Here is a thought which I offered during my live stream for this Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist (which is my name day more than the Nativity of the Baptist for reasons which over the years have become obvious).
From your liturgical formation and sacramental formation you know that at Mass the ordained priest acts in persona Christi… in the person of Christ. He is alter Christus. When he speaks and gestures during Mass, Christ is speaks and gestures.
However, there is a striking moment – and I mean that literally – when his role shifts. Even when Mass is celebrated versus populum this can be a psychologically powerful moment.
At Communion time, if Communion is being distributed, during Mass according to the rubrics of the Missale Romanum, the celebrant turns toward the communicants with the Eucharistic Host and proclaims like John the Baptist, “Behold the Lamb of God” (John 1:29 and 36).
In that moment, the priest speaks NOT the words of Christ, but rather he takes the role of John the herald.
The priest steps away from himself as speaking in persona Christi for a moment, he de-persons himself, he gets himself out of the way, he, defaces himself as alter Christus to become for a moment another John the Baptist. He decreases in order to herald the coming to you of one far greater than he, the Lord Himself in the Eucharist.
The priest is, in a sense, beheaded. All attention goes to Christ in the Eucharist.
It is one more argument in favor of ad orientem worship, because it makes the Ecce agnus Dei that much more striking.
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I have a feeling that the priest in the Jesuit travesty in the following post does not think of himself as alter Christus when he is gyrating around in his pretend car. Would he do this in front of Christ on the Cross at Calvary?
Really like this post about the ad orientem position at holy Mass. We are fortunate to have this at my parish and I love it.
An interesting take on John the Baptist and the priest saying the, “Ecce Agnus Dei.”
Nonetheless, given Honorius of Autun in the West (noting that the priest is a type of Christ, the deacon a type of John the Baptist, and the prophets types of the subdeacon), as well as Nicholas Cabasilas in the East who pretty much firmly sets the Byzantine typology for the deacon-as-herald to be a type of John the Baptist in the liturgy, I’d say St. John the Baptist is a pretty strong diaconal figure (especially given St. John’s heritage as a Levite).
Going out on a limb (here we go!) – maybe there is something here with the Priest usually ‘in persona Christi capitis,’ being ‘beheaded’ i.e. losing the ‘capitis’ for a moment and just being ‘in persona Christi servi’ like the deacon always is? In that moment, while holding Christ in the Eucharist on the paten, the priest’s diaconal foundation (typified by John the Baptist) appears, as the priest now assumes (or maybe, resumes?) his role as a *servant* of Christ the Head (of the Mystical Body), Who is physically present, and Whose Body is now presented at that time?
Getting a bit speculative, perhaps, lots of common ideas finding a kind of nexus there.
Either way, on that note of versus populum, I’m pretty sure that in ancient basilicas with the two-stair style ambo had the deacon standing on the west-facing staircase proclaiming the Gospel versus populum (with the subdeacon facing East proclaiming the epistle back towards the apse). Consistently in the Byzantine East, the deacon always faced versus populum when proclaiming the Gospel (like the John the Baptist analogy, you note above). Notably, the Gospel was proclaimed in Rome after some time, Ad Septentrionalem, since geographically barbarians and pagans were in that direction from Rome (otherwise being surrounded by water in the three other directions).