07 November 2011

Speaking of All Saints...

...I wonder how on earth the Common Service came to replace the traditional Introit for the day?  The early Lutherans simply retained that lovely Latin Introit with this antiphon:  "Let us all rejoice in the Lord, keeping feast day in honor of all the saints; in whose solemnity the angels rejoice and glorify the Son of God."  The Psalm verse is 33:1:  Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous!  It is fitting for the just to give thanks!

3 comments:

Terry Maher said...

Maybe because that Introit is a wish about a feast, but the one on page 93 in THE Lutheran Hymnal is a Scriptural verse about the reality itself.

William Weedon said...

Perhaps, but it violated their own principles in producing the Common Service - for they were committed to reproducing the actual use of the Lutherans in the 16-17th centuries for use in English.

Terry Maher said...

Weeell -- I don't think that principle got elevated to the status of law. If we want that we might as well head back to the pope and his minions.

Introits are short Scripture passages with Psalm versicles. This one is not Scriptural, and that is quite rare in the traditional readings we kept (until we decided to keep a Vatican II version of readings). So I would say in taking a relevant line from Scripture, from the "Epistle" reading about to follow in fact, as the antiphon the Common Service remains entirely true to its principles even if it means changing something in a rare case to bring it into conformity with the nature of the whole.