A Reflection on Re-centering the Church’s Worship and Evangelizing Spirit
Executive Summary
In response to our Bishop’s call to “pivot from maintenance to mission,” this reflection proposes that one of the most powerful pivots available to us lies at the heart of the Church’s life:
the Sacred Liturgy.
The way we worship forms the way we believe and live. Over recent decades, liturgical practice has largely emphasized community and accessibility through versus populum celebration. While fruitful in many ways, this posture can unintentionally obscure the sacrificial and theocentric nature of the Mass.
A renewed encouragement of ad orientem worship — where priest and people together face the Lord — offers a simple yet profound pivot. It restores focus on the divine, fosters reverence, and catechizes by action rather than words.
This reflection suggests that encouraging even one weekly Mass celebrated ad orientem in each parish, accompanied by thoughtful catechesis, could serve as a visible and spiritual sign of the diocesan pivot from maintenance to mission.
1. From Maintenance to Mission
Our Bishop’s call to “pivot from maintenance to mission” is both prophetic and pastoral. It recognizes that the Church cannot simply sustain; she must go forth.
To pivot, however, is not to dismantle or abandon what has been built. A pivot means to turn, to reorient, to shift our focus toward what is essential. It invites movement, not destruction — growth, not rejection.
The Church has spent decades faithfully maintaining parishes and programs. Yet, as belief in the Real Presence declines and participation wanes, perhaps it is time to allow this pivot to reach the center of our ecclesial life — the Holy Eucharist itself.
If we desire a missionary Church, we must cultivate missionary worship: liturgy that draws hearts to God, renews faith, and sends disciples into the world.
2. Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi
“As we worship, so we believe, so we live.”
This ancient principle reminds us that worship is formative. The way we celebrate the liturgy shapes our theology and our daily discipleship.
When worship emphasizes community alone, it can drift toward the horizontal. When it emphasizes sacrifice and mystery, it restores the vertical dimension — the encounter between God and His people.
Our current moment calls for balance — a renewed theocentric orientation that keeps God at the center. The posture of ad orientem powerfully expresses that balance.
3. Liturgical Orientation and Theological Emphasis
The versus populum orientation (priest facing the people) highlights the community gathered around the altar. It allows for visible engagement, eye contact, and dialogue — important fruits of the post-conciliar reforms.
Yet, when practiced exclusively, it can unintentionally reinforce a notion that the Mass is a communal meal directed toward ourselves.
By contrast, ad orientem — “toward the East” — expresses the pilgrim Church journeying together toward the risen Lord. Priest and people face the same direction, united in common orientation toward Christ, the true East.
This posture is not clericalism or nostalgia. It is symbolic catechesis, visually restoring the truth that the priest leads the people in persona Christi, offering the sacrifice to the Father on their behalf.
4. Theologia Prima: Worship as the First Theology
“What we do in prayer teaches what we believe.”
Catholic tradition has always recognized that the liturgy is theologia prima — the first theology. It is through worship that the Church encounters and expresses her deepest truths.
The gestures, movements, and symbols of the liturgy form our faith more powerfully than words or doctrines alone. Thus, by praying ad orientem, we teach without explanation that:
The Mass is first a sacrifice, not merely a meal.
The priest is a mediator, not a performer.
The community is turned toward God, not centered on itself.
This lived theology, embodied in posture, shapes belief and mission more effectively than any program or initiative.
5. Missionary Worship: Forming Disciples on Fire
If we desire a missionary Church, we must form missionary disciples — believers whose hearts are inflamed by encounter with Christ.
Liturgy is the source of that fire. Reverent and transcendent worship evangelizes without words. It awakens awe, cultivates silence, and opens the soul to grace.
Younger Catholics, in particular, are seeking reverence, authenticity, and mystery. They are drawn to the sacred — whether in the Extraordinary Form or in a reverent celebration of the Ordinary Form.
An ad orientem celebration of the Novus Ordo offers this experience within the ordinary life of the parish. It is a pastoral “pivot” that connects missionary zeal with liturgical renewal.
6. A Gentle Pastoral Path
Introducing or restoring ad orientem worship requires sensitivity and catechesis. Many faithful associate this posture with “the old Mass” or with rejection of Vatican II.
To help the faithful understand, pastoral formation is key:
Emphasize that ad orientem is fully permitted within the Ordinary Form.
Teach that it expresses a shared orientation toward God, not a barrier between priest and people.
Offer it gently — perhaps one Mass per week, well prepared and explained.
This simple step can model what a pivot truly is: not rebellion, but renewal; not backward movement, but deeper alignment with mission.
7. Fruits of the Pivot
Those who have experienced ad orientem worship testify to:
A deepened sense of reverence and sacredness.
Renewed faith in the Real Presence of Christ.
Greater unity between priest and people in prayer.
A clearer understanding of the Mass as sacrifice.
A stronger missionary drive flowing from worship.
A physical reorientation can become a spiritual reorientation — a new evangelization that begins not with strategy, but with adoration.
8. Conclusion: Facing the Lord Together
To pivot from maintenance to mission, we must first turn our hearts — and our worship — toward Christ.
By celebrating the Eucharist ad orientem, priest and people embody the very movement we seek as a Church: a turning from self toward God, from habit toward holiness, from maintenance toward mission.
This is not nostalgia, but conversion.It is not a return, but a reorientation — toward the Lord who is our true East, our Light, and our Mission.
