will return from the East – may we be ready for His coming!