The fact that we find Christ in the symbol of the rising sun is the indication of a Christology defined eschatology. Praying toward the east means going to meet the coming Christ. The liturgy turned toward the east, effects entry, so to speak, into the procession of history towards the future, the New Heaven and the New Earth, which we encounter in Christ. It is a prayer of hope, the prayer of the pilgrim as he walks in the direction shown us by the life, Passion, and Ressurection of Christ. Thus very early on, in parts of Christendom, the eastward direction for prayer was given added emphasis by a reference to the Cross. This may have come from linking Rev. 1:7 with Matt 24:30. In the first of these, the Revelation of St. John, it says: "Behold, he is comming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, ever one who pierced him, and all the trives will wail on account of him, even so Amen." Here the seer of the Apocalypse depends on John 19:37, where, at the end of the account of the Crucifixion, the mysterious text of the prophet Zechariah (12:10) is quoated, a text that suddenly acquires a wholly new meaning: "They shall look on him who they have pierced." Finally, in Matthew 24:30 we are given these words of the Lord; "Then on the Last day will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of man comming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." The sign of the Son of Man, of the Pierced One, is the Cross, which has now become the sign of victory of the Risen One.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Pope Benedict XVI
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