Ad Orientem Training

At our parish of Holy Rosary, we sometimes celebrate Mass on the High Altar. This method, where for much of the Eucharistic prayer the Priest and the people are facing the same direction, is known as ad Orientem.

For many years, we have celebrated Mass this way at the Solemnity of Corpus Christi and at least one Sunday in Advent. Last year we had intended to celebrate all of our weekend Masses during Advent in this manner, but there was some blowback from Cardinal Sarah’s suggestion that this be done, so we elected to exercise prudence and stick with one weekend.

This year, we had planned to celebrate the weekend Masses for our Patronal Solemnity in this manner¹.

Unfortunately, Rev. Michael Wagner our new priest was not taught this way of celebrating the Mass. He would be the first to tell you that his liturgical education was not all that it should have been. Indeed, the year after he graduated, all but one of the instructors at his seminary were fired and replaced.

He is a faithful and orthodox priest, and he absolutely wants to celebrate the Mass properly.

So what to do?

He asked if I would be willing to make a video that he could study. Our former pastor, Rev. Jacob Maurer, graciously agreed to celebrate Mass for us. We secured the permission of Father Wagner for the use of the church on Wednesday night, and we celebrated Mass for a congregation of about four people.

Father Maurer and Francine set up the main camera, and Francine also shot some additional video from her phone.

We were able to get a full complement of Altar Servers, huzzah! We were all a little rusty, but after about 30 minutes of training, we set to it. There were the usual missteps, but overall they did extremely well.

I edited the videos together last night, and it’s definitely an amateur production! Once we have some audio commentary in place, I’ll get it to Father Wagner.

Brick by brick.

1. Patronal Solemnity of Our Lady of the Rosary, October 7 (and 8).