I can count on two hands how many times I've attended Mass in Extraordinary Form or Ad Orientem (the priest praying with his back to the people). I'm not here inviting controversy or disparaging Novus Ordo Mass. But as I get older, I am more mindful of how we, as an entire civilization, are pining not for more of the same, but for greater depth of the Some.
IN UNPRECEDENTED NUMBERS, we are suffering from emotional and mental maladies largely because, in thinking truth is whatever we feel, we are anchored in ourselves. We are adrift.
THAT'S WHY JESUS CHRIST ENTERED THIS WORLD. He is God's unsurpassed gift of Himself. He awakened us from our amnesia to Himself, Whose we are. Accordingly, as with any other gift, this promise for healing, restoration, strength, and overall wholeness requires that we receive this Gift in accord with the Giver.
HERE'S SOMETHING non-Catholics and, unfortunately, too many Catholics don't understand: The physical matters. Gestures matter. Words matter. How we worship matters. Because God Himself took on matter.
Written in 1936, "Liturgy & Personality" (Dietrich von Hildebrand) masterfully describes the intimate connection between God's design for worship (liturgical) and our overall interior health. In the simplest form, as God is the Supreme Value, our health is realized in the degree to which we rightly respond to this Value. In every circumstance. Thus, in response to a crying child in the middle of the night, or stopping at a light, or matters dating, marriage, and sexuality, we are responding directly to values that partake of the Supreme Value. God. Not as we might have Him, but as He is. Not as we might want, but as He desires.
HOLY MASS, God's supreme gift of Himself from the beginning, invites all the faithful to embrace His way for our most intimate, meaningful connection with Himself.
RESONANCE. Theologian Fr. William Most speaks of "somatic resonance." As we are body and soul, our physical world directly and intimately resonates with our inner reality. Thus, even though a small child may not comprehend the gestures of Mass, they still greatly matter. By forming our children to observe them (particularly with an ever-increasing understanding of the Who and Why), there is a "resonance" with the soul.
AGAIN, WE ARE A PEOPLE in great need of rightly ordering our lives to God in Jesus Christ. This means greater conformity of our physical lives to what we profess. While not my purpose here, such non-conformity (indifference or simply mediocrity) is at the heart of gender/identity confusion.
SO, JUST BACK FROM MASS, I was particularly moved at the height of the Eucharistic Prayer. Having endeavored to present the totality of my life in the bread and wine transformed into the very Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, my proverbial ALL was elevated in the Consecrated Host (Jesus) as the priest, in the person of Christ (in persona Christi), prayed: "Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever." (Per Ipsum)
WHAT INCREDIBLE SYMBOLISM it has always been, and is, for all the faithful, uniting the entirety of our lives in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ BEHIND the priest, lifting it ALL before the Father.
I'M GOING OUT ON A LIMB in suggesting, while Ad Orientem is permitted, indeed, normative, such proper, physical response could do much in our hearts, minds, and souls being more rightly ordered to Him who made us for Himself, Who is LORD of our depths.