The Altar: One-On-One

By David G. Bonagura, Jr. ( articles - email ) | Oct 02, 2026

Due to a convergence of strange factors, I was the only parishioner at a weekday Mass recently. It was just Father and I. To Father’s credit, he didn’t shorten the Mass in any way despite the presence of one: he sung the Alleluia as he normally does, he preached the homily he had prepared, he didn’t skimp on the intercessions, he offered me the sign of peace from afar.

There was one element, though, that was unmistakably (and somewhat uncomfortably) different:

Father was looking directly at me whenever he was not reading from the missal. When he said, “Lord, have mercy,” he was looking at me. When he said, “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation,” he was looking at me. When he said, “Our Father, who art in Heaven,” he was looking at me.

My lonely station offered a fresh look at a nearly six-decade old debate: the position of the altar and priest at Mass. The priest turned toward the people is what we know; it’s now normal on an experiential level (even as it is highly abnormal on historical and theological levels). But when he was turned to me, and to me alone, I couldn’t help but wonder why he was looking at me when he was addressing Someone Else.

The repositioning of the altar so the priest could face the people, even more than the shift to the vernacular, changed the ethos of the Mass from sacrifice to show. And I don’t use “show” pejoratively, nor am I alluding to eccentric abuses of the sacred rites. I mean simply something to be seen. Even at a daily Mass with no frills, where the black is said and the red is done faithfully without fanfare or distortion, the faithful expect to be in on the action, so to speak. That is, they expect to see. Should something impede their view, they feel alienated, deprived of what they believe they should have by right.

No matter how solemnly a Mass facing the people may be offered, the element of show, and by extension, entertainment, is inescapably present. This element eclipses what should be the driving force of the faithful’s attendance: worship of God. Yet if we poll regular churchgoers about why they attend Mass, I wager “to worship” will not register in the top five.

The priest, whether he wants to or not, plays the role of entertainer when he is facing the people for Mass. His position makes the term “presider over the liturgy” quite accurate in appearance even as it distorts the theological understanding of the priest’s role. The pressure to entertain has to be enormous—consider how many priests slip in a “good morning” greeting or some other acknowledgement of those watching him. I wonder if priests feel self-conscious while saying Mass with all those eyes on them. I know I feel that way when I pray before my classes and my students look at me. So I turn toward the crucifix on the wall. After all, when I am reciting the Our Father or Hail Mary, I am not talking to them.

Identifying the primary addressee of the Mass has roiled the Church since Vatican II like no other. Whether we are weighing the Traditional Latin Mass versus the Novus Ordo, or the traditionally oriented Novus Ordo versus the Novus Ordo facing the people, the fundamental questions are the same. Is the Mass primarily about worshipping God and offering the sacrifice of Christ to Him for the redemption of the faithful? Or is it a communal celebration at which the people must have a coequal role as God comes among them?

To ask these questions, since they cut to the very heart of the Church’s worship and thus her self-understanding, is akin to throwing a lightening bolt at St. Peter’s. When no less an authority than former Prefect for the Congregation of Worship Cardinal Robert Sarah argued at a liturgical conference that priests should offer parts of the Mass ad orientem, to the east, as was done for nearly two millennia, global hysteria broke out, so much so that the Vatican Press Office issued a statement to calm fears that the Mass was about to change. Should a parish priest offer Mass ad orientem, which technically is not forbidden, he would be run out of town—and out of ministry—in a matter of hours.

But if a synodal Church includes listening to the concerns of the faithful, then I think it is fair to ask without calling down fire and brimstone: Why does the priest look at the people during the Mass, when, except for the readings, intercessions, a few exhortations, the priest and people together are addressing God the Father? Should they not look together at Him, a gaze symbolized by everyone, priest and faithful alike, facing east, whence Christ will come again? And if the answer is, “No, we should continue to have the priest and people look at each other,” then should we consider changing the addressee of our prayers and petitions so we do not confuse ourselves?

In his masterful The Spirit of the Liturgy, when considering what to do about the problem of the altar’s direction, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, intensely conscious that liturgical change can terribly upset the faithful, proposed as a sort of compromise the placement of a crucifix on the altar to be “the common point of focus for both priest and praying community.”

I find this proposal inadequate: the crucifix, whether massive like the one used in Pope Benedict XVI’s papal liturgies or the one-or-two-foot ones that are far more common, does not take the faithful’s attention off the priest. The show goes on with him presiding as the center of attention.

The beatification Mass of Blessed Fulton Sheen was a case in point. There was a crucifix on the altar, taller than the chalices but not more than two feet tall. For anyone in attendance or watching through a screen, was the crucifix “the common point of focus” during the Eucharistic sacrifice? Or was it the dozen cardinals and bishops surrounding the altar, some of whom recited parts of the Eucharistic prayer when a microphone was put before them?

The Mass itself gives us the answer. The words address God, so we should look at Him when we talk to Him, as we do when we talk to anyone else. That’s the proper thing to do. It’s plain odd for the priest to stare at the people as he begs God with prayers such as, to name one example, “Deliver us, Lord, from every evil and grant us peace in our day.”

For the priest to turn back to the east, and not to turn off the faithful, will require some catechesis before the deed can be done. But “some” is the operative word. The people do not need advanced theological training—or any theological training—to know that we should look at the person whom we are addressing. Every parent teaches his children that. In the same way, Holy Mother Church should remind us that when we call upon God, we should look His way. And when we do so together, priest and people alike, the latter will discover an ever ancient, ever new way to participate actively at Mass.