Recently in Holy Mass Category
A few days ago, I commented that the only well known Advent song is "O Come, O Come Emmanuel". There is a lesser known song that I like just as much--but I doubt that you'll hear it on that radio station that's been playing The Carpenters Christmas Album since Halloween. It's a church song written by a lifelong Catholic, Eleanor Farjeon back in 1928: "People, Look East!" I was reminded of this song at Church on Sunday--it was the closing Hymn (more properly called the Recessional) as Father picked up his Today's Missal Music Issue to sing his way out of Church.
I remember hearing this song from time to time as a kid in Church, but I didn't think too much about it. It doesn't make much sense, really.
People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.
What's with all this emphasis on directions? The house I grew up in faces West, if I looked East and started singing, I'd stare at the back door and get strange looks from my older brothers. Today, my house faces North. So I'd sing at the garage wall (which is conveniently situated for me to set the table while I trim an imaginary hearth) and my wife quietly gets out the straightjacket for her off-the-deep-end husband. But that day may be coming anyway, singing to the garage or not.
That song doesn't make much sense in a modern context. No Christmas songs do if you think about it. Roasted Chestnuts are gross, no one other than Andy Williams tells scary ghost stories, and even if you accept that Frosty the Snowman comes to life with a magic top hat--where'd you get a top hat with "some magic" left in it? Frankly, if I'm laying on my deathbed and some future progeny of mine is out hitting up strangers to cover the cost of some stupid Christmas shoes, I'm gonna be pretty ticked off about it. But Christmas is about the coming of Faith, Hope and Charity, so if Love the guest is on the way, I guess I better be looking out for him.
But why East?
In ancient Rome, all of the churches had an Eastward direction. The exact reason seems to be lost to history (not that some people will stop inventing well-researched reasons), but they were probably focused on the rising sun (and the Rising Son). There might have been a utilitarian purpose as well--Edison wouldn't invent the lightbulb for several hundred years later, so some utility should be given for morning church services--but that's just conjecture on my part. In any manner, people sat on the West side of the building, the altar was on the East side, thus people literally looked East. The priest, too, faced East at the base of the altar, his eyes gazing towards the crucifix--an image of Christ unjustly slain--in whose honor each Mass was offered as a re-presentation of the sacrifice on Calvary's hill.
Church buildings in the Eastern Catholic tradition (instead of, say, the Roman Catholic) still largely face East, but Roman Catholic churches do not typically strictly follow this convention. Heh. The most famous Latin chapel in the world--the Sistine Chapel even faces West. But the term still stuck, and for most of Christian history, the Holy Mass was offered ad orientem (Latin: to the East) facing the crucifix. Even if they weren't facing directional East, the priest was leading the congregation to liturgical East, bringing his flock to the risen Son of God--a fact more important than a compass point.
Today this convention still lives on in the Tridentine Latin Mass as the priest and the people face the same direction in worship. It is the essence of Catholic liturgy; the whole purpose of Mass is for the glorification of the Lord.
But sometime around the point in Catholic history where the iconoclasts were tearing down the rectangle churches to build round spaceships so everyone could look at each other, the priests started turning around and facing the congregations. This direction of worship where the priest faces the people (Latin: versus populum) was designed to bring the Mass closer to the congregation. A noble goal! The altars were moved from being grand and glorious focus points of the entire church to being tables in the middle of a round room. Father, as celebrant of the Holy Mass facing the devout churchgoers, was put in the strange position of turning his back on the crucifix. Literally speaking, Catholic priests turned their backs to God.
It was a theological shift that's hard to sum up in a pithy 1300 word post on a blog. And I'm using some serious overgeneralization when I say this, but Catholic worship went from being considered the holy sacrifice of the Mass to a celebration of the Eucharist; the Mass changed from a re-presentation of the sacrifice on Calvary to a re-enactment of the Last Supper. To me, this is an understandable and logical desire of mankind--it's even theologically sound (though I'm no theologian). Indeed, even in the Tridentine Latin Mass, a part of the ritual was of celebration, it was a real thanksgiving (whose Greek term gave us the word Eucharist), but it was given in the context that the Holy Mass was about the glorification of the Lord, not a time for gladhanding or self-congratulation or self-esteem; it wasn't about getting something out of Mass--though people could certainly get something out of worship. Going to church wasn't--and still isn't--some Godly motivational seminar. Perky music followed by coffee and doughnuts are fine, but that's not the point. Mass isn't a concert, it's not a comedy show, it's not Mass: the Musical!. It's about God, not me. Which is a bummer. Admittedly. I like it when things are about me.
Of course, going to church shouldn't be a downer either. And the old Latin Mass had a tendency to be a real downer. Ask some old-timer to tell you about whatever awful Irish priest they had who said "the Lowest of the Low" Mass (whatever that means) and even liturgical fuddy-duddies like myself will admit that some of those businesslike daily Low Masses leave a little bit to be desired, asthetically speaking. So why is it that going to the Ordinary Mass turns into such a downer too, with a round church full of Catholics who can't sing (and don't want to sing "Gather us In" no matter how loud the wood block player clacks his dowel against the 2x4). It's not just the music, either. But I digress.
The point is that Catholics of my generation don't have a proper understanding of what it means to turn towards the Lord; 
we've lost the ability to orient our lives or our worship. It's strange that when Pope Benedict XVI offered Mass ad orientem in the Sistine Chapel, it was fairly big news in Catholic the media; particularly strange because Catholics offered and witnessed the Holy Mass offered in exactly this manner for centuries. Good Father Zuhlsdorf who writes the Catholic blog What Does the Prayer Really Say often notes that even the Novus Ordo Mass (the form of the Mass with which most of today's Catholics attend) was written presuming ad orientem worship, but in the excitement zeitgeist of the 60's, liturgists kind of did whatever they wanted regardless of what the proper form of the Mass said. I'll have to take his word for it; I don't speak or read Latin, so I can't read those original Novus Ordo rubrics. Nonetheless, Rome has ruled that a Mass offered versus populum is a valid Catholic Mass--and it's the predominant way that Mass is celebrated in the world.
With Father's back towards Jesus and the congregation facing each other.
It makes you wonder who, exactly, we're all there to worship. Doesn't it? God? The Priest? Each other?
People, Look East!
*****
"People, Look East!"
By Eleanor Farjeon (1928)
1. People, look East. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.
2. Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,
One more seed is planted there:
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower may flourish.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the rose, is on the way.
3. Birds, though you long have ceased to build,
Guard the nest that must be filled.
Even the hour when wings are frozen
God for fledging time has chosen.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the bird, is on the way.
4. Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim
One more light the bowl shall brim,
Shining beyond the frosty weather,
Bright as sun and moon together.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the star, is on the way.
5. Angels, announce with shouts of mirth
Christ who brings new life to earth.
Set every peak and valley humming
With the word, the Lord is coming.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the Lord, is on the way.
