In 1938 Archbishop Murray laid the cornerstone of the new English Gothic Revival church of the Nativity, under construction in a beautiful new residential area in St. Paul's Groveland neighborhood. The architect of the church was a non-Catholic by the name of James B. Hills. It was during this time that Archbishop Murray approved a plan that was heretofore unheard of: the altar in the basement crypt chapel was to be set permanently facing the people.
In those days this represented a forbidden stratum of liturgical experimentation that was not yet conceived by most, or sanctioned with approval by the Holy See.
An innovation in its day, such a thing had not been tried anywhere in the country. Proponents of the Liturgical Movement in northern Europe had been slowly promoting the idea of Mass facing the people, but it was still a novelty concept in the rest of the world.
Despite its rarity, only one known photo of the altar exists, seen here (banner image above). It depicts the founding pastor who built Nativity, Fr. Terence Moore, an Irish-born priest of the Diocese of St Paul.
The Jesuit Influencer
The photo was possibly given by Archbishop Murray to the author Fr. Gerald Ellard, S.J. (1894 - 1963). Fr. Ellard was one of the most prominent proponents of the liturgical apostolate in the United States. A Wisconsin native, he became a Jesuit and a prolific author. For some years he was professor of liturgy at St. Louis University School of Divinity. After he was ordained priest in 1926, Fr. Ellard became heavily involved in the Liturgical Movement, promoting his ideas and influencing many around him. He soon became one of the earliest proponents of Mass facing the people in the United States.
Fr. Ellard was one of a few key players of the Liturgical Movement. Along with Msgr. William Busch (1882 - 1971) of St. Paul and Msgr. Martin Hellriegelhe of St. Louis, they constituted a small group that collaborated closely with Fr. Virgil Michel, OSB of St. John's Abbey in Minnesota. Fr. Michel was the founder of the magazine Orate Fratres. First published in 1926. it came to be the voice of the movement. Together these minds contributed to the editorial work of the magazine in its first difficult years. Msgr. Busch was also living in St. Paul, a young professor of Church history who went on to teach for over fifty years at the St. Paul Seminary.
Through his writings and speeches, Fr. Ellard anticipated some of the changes that took effect only after his death in the late 1960s. In his day he was a prolific writer, publishing his first book in 1933 entitled Christian Life and Worship. He also authored in 1948 The Mass of the Future and in 1956 he wrote The Mass in Transition.
Further, he co-founded in 1940 the annual National Liturgical Conference that was held in a new city every year. Their first meeting was held in Chicago and the second in St. Paul in 1941. The organization's tagline was simple: "The Liturgical Conference seeks to aid the hierarchy in promoting greater active and intelligent participation in the liturgy and hopes to enroll as members all those who wish to cooperate in attaining this goal."
The conferences sough episcopal endorsement and became well-known for their widening scope of activities and innovative Masses "facing the people," always done with the invitation of bishops and celebrated in large civic auditoriums, seen below.
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| National Liturgical Week in 1953 (Grand Rapids, MI) |
In 1940, Fr. Ellard authored a book entitled Men at Work in Worship. Archbishop Murray wrote the forward. The book was considered somewhat avant-garde. In those days the movement was seeking more improved catechesis and not necessarily change in the liturgy. Nevertheless, there was a growing voice calling for a return to what was perceived to be more ancient liturgical practices, slowly gripping the next generation of clergy.
Masses celebrated in this manner facing the people became exceptionally rare. They were more common at the National Liturgical weeks celebrated in the 1940s and 1950s, when bishops celebrated Pontifical Masses facing the people on stages in auditoriums. Archbishop Murray was also celebrating Mass facing the people in those years when he celebrated student Masses in the Chapel of St. Thomas on the campus of the nearby College of St. Thomas and St. Thomas Military Academy, both shared the same campus and chapel in St. Paul.
The earliest evidence and images of such Masses can be seen in other books by Ellard as well as the published colloquia of the National Liturgical Conference. The church of St. Helena in Minneapolis, built in 1942, also had an early Mass facing the people.
It is no surprise that some of these men had studied in Europe at a time when many of these ideas were first being discussed. Fr. Ellard had studied in Munich. Archbishop Murray and Msgr. Busch had studied in Louvain. While traveling in Northern Europe these young priests would have visited different monasteries and been introduced to various liturgical prerogatives and currents of style in monastic communities and elsewhere in Belgium and Germany.
The Basement Chapel
Nativity's basement chapel was sparse. It had a painted concrete coffered ceiling. An organ and dark oak pews. A double-sided crucifix hung from the ceiling above the altar. The tabernacle was already on its travels, off to the side on a small table, a glimpse of a future trend. The altar cards were laid flat on the altar, so as not to obstruct the view. The altar had no gradine, with two candle sticks for Low Mass resting on the altar.
Unfortunately, the chapel is no longer unspoilt, seen below today. In the wilds of liturgical revolution, the sanctuary arrangement was marred and the altar was removed, sometime in the 1970s. The whereabouts of the original altar and furniture is unknown. In the 1970s one of the transepts was blocked and made into a storage area while a new sanctuary was set up along the west side of the basement chapel nave, with a new altar and matching celebrant's chair in seventies style, later removed in the late 1990s.
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| The chapel as it appears today, now a multi-purpose room |
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| The chapel as it appeared in 1939 |
Below is a blurb on the altar, taken from the parish's 50th anniversary booklet published in 1972. The booklet is quoting the church's 1939 dedication booklet, illustrating that Nativity was way ahead of its time with the new altar, a score of years ahead of the rest of the Church. The trend for turning altars around came only later after the Council. Nativity placed a portable altar in its main upstairs sanctuary in 1965. That altar remained until 1983 when the permanent high altar was pulled forward and switched with one from a side chapel.
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| 50 Years Commemorative History Booklet for Nativity Parish |
This section of the booklet, possibly written by Msgr. Busch or Fr. Ellard, reads:
"Parishioners will probably be surprised when they see the altar in the downstairs church. There is nothing unusual about it except that it faces in a direction exactly opposite to what which we are accustomed to. When Mass I s said the priest faces the congregation all the time instead of only an intervals, as is the usual case.
There really is nothing very unusual about it, however. In any church the altar may be made to face in either direction. It may be so placed that the priest has his back to the faithful and must, therefore, turn about when he says Dominus vobiscum, Orate fratres and the similar prayers; or it may be place iso that he has no need ever to turn about, as is the case in the downstairs church.
The first manner is the usual practice through the western Catholic world today. The oldest manner, however, was to place the altar free from the wall and facing the congregation. That custom, it must be said, was not absolutely universal in the early Church, because sometimes circumstances demanded another, as when there was not sufficient room for the priest to stand behind the altar; such frequently happened in the catacombs and more frequently with chapel altars.
That it was the unusual custom for a great many centuries is evident from several things. First, that the bishop had his throne in the apse where the altar now commonly stands; second, that the rubrics for incensing the altar supposed that the priest walked completely around it; and third, that the place where the subdeacon stood at a solemn Mass was on the other side of the altar, facing the celebrant, and not behind the deacon as is the case today.It is impossible to say just how many churches in the early centuries had their altars like the one in our downstairs church. It is possible, according to the great work of Joseph Braun, Der Christliche Altar, to say that in three cases it always faced the people.
First, in cathedrals where the throne of the bishop made it necessary.
Second, in those churches where relics of saints were kept in the altar front. In this case the altar was placed so the faithful could venerate the relics without entering the sanctuary and, therefore, the late had to be close to the communion railing and to face the people in church.
Third, when the church itself faced west. People in the early centuries always faced the east when they prayed. If the church faced west, then the priest must face east and so the altar would have to be placed as it is in our downstairs church.
It was in the ninth century that the custom of placing the altar facing the far wall began to be popular. In northern countries it became rarer to place relics in the altar and the throne of the bishop got moved around to the side of the sanctuary, where it is now.
Amalar of Metz, writing in the middle of the ninth century, takes this position for granted: 'When we say Pax vobiscum or Dominus vobiscum, which is a salutation, we turn towards the people. We face those whom we salute, except in the case of the salutations before the preface.' After the year 1000 the general rule was to have the altar facing the wall of the sanctuary, as we have it in the upstairs church.
We have, then, in Nativity Church an altar placed facing the people as was quite common for the first thousand years of Christianity and one placed as has become the fashion in the second thousand years of the Church.
Except for Rome and a few places in Germany, and perhaps a few in other countries, altars placed as ours in the downstairs church are not to be seen. Rome, which clings so tenaciously to custom, has left them. The one on which the Holy Father says Mass in the greatest church in all Christendom, St. Peter's, is placed just as is ours in Nativity Parish; and it is so placed in fourteen other churches in the city of Rome.
The reason for placing it as it is, is clear. Such direction serves to unite the faithful and the priest more closely in offering the Sacrifice of the Mass. Recent years have seen great progress made towards the idea. Catholics know, today, that they should assist at Mass by following the priest's actions and by associating themselves in the prayers he says. They know that they are standing about the altar, intimately concerned in all he does a says, and that they are never there merely as bystanders.
In order to hasten such assistance it has often been urged that Massgoers provide themselves with a missal so that they can follow in English what the priest says in Latin.
In addition, it is hoped that the Missa Recitata in the downstairs church will provide us with an object lesson, and that adults will learn from school children how to assist at Mass better.
Members of Nativity Parish should feel proud that they have the first (in these second thousand years) altar facing the people in the United States. They should also be grateful to their Most Reverend Archbishop, who has granted them permission to have their altar so, and to have the recited Mass. Without doubt, there is no better way to show gratitude than by actually assisting at Mass more perfectly."
Editor's note: As far as we know, Mass in the earliest centuries was celebrated, exclusively versus Deum. The twentieth century liturgical movement was alight with promise, although some of its historical theories were based upon specious propositions. For example, that once upon a time every Mass was celebrated facing the people or that once upon a time everybody sang everything in the liturgy.
The Church's Tradition
Indeed, the mystical beauty and the sacramental dignity of liturgical worship cannot be overestimated. The full truth of it will be ever hidden in the abyss of mystery of the bridal mystery of Christ and His Church.
For that reason alone, it is no surprise that Mass in the Early Church, in either the Greek East or Latin West, was as far as we know never celebrated facing the people. Indeed, the orientation was always according to temple worship and facing East. We can safely assume this to be an apostolic tradition. Rome was an exception, for the Roman Pontiff and a handful of select station churches in the City of Rome, given His supreme and universal jurisdiction.
Fulton Sheen once said, "It is a long established principle of the Church never to completely drop from her public worship any ceremony, object, or prayer which once occupied a place in that worship."
Ecclesiastical traditions are traditions (or disciplines) that were introduced by the Apostles themselves, or in post-Apostolic times. In order to vet liturgical traditions such as this, it is important to refer to the historical practice and judgment of the Church.
"If the Church never dared to change a Tradition, or to dispense with it, that Tradition must be considered a Divine Tradition. Such is the Tradition of the Sunday observance. Such is the mixture of water with wine in the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass. Finally, concerning precepts and institutions which of their own nature do not necessarily require a divine origin, but which might have originated by Apostolic or Church authority, apply the golden rule of St. Augustine: 'What the universal Church maintains, what was never instituted by the Councils, but was always retained in the Church, must be rightly believed to have been transmitted by no other than by Apostolic authority [Bapt. IV, 24].'" (Tradition and the Church by Msgr. George Agius, p. 9).
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| 100 Years Commemorative History booklet for Nativity Parish |
