Ad Orientem - How’s It Going?

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Two weeks ago, I received the following message from a priest friend who runs two parishes: “Today was the last Sunday with versus populum Novus Ordo Masses at our parishes … . From next week on, all Masses shall be celebrated ad orientem.” Another friend, a laymen, wrote at the same time to say “(Our) parish … will have all the Masses ad orientem during Advent. This has been announced in the bulletin for a month, accompanied with educational explanations, and I know Father X has already received some push-back in his efforts.” The priest has since written to say “I’d like to thank you for your prayers for this weekend. I’d say I almost witnessed a ‘moral miracle’ at (one of his parishes). We had all the Novus Ordo masses celebrated ad orientem, and not a single parishioner criticized or complained about it, something that I certainly never expected. Some people were even happy at this.” Thus far, I haven’t heard from the layman about how things went at his parish.

Anyway, it seems like a good idea to see how things are going with Cardinal Sarah’s call to return to what should, of course, be the norm for Catholic worship, turning to the Lord when addressing the Lord. So I’d like to ask our readers, clerical and lay, to report in the combox of this post their experiences from those places where ad orientem worship has been instituted, even if only ad experimentum. We will be happy to publish photos, which you can submit to our usual photopost address: [email protected]. (We can safely assume that Fr X is not the only priest receiving push-back on this, so if you have any reason to think that your local priest may be put in difficulties, please ask him before commenting or sending in pictures.)

Novus Ordo Mass celebrated ad orientem at the church of the Sacred Heart in Clifton, New Jersey: from this year’s All Souls photopost.