Listen in as you gather a mouse in the room perspective on what the Winkel covered in Southern Illinois by reading Weedon's Blog...
In another timely rant, Father Weedon laments something he and I both find terribly disconcerting -- shortening the Divine Service by leaving out integral parts (usually for something as banal as a longer sermon). I cannot tell you how often I have found the whole sacramental part of the liturgical service eliminated in favor of the Verba, Our Father, and hymns during the distribution. The elimination of the Proper Preface is a frequent favorite for those saving minutes. What is so strange is that the omission of the Proper Preface saves at best a minute and deprives the people of what is often their favorite phrase of the whole liturgy: Therefore, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven we laud and magnify Your glorious name, evermore praising You and saying...
I will add a few other infractions that tend to get me in a dither. One is rushing the words of the Divine Service thinking that if the Pastor speaks at breakneck speed, the drudgery of the obligatory liturgy will be completed sooner rather than later. While some Roman priests have made this a virtue, I hope that this is one area where we find the guts to stand firm and speak and sing in the deliberate pace and tone that befits the solemnity of the liturgical action.
The other pet peeve, leaving out the creed or abridging the prayers. Again, the usual excuse is the length of the sermon. Now I will admit that we sometimes use the Apostles' Creed (during the penitential seasons) so that it does not fall out of familiarity but we do not omit the creed and this is a grave offense to the evangelical and catholic character of the Divine Service and our Lutheran identity. Oftentimes I find the prayers replaced with prayed sermon material so that the people never seem to pray for the people in need, for the church and her Pastors and leaders, for the nation and our elected leaders, for a worthy communion, etc... It is tiring to see preachers who insist we pray what did not make it into the sermon and then fail to offer the Lord our supplications for those whom we are bound to pray -- it is a height of arrogance. If you cannot take the time to produce faithful prayers locally, use the Let Us Pray service of the Synod (go to the website or send good Fr. Weedon an email).
Yet all this said, I would be happy if 85% of our people (and not just 85% of our parishes) had a recognizable ORDO on Sunday morning -- even if the texts were different and the music decidedly contemporary in sound (though orthodox in content). It would be a decent starting place for a future in which we might find our way clear to submitting the old adam of our sinful nature and our desire to do our own thing, flaunting our freedom as license, and be concerned about the unity of the faith and our Sunday morning witness...
10 comments:
Why does the Missouri Synod refuse to use the word "catholic" in the Apostles Creed?
Even before the Reformation, the words catholicam . . . ecclesiam were rendered in German as christliche . . . Kirche. It was not a distinctly Lutheran practice. Germans who emigrated to America simply retained their traditional wording when they said the Creed in English.
The original proposal for Lutheran Service Book used "catholic" in the Nicene Creed. A handful of other changes were also proposed for the sake of clarity; for example, "true God of true God" instead of "very God of very God," and "and his kingdom will have no end" instead of "whose kingdom will have no end." The Lutheran Hymnal Project Field Test Materials (2003) contain a rationale for these changes (pp. 32–36).
At some point, though, a decision was made not to accept the proposed changes, but to retain the Creed exactly as it stood in the 1982 hymnal. I was not privy to those discussions, but I believe it was done for pastoral reasons, not wanting to subject our members to yet another change in creedal language within the space of a single lifetime.
David,
Fr. Peters is one who refuses to omit :catholic" from any of the creeds. If people would listen when the definition of the word "catholic" is given and get Rome out of their heads, it would be no problem.
Joe,
What was a distinctive Lutheran practice was no more than just poor translating, whether out of ignorance or intentional. I think it was the latter. Catholic should have been rendered as catholicshe like any number of Greek words that were transliterated into German. The reformers chose Christian because they knew in their hearts that what they were doing was outside of the catholic, i.e. universal, church and that they were in fact doing was setting up a new church. I think Lutheran congregations should retain "christian" which shows that they still are outside of the church, i.e. schismatics.--Chris
Chris,
The translation of "catholicus, -a, -um" as "christlich" predated the Reformation; that is, before there were any Lutherans. I have seen German creedal texts from the first decade of the sixteenth century that used it. Lutherans just kept what they were used to.
I have been told that Catholics in the later sixteenth century, when they said the Creed in German, continued to use the word "christlich." All this suggests that the use of "christlich" was not a way for Lutherans to distinguish themselves from Catholics (indeed, such a distinction did not exist, at least in theory, until after the Council of Trent, 1545–1563), but was rather simply the way the German language was spoken at the time.
To say that sixteenth-century Germans should have transliterated "catholicus" rather than translating it because they did such a thing with other foreign-language words is like saying we should use the word "ecclesia" in English today rather than "church" because we use other Latin roots in English. Of course no one would make that argument. Language is what it is, and it often isn't logical.
The use of Christian instead of catholic became a point of confession for those who had no idea it did not originate in this way. While this is certainly true among Lutherans, it is an aberration and not the position of the Confessions.
Besides, Lutheran usage did NOT abandon the word catholic for its continued use in the Athanasian Creed means that it did not fall completely out of use in Lutheran hymnals and liturgies.
Joe,
Language is often illogical. HOwever, that does not mean that certain rules should not be enforced. Church is well understood to be synonymous with ecclesia (which, btw, is Greek not Latin). However, christliche and catholische mean two different things. Catholic means universal and the Lutheran church is far from universal since it does not hold the faith that was preached and believed and taught for all time (cf. St. Vincent of Lerins). I suppose it is conceivable to be Christian and not catholic (i.e. universal) Christian, but such a person is a schismatic because he has cut himself off from the church as a whole. He has become, ipso facto, his own head of his own church. The fact that the German reformers retained (assuming you're correct as far as the history of christliche) indicates that they themselves knew that they were no longer part of the church which believed always what was taught and preached at all times and all places since the beginning. You cannot be catholic and NOT hold the catholic (i.e. universal) faith.
Full disclosure: I'm Greek Orthodox and we proudly retain the word catholic in our creed, but then of course, we are the real and authentic Catholic Church. It's not uncommon to refer to some ORthodox communions as Catholic such as the Russian Orthodox Catholic Church.--Chris
Interesting, indeed. "We're the real Church!" "No, we're the real Church." None of it's valid unless someone either puts his fingers in his ears and shouts to the other, "La, la, la, la, la I can't hear you," or the phrase "Naner-naner-noodles" is used (I'm fairly sure that comes from the Latin).
Just to clarify-- the Lutherans did not change the wording of the Creed, but kept it exactly as they received it. Whenever it was sung in Latin, they used the traditional text, including "catholicam."
You may not agree but the claim of the Lutheran Confessions is precisely that they are Catholic and use the fathers as much as Scripture to prove it
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