Video: Fr Joseph Fessio, S.J.: Recent Vatican Docs #3: Significance of Motu Proprio

By August 12, 2007March 2nd, 2019Liturgy, Variety
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Ave Maria!

Fr. Fessio referring to Cardinal Ratzinger's book The Spirit of the Liturgy and to Moses in the Old Testament and the purpose of the Exodus outlines the fullest possible context to and significance of the Motu Proprio. He says the most important element for the liturgy is reverence and the understanding that its form comes from heaven. Without this the liturgy becomes merely human, then humanistic and finally anti-human, something that imprisons rather than frees.

Fr. Fessio covers the importance for celebrating the mass Ad Orientum and the fallacious reasons put forth for abandoning it. The Motu Proprio is then an opportunity for people to celebrate the mass facing east and so should be an important vehicle for healing rifts and for reform within the Church.

Fr. Fessio ends this video by stating that the Motu Proprio:
"may be as significant for the first half of the 21st Century as Humanae Vitae was for the second half of the 20th Century"

Ave Maria!
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Join the discussion 2 Comments

  • David says:

    Are priests permitted to face east during the liturgy of the eucharist in the novus ordo???

    Thanks & God bless

  • Fr Angelo says:

    David,

    In fact, the Mass according to the missal of Paul the VI nowhere indicates that the priest should face any other way than the way he faced in the older missal, which, of course, was east. In fact, the rubrics in the new missal indicate that the priest should turn towards the people, to greet the people with the Dominus vobiscum, for example.

    The custom of facing the people developed outside of the missal itself, and the older practice is has been discouraged for the most part, if not outright forbidden for public masses, by individual bishops. “Facing the people” has become virtually the universal practice in the novus ordo.

    A priest acts in accord with the rubrics when he faces east.

    Here is a good article on the matter.