Facing East

It struck me that the priest was leading a charge. He was front and center facing the alter and above the alter was the church’s crucifix. Behind him were the ‘generals’ who ministered to him (the alter servers) and behind them was the ‘army’ (the congregation). We were Christ’s soldiers and all facing the same direction - east - which is the direction the Church has historically always believed Jesus would return. My eyes were not upon the priest, per se, but on the host as he raised and consecrated it into the body and blood of Jesus and especially on the only figure actually facing us: Christ crucified.

There is something very unsettling about it.  

We are living in an age in which Muslim fundamentalists are physically killing others who do not believe like them from around the world, including genocide of Christians in Iraq, shootings in the U.S. and, most recently, the beheading of a priest in France. Additionally, radical Western secularists are metaphorically killing Christianity in the public square. In The Lord’s Prayer we ask to not be put to the test (…and lead us not into temptation…) but the test is coming. Some people are already being tested - photographers, bakers, florists, fire chiefs, etc. - and are incurring heavy financial and social costs, but the noose is tightening for the rest of us. If there is not a reversal or at least a significant slowing of our government’s agenda we will soon be 2^nd class citizens in “the land of the free and home of the brave” who have many jobs closed to us because we refuse to compromise the Word of God. We must all say yes to abortion, transgenderism, alternative marriage, climate control, and other ‘progressive’ programs or pay the penalty in employment, fines, and jail time.

With my eyes falling on the sculpted figure of the tortured body hung on a tree, the priest facing it reminds me that this is my Lord and King. We may be looking to the east to await Jesus second coming, but no one ever promised that he will not first ask us to follow him up the cross.

Addendum:

Since the conclusion in the 1960’s of the church council known as Vatican II, Catholic priests in the Roman Rite (which is the form of the Mass the vast majority of Catholics worldwide are familiar with) changed their orientation from facing east (and having their “backs to the people”) to always facing the congregation during Mass. Today, increasingly more Catholics are being drawn to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass (also known as the Tridentine or Latin Mass) in an attempt to capture an atmosphere more conducive to reverence, sacredness, and mystery than they often find in the Ordinary Form (Novos Ordo) that has been in place since Vatican II. Benedict XVI permitted the Extraordinary Form to be celebrated again under his pontificate and wrote that it was his desire that the two forms of the Mass influence each other to better balance each other. As I understand it, Pope Benedict seemed to think that some aspects of the Extraordinary Form needed updating while the Ordinary Form needed to be more properly actualized according to the real intent of Vatican II as opposed to the “spirit of Vatican II” that brought in much abuse. The last two times I have been to Mass at the nearby army base I have been witness to what appears to be one of the corrections Pope Benedict hoped for. The Mass was of the Ordinary Form but with the ad orientem (facing east) orientation. Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect for the Congregation of the Faith in Rome, recently encouraged all priests whose church orientations are conducive to such an arrangement to position themselves ad orientem during Mass. Pope Francis, however, does not appear supportive. Popes, like all people, have their preferences.