Domini Sumus got this from a priest on a message board she frequents. As she says in her post: I wouldn't classify him as a liberal, but he certainly isn't a conservative.
Here he writes:
Respectfully, it seems that the proponents of both sides of this discussion have missed an important point. The priest standing at the altar in the position prescribed by the 1962 Roman Missal is not "turning his back of the people", but "standing with the people in prayer". When he says, "Te igitur, clementissime Pater ... rogamus, ac petimus, uti accepta habeas et benedicas haec + dona, haec + munera, haec + sancta sacrificia" illibata ... " [We therefore humbly pray and beseech you, most merciful Father ... to accept and bless these + gifts, these + presents, this holy and unblemished Victim ..." he is not speaking in some form of the royal We", but uniting himself with the members of the congregation in the normal grammatical first person plural: We, not Me!
On the other hand, the priest who stands behind the altar facing the congreation, is, by his stance, separating himself from the people for whom he is celebrating the Eucharist, not uniting himself with them.
OK - he's not conservative, but he gets it. And I have a gut feeling more and more priests are beginning to get it. I may, soon enough, get to play/sing/direct choir for an Ordinary Form Mass ad Orientem!
The priest in question here, btw, goes under the name Fr. John L, and runs a blog called Bear Witness to the Light.
Peace,
BMP
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