I agree with Biggirl in this instance and don’t see how anyone couldn’t.
In the early years of the Church, her members were persecuted. Thus, they likely celebrated Mass in secret at various houses. Not in church buildings.
The natural inclination at a home is to gather around a table for such a function. Indeed, in Scripture we read how they “broke bread” together and this was not done at synagogues. It was at homes.
So it’s most likely the priest was “facing the congregation” at such times as the “congregation” were his friends with him as they celebrated the remembrance of the Last Supper together.
To suggest otherwise is just moralistic obstinacy in my opinion. The Church is as has always been comprised of human beings. The earliest Saints were human beings exactly like us. It’s stifling moralism that would suggest they were somehow different than us. So it’s perfectly reasonable to conclude they would behave like we would if (or dare I say when) we are under persecution.
Can anyone honestly say in a state where one’s life is at risk for celebrating the Eucharist, that we would (or even should) be concerned about which way the priest is facing? For fear of repeating myself, I’ll simply say that’s lunacy.
Is this all to say the TLM has no place? No. It’s only to support Biggirl’s contention that early historical Mass probably resembled the “novus ordo” than any other Mass today.
Again, it’s just a human fact.
The members of the Roman Catholic Church are still being persecuted, but since we have properly consecrated churches there is no longer any reason to meet in private homes. This secrecy is still practiced in some evil or communist nations like China, for example. Mexico and Republican Spain butchered their priests and nuns who were forced into hiding.
Secular humanists are pleased with the changes made to Christ’s church where the building takes on the appearance of someone’s home and the priest, ignoring the body of Christ turns to the congregants as though he’s the president of the assembly standing in front of a dining room table.
Your comments are not taken with a ‘grain of salt’, but I believe that you are caught up in this new religion and are complicit in excusing the ridiculous nature of it either willfully or just because your mind has become numbed.
There’s nothing obstinate, moralistic or otherwise in seeing this blasphemy for what it truly is.
Thank-you for your historic presentation. God Bless.
In the early years, the first Christians were Jewish converts. In Jewish synagogues, the language used was not the vernacular, but the dead language, Hebrew.