Custom and Tradition

Yesterday at my parish of Holy Rosary, we celebrated a votive Mass¹ on the Marian altar. This was more or less our Mother’s Day Mass. We have been doing this for a couple of years now, and last year we added a Father’s Day Mass in June at the Saint Joseph altar.

This is a laudable custom, and I hope it continues.

Obviously, these Masses are celebrated Ad Orientem. We have celebrated a number of Masses in this fashion over the years. For several years, we have celebrated Corpus Christi Masses on our high altar. It has become our custom.

In addition to Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Corpus Christi, we have also celebrated a number of other Masses Ad Orientem: last year the second Sunday in Advent, and further back the third Mass of All Souls in 2013.

Why?

Well, for the side altars you could be forgiven for assuming that it is a simple matter of logistics. But why use the high altar instead of the front (low) altar at Corpus Christi and on the other occasions? Here’s how it’s described in a brochure we put together several years ago:

The point of facing east is to emphasize the essential character of the liturgy: that of a procession out of time and into eternity in Heaven. We see and taste this procession in the course of the liturgy.

The celebrant, standing in the person of Christ, leads the way, but we are all moving together, as a community and as the people of God, as part of the same procession that begins at the Introit, continues through the Offertory, and culminates with our reception of Holy Communion.

And in the words of Pope Benedict XVI:

Despite all the variations in practice that have taken place far into the second millennium, one thing has remained clear for the whole of Christendom: praying toward the east is a tradition that goes back to the beginning.

Moreover, it is a fundamental expression of the Christian synthesis of cosmos and history, of being rooted in the once-for-all events of salvation history while going out to meet the Lord who is to come again.

(Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy)

So it is not only our parish custom, but it is also firmly rooted in the history and tradition of the church.

I have ruminated at length on this topic in the past, and I don’t have a lot to add to that essay right now, except this: I earnestly pray that this custom and tradition, fostered by our past two pastors, is continued by our new pastor.

1. Mass of Our Lady, Mother of the Church.