East-facing Christian
Joined October 2018
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Interestingly St Newman imagined a 3rd c. mass as facing the people in his novel Callista:
"The celebrant then advanced: he stood at the further side of the altar, where the candles are now, with his face to the people, and then began the holy sacrifice."
newmanreader.org/works/calli…
Tbh I find that the 'upward' orientation of the Eucharist works in churches that have high towers over the altar. Like cathedrals etc. So then facing the people can be ok. But in ordinary parish churches that's not present so you need the 'beyond' of the church wall.
If you think about it there's a real coherence to his theology: in every area (grace, religious freedom, liturgy), Francis opts for the version that emphasises man's free communion with the close God, not his subordination to the overwhelming distant God.
Mini-course on Jansenism: read Augustine, Pascal, Arnauld, the nuns, the popes… Racine, Champaigne paintings… Pope Francis gets the final word
If you read Pope Francis’s letter on the liturgy he actually says it’s a good thing that the sense of mystery and awe was eliminated in the reform and he conceives of the liturgy very much as a humble meal that is special because it is really the sacrifice and presence of Jesus.
Do you ever get that feeling like it’s sad the world is so full of sorrow and suffering and it could be otherwise?
I’ve had moving Eucharistic experiences as an Anglican kneeling taking communion, and at a Catholic monastery looking up to heaven. But never at a parish Novus mass. I almost always find the Gospel moving at the Novus though. Just my experience. 🤷🏻♂️
One more thing is that traditionalism is just totally illogical because if you’re going to go down that Augustinian anti-freedom road you can’t logically stop in the 19th century, you have to go all the way to the terrifying old doctrines.
Jansenism and traditionalism are not just ecclesiastical sideshows but the theological reflections of a central question of modernity, of the relation between God and freedom, and between tradition and truth.
Jansenists had their own Bugnini: Francesco Albizzi, the devious secretary of the commission that wrote Cum occasione… this is not the true spirit of the council of Trent!
Any religion in order to sustain itself needs a clear positive vision of its goal and of the good. But right now Catholicism doesn’t have that, it’s very confused about what it wants to be. Chaplain to the EU? Traditionalists succeed because they have a clear vision.
Austin retweeted
One thing I’m surprised Trump hasn’t floated is changing the name of the language from “English” to “American”
It's hard to get enthusiastic about Catholic life today unless you have a vision of what it could be. Traditionalists have one vision, restoration; Rome has another, I think it's mainly better:
vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/e…
The reality is the Donatists were right against the older Augustine: “whom did Christ compel?” His scriptural arguments in response are tendentious, and a departure from Christian tradition at that point.
