"The Spirit and the Church cry out: Come, Lord Jesus!"
Tonight, St. Paul's gathered for our last Advent Evening Prayer. And it was the Evening Prayer liturgy, rather than Vespers - the people, I think, were rejoicing. We did Vespers two weeks ago, and it was not as well received. Tonight we went back to the Evening Prayer liturgy we've been used to for several years, with the exception of the new Magnificat from LSB - a cancticle which they really seemed to catch onto. A cantor (my wife) sang the verses, and the congregation sang the refrain: "My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!" It was a beautiful service. It speaks peace deep to the soul.
"Those who await His appearance pray: Come, Lord Jesus!"
There's something about that Eastern litany that I dearly love - "In peace, let us pray to the Lord" and the overlapping singing of "Lord, have mercy!" In addition to all those persons and circumstances the litany led us to pray for, we also prayed for our sisters and brothers in Hamel at New Life Fellowship Church (Southern Baptist) whose sanctuary was burned down last night. We asked for them the Lord's mercy and peace.
"The whole creation pleads: Come, Lord Jesus!"
4 comments:
When I was an RC teenager in the days of Vatican II, it was explained to us that the kyrie of the Western Rite was really a goof up, a hold over from the Eastern Rite of a response to a prayer that is no longer there. So the new Mass would fix that. However, that happened was nothing like the Eastern Rite, where confession of sin happens after the catachetical first part of the mass. Instead, Lord, have mercy was coupled as a response to a statement of some sin, as in "for the times we have ..., Lord, have mercy. So the kyrie and the confiteor got shuffled to-gether in the novus ordo missae, under the guise of re-Easternising the kyrie though it has no penitential aspect at all in the Eastern Rite.
So Rome. The new Rome, which is not at all the old Rome. Just as wrong, but in a different way. Then I end up in WELS, which for sheer liturgical goofiness takes no second to new Rome, screaming adiaphora all the way. The revised Common Service puts the kyrie before the absolution, gasp, gag, and the new other Vatican II wannabe service missed the essential point from the Eastern Rite too.
We got in right, from that most miserable Lutheran Book of Worship (novus ordo missae, Lutheran Edition) on! How's that? By restoring the First Litany of the Eastern Rite, the kyrie, from its opening on -- In peace let us pray to the Lord. Which continues in the first two settings of the Divine Service in Lutheran Service Book.
And speaking personally, as someone who cannot understand why nearly five centuries into the Reformation churches could give a church mouse's posterior (to clean up a well known street phrase) about Rome's latest aberrations let alone fall in line with them, it allows me to happily participate in those non Common Service settings without thinking Vatican II wannabeism, since the original character of the kyrie from the first litany of the divine service is indeed restored!
Pastor Weedon,
Have you had success with the congregation singing the whole new Magnificat? At the Sem we are getting used to it, but then again, we're not "normal."
Well, they mastered the refrain right away. A cantor sang the verses. But yes, they sounded like they'd been singing it for years. They are just like that. Give them something to sing, and they sing it!
I'm sorry to hear of the fire.
Great refections, thank you as always.
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