“You are under the impression that the Mass is a repetition or re-presentation of the Last Supper. You are mistaken.”
Not as mistaken as you might think. Says the caholic encyclopedia under: Origin of the Mass,
“The Western Mass, like all Liturgies, begins, of course, with the Last Supper. What Christ then did, repeated as he commanded in memory of Him, is the nucleus of the Mass”
You think Jesus and the rest of the Jews could not not speak Hebrew? That is what you’re saying, no?
“By the way, when Jesus and other Jews went to the Temple to pray, they used a language which had fallen out of everyday use and required study to understand.”
Please don’t try to BS me and others on this thread. You are way out of your league.
The Mass was instituted at the Last Supper. That is NOT the same thing as saying the Mass is a repetition or re-presentation of the Last Supper. The Catholic Encyclopedia doesn’t make the claim you want to pretend for it, because it isn’t true. The Mass is the unbloody re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary. At the Mass, it’s Calvary at which we’re made mystically present — not the upper room.
The vernacular of 1st century Jerusalem was Aramaic. Greek was widely understood; Latin was a more recent arrival and not as widely known. Hebrew was a language of scripture, study, and worship; it had not been a spoken language for centuries — evident from the crucified Jesus’s Hebrew quotation of the psalm, which was widely misunderstood by casual onlookers at Golgotha.
Posture helps everyone remember that the Mass isn’t all about us. True, the Mass is a gathering of God’s people, who’s present in their midst. It is a sacred meal. And it is preeminently the public act by which the Church recalls her faith and proclaims it to the world. But beyond any of these things, the Mass is a sacrifice, the unique sacrifice of Calvary made present on the altar, offered for the forgiveness of sin and the healing of the world. “Sacrifice” requires the presence of an offering, of one who receives the offering, and one who does the offering. At Mass, the offering is Jesus Himself, fully and really present in the Blessed Sacrament. The One Who receives the offering is God the Father. And the one who does the offering? That’s the priest of course, but acting “in persona Christi capitis” – in the person of Christ, the head of the Church.
The ordained priest exercises his priesthood in the name of Jesus the true High Priest, so his identity and personality are relatively unimportant. His talents and accomplishments are unimportant. Thanks to the grace of his ordination, even his sinful human nature is unimportant. With his back to the people, his identity is submerged in that of Jesus. The message of what the Mass is all about is reinforced by directing attention to the sacrifice itself and the true High Priest, and away from the personality of the ordained priest.
The decision to turn the altars around so that priests would face the people was never ordered or even contemplated by Vatican II. This change obscured the Mass’s focus on the sacramental dimension — the divine Victim’s atoning sacrifice and of the Mass. Replacing it was a liturgy with a more evangelical spin, with far more emphasis given to proclaimed scripture and preaching and even ad libs improvised by the celebrant. While all of the critical elements of the Mass are still there, they are sometimes overshadowed by the over-emphasis of alien elements.
All of the world’s great monotheist religions stress orientation in worship. It’s well-known that Muslims face Mecca when they pray; their Mosques are designed with this in mind. Jews at prayer traditionally face Jerusalem because it held the Temple that contained the Ark of the Covenant. Jews living in Jerusalem today face the Temple Mount, for the same reason.
From a very early age, Christian worship also has emphasized liturgical orientation. While faithful Jews at prayer look to Jerusalem as a sign of their messianic hope, Christian churches are traditionally aligned east, the direction of the rising sun, as a reminder of the Resurrection. The alignment reinforces the significance Christianity attaches to Sunday – the day of the Resurrection, but also the eighth day, the first day of the new week, a new and redeemed creation, reminding us that in the risen Christ all things are made new again.
The risen Lord’s prophetic message to the apostles was that He would be going before them, into Galilee where they would see him. Whether true east or “liturgical” east, the practice of everyone’s facing the same direction also effectively makes the point that at Mass the priest at the head of the people is symbolically preceding them, as Christ said of himself to the apostles. Finally, the common alignment symbolizes a hope shared by Jews and Christians for the coming of the Messiah. At the end of the world the Jewish hope will at last be fulfilled, as the Messiah returns as he promised, this time in unmistakable majesty. When we participate in the the “ad orientem” posture, we’re maintaining continuity with the immemorial practice of the Church, reminding us that for Catholics communion is about all members of the Church looking to Christ as our head in all times and places, not just those who’re with us here and now.
Some Catholics have come to feel uncomfortable with the ad orientem posture. To some it feels unfriendly (but to emphasize friendliness at the expense sacramental symbolism is a poor trade that reduces the Mass to a “meet ‘n’ greet” social event). To some it feels like rejection (it’s really inclusion, since by a common posture the priest and people are doing something together, participating more perfectly in the sacrifice). To some it feels as if the people are irrelevant to the Mass (but even in the Extraordinary Form, the priest always turns to the people when his words are addressed to them. The rest of the time he like us is turned towards God). They can’t see the celebrant’s face but this is a good thing since it removes a source of distraction for us, not to mention the distraction for the priest of hundreds of eyes watching him.
Even though most Catholics no longer know why churches are traditionally “oriented” – aligned towards the east – it doesn’t change the underlying principles: that the priest is there above all to make newly-present and to offer in sacrifice the Lord who offered himself for our sins. The priest is not there merely to remind or instruct the people about Jesus’s sacrifice. Not just to preside at a meal. Not just to lead the people in prayer. Certainly not just to offer his personality or creativity as inspirations to worship or to gratify his ego. The return to “ad orientem” posture, whether in the older Extraordinary Form of the Mass or the Ordinary Form that’s so much more common, promotes the core principles of what the Mass is all about by removing distractions while allowing the Mass to speak for itself.