Ad Orientem has seemed to become a \" thing \" since COVID. And recent news has been that the orientation of the priest towards the Altar and the Lord has been called out as something not to do. Priests are apparently being asked to refrain from it.

Here are my comments on all of this. As a lay person, my comments are just from experience.

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With respect to the recent dust up on Ad Orientem, I should like to make some comments.

Born right before 1970, I only know a Vatican II Catholic Church. I only knew a Church where the Sacraments were always available and the Novus Ordo was what people simply called the Mass.

And, I had never been to \" Latin Mass \" . I had never even heard the word \" Tridentine Mass \" . In fact, although my parents were born before WWII and lived / loved the Latin Mass, they were not taking us to it.

Further, I had rarely been at a Mass where the priest faced the altar and Jesus along with the people.

Vatican II was and still is beautiful to us. We never knew anything but Vatican II as the beautifully worded clarification of what the Lord and Apostles taught. This and Pope Paul VI's revision of the Mass were all produced by great Church leaders that were all born before WWII, had lived in the Depression and probably had seen WWI.

Like the vast majority of my generation, who inherited the richness of Vatican II as continuance of all the Councils, we watched as priests and religious left in droves in the 1970s. We saw as the remaining ordained and especially religious born after the war took the wheel and drive the car into ditch. So wrapped up in the affairs of the secular world, and running about saving it, if not trying to reconcile themselves to it, that they became lost in activity with no really progress in spirituality. Often they forgot that we laypersons live in the secular world, and we know the line between \" being in the worldversus being of the world \" .

In the 70s and early 80s we learned nothing about our Faith from CCD/PSR and even Catholic schools. The teachers were giving us their version of Vatican II, instead of what was really in it. We only learned something about our Faith and Jesus Himself if we were lucky enough to have good parents.

In the 70s and 80s, it seemed that religious orders had come to the conclusion that they had to make the world right before people could accept Gospel. As if material needs had to be satisfied first, and then later the Faith and Scripture could be taught. They had forgotten that Jesus said, \" ...man does not live of bread alone, but every Word that comes from ... God. \" As priests and religious ran about in ever changing ministries that the world advocated, they neglected their flocks of Catholic children hungry to know the Faith. Their counterparts were like parents, who volunteered for committees and activities at Church so much, that all they could do is give their own children fast food on the fly.

This is not a complaint, this was the reality of 1970s and early 1980s Catholic catechesis at least in the USA. We can only assume European countries that were not socialist at the time had the same experience. Perhaps it was arguably worse, because most of Europe is socialist with the light of Faith all but extinguished there.

Then, as poorly educated parents ourselves, we did our best to teach our children the Faith. However, when 9/11 came, it seemed Churches were becoming more populated on Sundays, people more committed to prayer and priests/religious pursuing an authenticate ministry for the peopl -- no longer themselves alone.

The scandals of priests and pedophelia came in waves in the US. Hugely difficult for the victims, lay and the uninvolved faithful priests/religious. Many lay were incensed.

And then COVID happened. The Catholic Churches were closed by our highest ranking prelates. It was as if to say the Church was somehow just the extension of

the seemingly more powerful State. And in the darkness of little to no access to the Sacraments, suddenly the Holy Spirit came forth, reminding us about the truth of Vatican II and Paul VI’s Mass. Jesus reminded us that the Church was Him. And that our leaders were not vassals of ever more atheistic states, but stewards of the Faith in Him. He did not abandon the separated parish priest, brothers/sisters nor the lay. While the Church hierarchy erected walls around our parishes and the Sacraments, breaking up our faith families – we were lovingly reminded by the Pope that we had at least spiritual Communion available.

But the lockdowns were the lockdowns. And of course, no matter what the perspectives were, the Church was worried about pandemic. And concerns over mass deaths were obviously a factor. Of course, we should give our Bishops the benefit of the doubt, with faithfulness too.In the end, it was what it was. And not choosing the option of merely making a temporary dispensation from the Sunday obligation, Bishops were essentially having priests say the Mass to empty pews on live streams. And it is here that Ad Orientem returned, arguably assumed to be the orientation of the priest in the 1970 Novus Ordo Mass. Would it not be better to face Our Lord than empty pews? The priest addressing the people when the Mass directed him to \" ... and turning to the people. \" The exposure of the lay on live streams to Ad Orientem came because of COVID. And it was appropriate. It made sense. And then we began to wonder, along with priests, what else had been lost from Vatican II during my generation's education? The real Mass of Paul VI burstforth. Interest in what Vatican II and the previous Church Councils really said grew.Perhaps, the reader is still asking how COVID and Ad Orientem tie together. How and Why? Did you ever consider how horrible it is for a priest to preside to a camera with empty pews? Why do you think the priest turned to Jesus instead of the empty pews? Why did the priest look to the 1970 Mass for clues on Ad Orientem?

What was the effect of COVID on the lay with regard to Mass?

Did you every think, with respect, how going to Mass alone on live stream makes you yearn for your parish priest and your brothers/sisters of the parish?When the Churches were re-opened the People of God – priests, religious and lay alike -- were excited to be a faith family again. The priests, no longer the focus as celebrant, joined us facing Him, who visited/strengthened us in the solitude and pain of COVID. Jesus, Whom we welcomed! In the absence of the Mass and the readily available Sacraments during COVID, we learned that which we were missing in our generation. We learned that which the Church's focus on the City of Man had robbed us of. Namely, robbed us of Jesus and the True Faith which He gives us. It was Ad Orientem re-emergence from the priests that expressed the familial love as the priest humbled himself. As the Pope called for reducing \" clericalism \" the priest ceased being the performer facing anaudience. Rather he joined us as the People of God before their Lord together as had been scripted for hundreds of years.

I am sure that intellectuals of the Church could run circles around this theologically. How perhaps this is not what Paul VI intended for the Novus Ordo. Yet, it is our Pope, who has called us to speak up in the Holy Spirit before the Synod on Synodality right now. The Pope says we have a \" God of surprises! \" . And we quite agree. Does the re-emergence of Ad Orientem qualify? We would think so. Would the desire to re-discover Vatican II and previous qualify too as a surprise? Absolutely.Instead of using these events as an operative moment to teach my generation and subsequent ones the True Faith, Cardinals want to squash things like Ad Orientem? Really?

I wish to politely ask what Catholic lay person does not have a heartfelt discussion with his/her spouse, and lovingly consider his children, when making a decision that will impact them? Pope Francis advocates listening and discussion.May I point out one thing, respectfully? All these Cardinal to Cardinal, Archbishop to Archbishop, Bishop to Bishop, and Bishop to priest squabbles and mandates seem to be in vogue as of late. They are like the self-important dignitary visiting a soup kitchen. Where he or she makes great show in criticizing the priest and people, who are serving the hungry about the fork being on the wrong side of the plate! In such squabbles and mandates, we just smile. Salute. Shake our heads and get back to what is important.

Perhaps the Bishops and Cardinals should too.

With Ad Orientem, as had been the case for hundreds of years, things seemed reverent and right. A kind of sense of order with Our Lord, amid the choas of COVID and the post COVID wars. By rolling back a kind of new spring among American Catholics, is this like closing the Churches again?