from my friend PE is his acceptance of various developments beyond the medieval rite present in the Common Service (DS 3) in view of his rejection of the further developments found in the work of the ILCW (DS 1,2).
For example, in DS 3 the loss of a proper offertory; the moving of the offertory to right after the homily and making it an ordinary; making the Nunc Dimittis an ordinary; the use of the Aaronic benediction instead of the traditional blessing at the close of Mass; the loss of the "Ite MIssa"' the loss of the final Gospel; moving the Our Father to a place between the Sanctus and the Consecration. All of these are not simply a removal of objectionable material, but developments of the rite itself.
Terry, my friend, help me understand how to your thinking these developments and alterations are of a different nature than permitting an expanded Kyrie (borrowed from the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom), an optional Dignus Est Agnus for the Gloria in Excelsis, or a "Thank the Lord" in substitution for a Nunc Dimittis?
I note that both DS I/II, and III (and IV and V) have added an Old Testament reading back in. DS I/II actually keeps closer to the old pre-Reformation Mass in its ordering of a thanksgiving, consecration, anmanesis prior to the Our Father.
I'll stick my neck out to observe that all the Divine Services provided in LSB strike me as quite faithful to the intention of the Lutheran Reformation. My own parish still GREATLY prefers DS III and I agree, it wears incredibly well over time, but I just cannot bring myself to condemn or even to look down on any parish using any of the other Divine Services provided. My good friend, Fr. John Fleischmann, has taught ALL five settings to his parish and they are comfortable with them all.
So, Terry (or whoever else cares to respond), help me understand better your objection to anything but DS III!
82 comments:
Somewhere I think I might have read that Benedicamus Domino was always at the end of the Mass in the north, until the Roman Ite misse est came to town and the two amalgamated. So in that case, we might be returning to the old ways.
Do we really have to egg this on, Weed? These are the folks that wrote nastigrams and threatened charges against the entire LSB committee if we didn't respristinate TLH page for page. You'd think the thing fell from the heavens on golden plates or something.
Now, Swirl, I'm sure that Terry wrote absolutely NO nastigrams. I'm trying to understand his consistent opposition to 20th century developments but his acceptance of 16/17 century developments.
Brian, in which case it may be an example of Piepkorn's frequently repeated observation that Lutheran liturgical customs predate the Tridentine codifications.
Weed? Swirl? Oh, to be a blackbird. Fuller comments later -- several more hats to wear to-night as widower dad -- but for now:
1) I not only didn't write nastigrams, but, observing the coming to-gether of LSB from being in WELS, that such an effort flaws and all could happen in LCMS was a major factor in convincing me I should be in LCMS too;
2) I think the version of the Common Service uka (unfortunately known as) DSIII is magnificent and prefer it to the TLH version.
Pr. Weedon,
Are you familiar with how "This is the Feast"/"Dignus est Agnus" came to be an optional substitute for the Gloria?
The only information I can find is the J. W. Montgomery article, in which he says essentially that while he can't trace the canticle's existence (let alone its substitution for one of the historic five Ordinaries) any farther back than the start of the 20th century, he thinks it's a good idea nonetheless.
The only other connection I have been able to make is that it was introduced by Joseph Seiss, who I think is the same as Joseph A. Seiss, the Lutheran commentator on Revelation and the premillenial dispensationalist (?!).
I don't think that TLH or any version thereof is immutable, but after twenty years of worship under the DSI/II liturgy, I have a hard time seeing how any of our other liturgies are more faithful to our heritage as Western Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran Christians than any version of the Common Service.
"...Piepkorn's frequently repeated observation that Lutheran liturgical customs predate the Tridentine codifications..."
Could you point me to where he's said this? I am very interested in this; the differences between, say, Sarum Rite and Roman Rite Mass are already quite striking.
Also, aren't there other versions of the Common Service which at least allow for other variants on the Offertory? My 1930 American Lutheran Hymnal (Wartburg Press) has three listed.
Well fellas, after the boys came in for the night, there was some Lil Ed and the Blues Imperials on cable, and I just can't resist good preaching, and Camp Meeting with Brother Swaggart comes on pretty early, and if you get up too late for it all there is is a fully vested ELCA priestitute doing what we call DSI with organ and choir, so in the meantime, in what otherwise may be mistaken for a shameless plug for my blog, you can read my posts for 7 July and 24 June, which are pretty much on most of the questions PW asks, in fact that latter is revised and expanded from a post I did when he asked me pretty much the same questions on another blog which I no longer visit, written by a Lutheran pastor who got a case of this Vatican II unionism and syncretism full blown and swam the bloody Tiber.
Hey, um, Swirl -- you hoop? I can accompany. We on for Grand Rapids?
Weed? Swirl? Oh, to be a blackbird.
Nah, you wouldn't want to be in that bird cage. Trust me.
Weed comes from The Venerable Weed, easily the best nickname for Weedon, hearkening back to some foggy days in college.
Swirl comes from Swirly, a popular boys' room stunt of sticking someone's head in a toilet and flushing, often under the influence of the Venerable Weed.
I didn't intend to imply that PE was one of the nastigram authors or chargers. (One of the best threats was that the committee must change "world without end" at the end of the collects or we were going to be brought up on heresy charges. Such fun.)
After seven years of study, an in-depth reading of Sacrosanctum concilium, and 17 years presiding in the liturgy, I have yet to see how DS 1 and 2 are substantially different from DS 3 (Glad you like DS 3, Terry!)
Well, look what happened when I was a WELS elder -- went LCMS! And I'm too damn old to learn Hebrew and Greek anyway.
I love the Common Service travelling incognito as DSIII. The way Jacobean and contemporary English was handled was a stroke of genius. Probably never hear it in my lifetime, but love it anyway.
And just for you, something good about DSI -- at least it got, from LBW on, the miniature First Litany thing from the Eastern Liturgy right, rather than the miserable hatchet job by the liturgical vandals of Vatican II, who made it a ruddy half assed confiteor (For the times we have ... Lord, have mercy) rather than a reGreekified kyrie.
I have inside information that Swirlies are still a popular boys' room stunt. Venerable Weed -- I knew there was a Benedictine in him lurking somewhere. That telltale odour of, er, sanctity. Ain't no amount of incense can cover that up.
So how's about the Grand Rapids gig? With you hooping and me accompanying, we'll have more hands in the air than a Voter's Meeting gone bad. Hell, at this rate I might as well stay up for Jimmy.
OK since I'm still up, a tidbit -- there ain't no loss of the Last Gospel. While reading John I right after Mass was done here and there before Trent, it was not normative for the universal church until Trent, which is after us, so the "loss" is one of those reforms back to pre-Trent.
Just a quick point. The Last Gospel, in my judgement, is best thought of not as a part of the liturgy of the Mass, but rather as part of the private devotion post missam, which over time began to be done aloud. If a priest who celebrates Mass according to an order in LSB wanted to say the Last Gospel, I don't think he could be accused of a foreign innovation; likewise if a priest who says mass according to the novus ordo wanted to say the Last Gospel, I think he would be free to do so as well. In both cases, said priests might get strung up for it, but not because there is anything inherently wrong with their practice. (just finished my daily reports, and not even sure I'm awake right now, so I may regret this tomorrow, for any number of reasons)
It would be like me to dream of the liturgy; and such subject matter can easily make for either a pleasant dream or a nightmare.
what can you expect from the type that probably even wears the cassock to bed?
okay, I'll stop now.
Two brief things to think about. For many, DS1/2 are first and foremost changes - and any change can bring two things with it. First, there is an abandoning of that which is comfortable and familiar. If one is not used to variety in one's diet - a change in diet is distracting, though there is nothing wrong with eating more than meat and potatoes. The same thing with worship.
Second, there is the question of why changes are brought (the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it). The assumption tends to be that we (whichever we we happen to be) is that we have done things rather well. . . so why are things being changed. If I am doing well, and someone wants me to change, it must automatically be a change to the worse - be it liberal corruption or just foolish tomfoolery playing around in areas where things ought not to be played with.
Sometimes the latter is a valid criticism, and it would have to be something hashed out on each point. That being said, part of what gets to the heart of DS3 is the idea of simply using what one has received. Who living was around when the Common Service introduced its innovations, who living remembers that it itself brought change? Rather, it is what IS, what we have received, and why bother to change it.
The equal and opposite question could be asked - how can someone who rails against contemporary worship and worship that seeks to be novel and merely entertain countenance DS1/2 (and especially 4 - a rhyming Sanctus?)
Both of these approaches, I would say, push too far - we bring out the old and the new. . . but thus is life in this world.
Not to rain on anyone's parade here, but confessional Lutheranism does *not* embrace the notion, as does Rome, that the specific form of the Divine Service, carries with it some kind of Divine mandate.
Rites and ceremonies can, and very well may be, changed, at any time. There is no "best form" in the final analysis. To get hung up on such things, as some do, does not serve the Gospel.
What confessional Lutheranism heartily embraces is the view that all things should be done decently and in good order, in service to the Gospel.
But the "liturgy for liturgy's sake" approach of the liturgical hobbyists among us smacks of a certain repristinating romanticism over against the liturgy, a liturgical pietism, if you will.
Have some perhaps forgotten that: And to the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and 3] the administration of the Sacraments. Nor is it necessary that human traditions, that is, rites or ceremonies, instituted by men, should be everywhere alike. Augsburg Confession, Article VII.
"Confessional Lutheranism does *not* embrace the notion, as does Rome, that the specific form of the Divine Service, carries with it some kind of Divine mandate."
Agreed. Who here was advocating this?
"Rites and ceremonies can, and very well may be, changed, at any time," yes, but not all the time. I wonder if Luther, reluctantly making his revisions, would have envisioned the new DSI/II and DSIV both appearing within a span of 25 years.
"There is no "best form" in the final analysis," yes, but does this exclude the discussion of better or worse? Luther applied criteria when he revised the Mass; applying criteria shows which rites are better and which are worse. To the best of my knowledge, that's what the people here are trying to do.
I'll stick my neck out to observe that all the Divine Services provided in LSB strike me as quite faithful to the intention of the Lutheran Reformation.
And all liturgical fuss-budgetry notwithstanding, there's the point! I have had, as a matter of routine, Lutheran laymen who read Lutheran blog sites and discussion groups routinely ask me if their worship service is "not as good" as the ones they read about on what I can only but describe as "liturgical hobbyist/pietist" sites.
"My pastor doesn't wear a chausable, does that mean he is not really a solid Lutheran pastor?"
"My pastor doesn't hold his fingers 'just so' at the consecration, is that wrong?"
"We receive the Lord's body in our hands, is that wrong?"
And a myriad other questions.
So, we have the a-liturgical crowd, on the one hand, rocking it out in the chancel, causing scandals of one kind, and we have the liturgical purists project their, in my opinion, ill placed angst, on laypeople.
I think it is ultimately not helpful to the service of the Gospel among us to continue the hand-wringing nonsense over questions of liturgical minutiae. The attempt to repristinate some kind of golden age of "Lutheran liturgical practice" when, in fact, we have a very fine hymnal is self-defeating.
And it is most certainly true that to hear some talk about the "common service" in TLH one does receive the distinct impression they did, as Pr. Cwirla amusingly puts it, fall from heaven on golden tablets, "or something."
Oh, one more thing...just to set the record straight.
It was the Right Reverend Doctor David Benke who bestowed on Pr. Weedon the handle: "The Venerable Weed."
Very well played!
And, it was the Reverend Father Larry "Hollywood" Beane, in one of his Internet multiple personalities, I believe it was as General Scuttebutt, who used "Swirla," for the first time to refer to our dear Cwirla,
And now you know, the rest of the story.
David Benke is responsible for The Venerable Weed? My respect increases; explains a lot too.
As for "Swirla," Beane is not nearly as creative as he himself imagines. This is the lazy man's spelling of my name at restaurants where I want to hear some reasonable approximation of my name being called. As for Swirlies, the porcelain predecessor to waterboarding, this was known in grammar school boys' rooms when Beane himself was knee high to a grasshopper. Glad to hear it's still in vogue.
I'm just not getting this liturgy as museum piece thing. Maybe if PE posts a link to his blog I can read and evaluate. Up to this point it seems like a strange admixture of nostalgia, romanticism, guilt by association, personal preferences, with a hint of fear of slippery slopes.
I wonder if Luther, reluctantly making his revisions, would have envisioned the new DSI/II and DSIV both appearing within a span of 25 years.
One thing I don't see in Luther is "reluctance" when it comes to liturgical reform.
And what exactly is the difference between DS IV and Luther's 1526 Deutsche Messe, except that Luther didn't write DS IV?
As for time spans, compare the 1523 Latin Mass with the 1526 German Mass and tell me that isn't a radical shift in three years. Read the commentary that goes with it and marvel at Luther's use of the liturgy as a means to an end and not an end in itself.
Well, having just returned from an early morning Divine Service, having sung "Oh, That I Had a Thousand Voices" and it being an incredibly beautiful day in NE Ohio, I am just spilling over with sheer joy!
Now, back to the regularly scheduled conversation which I have rudely interrupted!
My only comment is that my parish uses TLH and LSB and it seems to work for us.
Oh, one last thought -- The Last Gospel, in my judgement, is best thought of not as a part of the liturgy of the Mass, but rather as part of the private devotion post missam, which over time began to be done aloud.
Might not have been a bad idea to kick it back in at my former novus ordo RC parish - might have helped slow down the stampede of those exiting for the parking lot -- oh, wait, I forgot -- they usually started that when the final hymn began. (-:
"One thing I don't see in Luther is 'reluctance' when it comes to liturgical reform."
All I meant by "reluctance" was what I understood to be his expressed wish: that the churches would develop their own liturgies and that his reforms were only provisional, necessitated by a proliferation of highly parochial new liturgies.
I'll add those commentaries to my gargantuan reading list. Still, I thought part of the point of DS IV was the revised Eucharistic rite, which I don't believe resembles the Deutsche Messe. Then there's the question of whether the reasons for Luther's vernacular German liturgy being the way it was, still hold sway in an English vernacular society. I would think that, for example, English fits better with Gregorian chant than German does, and as a result chorale melodies and metrical verse aren't as necessary for the Ordinaries in English as they are in German.
Hasn't Pr. Stuckwisch make the point that the liturgy (Liturgy) isn't a means or an end so much as an act of God?
And yes, it is in fact a beautiful day in NE Ohio. The birds are singing in the wetlands behind the apartments here.
What??
There is a fellow NE Ohioan posting here?
Hi, Phil!
I love how Lutherans take theology seriously!
Seriously!!
It's so good to be back with y'all!
Christine
OK, it's daytime now, so here it is, PW.
I think really the answer to your question is both beyond the scope of a combox and also largely found in the the two posts on Past Elder I mentioned above, 24 June and 7 July 2009, recent so one doesn't have to go to archives. However, in the archives one will find a post dated 30 August 2008 entitled St Monica and Vatican II For Lutherans which uses the violence done to her feast in the novus ordo as a starting point to examine the violence that is the novus ordo even to the Catholic faith itself, let alone the catholic faith.
So here I'll say this. Two things. One being, the coming to be of the novus ordo was something it was my unfortunate lot in life to witness, being RC at the time, and not only that, to be taught in a place in the vanguard of that movement and by some of its authors. The whole thing was nothing more and nothing less, and acknowledged as such by its proponents, as a way to do from the pulpit what they did from the podium, to do in church what they did in class, namely, effect a complete break with what came before it, replacing it with something, even when cut and pasted from the past or the East, that reflected the ideas of the nouvelle theologie and higher critical school. It was a brilliant coup, lex orandi lex credendi completely understood -- a professor can change or challenge lex credendi for a few, but a change in lex orandi accomplishes it for all. And it was a coup carried out with utter vengeance on anyone who stood in its way, of which the disdain we were taught for what it replaced was the surface of things which make our difficulties in our beloved synod seem like a walk in the park.
The other being, the nature and the details of what this liturgical pogrom was in the RCC I have never heard a Lutheran understand at all. Which is not a put-down; it was not our fight, nor is it relevant to its effects on us, except this -- the entire movement, in its theology and its products of orders of worship, lectionary and calendar, was a conscious intended break with what we in our Confessions are at some pains to demonstrate that we neither intend nor attempt to break with but zealously guard and defend by reform.
To sum up with as much tact as the seriousness of the situation allows: The novus ordo is not a development at all in liturgy in the same sense as the various liturgies, lectionaries and calendars and changes therein were, are, and will be in the history of the church. It was a revolution that came to a head in 1960s Rome. While the catholic church, because of the power of Word and Sacrament, can be found within the RCC, the RCC itself as an institution is the chief brothel of the Whore of Babylon, headed by a pimp office bearing the marks of Antichrist, and its carryings-on are entirely external to either Christ or his Church. Therefore from which we should completely stand apart, both for that reason and also because its carryings-on have, tellingly, become the basis for the carryings-on of the other liturgical brothelial unions (to play on the phrase of the chief brothel for churches other than itself, ecclesial unions) of the Whore of Babylon some of which disgracefully have the word Lutheran in their names.
On top of that, when we don't, we also, no less than those who go to sources other than Rome seeking to endow them with a Lutheran sense that they were specifically designed to not have, have no less of a "contemporary worship" than they, but worse in that it is placed on an equal plane with our Lutheran liturgy.
Hasn't Pr. Stuckwisch make the point that the liturgy (Liturgy) isn't a means or an end so much as an act of God?
I have a high regard for LSB, and for all those who worked on it, but ... I had little idea it was an act of God!
: )
Okay, well, when it comes to DS I/II it might be of use to know the origins of the Eucharistia that we employ there. It is NOT something from Vatican II. It predates it. The Eucharistia found in that order is essentially adapted from the Lutherische Agende, Berlin, 1955 (you can find it auf Deutsch in Reed, p. 758). So it grew from Lutheran soil, if you will. It was in response to what many had long felt was a bit of hole left at the removal of the canon and its replacement with the Our Father and the Verba. The challenge for Lutherans has always been to find a way in which the Word of the Lord might be heard and rejoiced in as both consecration and Gospel and yet to preserve a context for those words in the history of salvation. The German Agenda did so as follows:
Praised are you, Lord of heaven and the earth, for You have had mercy upon Your creation and sent Your only-begotten Son in our flesh. We thank You for the redemption, which You have prepared for us through the holy all-sufficient offering of His Body and Blood on the wood of the Cross.
In His name and assembled for His remembrance, we pray You, Lord, send down on us Your Holy Spirit Spirit, sanctify and renew us body and soul, and grant, that we receive under this bread and wine Your Son's true body and blood in the right faith for our salvation, as we now according to His command handle and use His own Testament.
The Verba are chanted
And so we remember, Lord, heavenly Father, the salvation-bringing sufferings and death of Your dear Son, Jesus Christ. We praise His victorious resurrection from the dead and are comforted by His ascension into the heavenly sanctuary, where He, our High Priest, ever appears before You. And as we also are all one body in Christ through the fellowship of His body and blood, so bring together Your congregation from the ends of the earth, so that with all the faithful we may celebration the marriage feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom. Through Him, with Him and in Him in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is Yours almighty Father, forever and ever. Amen.
In DS IV, the invariable Preface is NOT from Vatican II, but is the old Swedish Preface from 1531 Petri rite. In DS V, the invariable Preface is from Luther's 1526 Deutsche Messe, revised from exhortation to prayer.
In short, the foundations for the liturgies of LSB are overwhelmingly simply Lutheran in origin and not necessarily tied to the Vatican council at all. The one feature from Vatican II that I do see in our liturgy is the option of the 3-year lectionary and in both lectionaries the use of an Old Testament reading and an optional Psalm replacing the Gradual.
P.S. And the use of more than a single ordo for Mass also traces itself back to the beginnings of the Reformation, where the decision was based upon musical resources - and the presence or absence of the boys to sing the choir parts. In general, town churches had a Formula Missae kind of Mass; the village churches, had a Deutsche Messe kind of Mass. In the old Herzog Heinrich order (which is Missouri's "pedigree" if you will - the Saxon church orders) this distinction produced what is in effect a high mass and a low mass - though both were choral - the difference hanging on whether there was a choir to sing the parts of the liturgy assigned to it.
On liturgical pietism, I think that Bodo Nishan's work on Brandenburg is very helpful. He shows how ceremonies that were in themselves quite indifferent matters came, especially for the laity, to assume HUGE significance as indications of doctrinal orthodoxy. In Brandenburg's case it was the elevation in the Mass and the exorcism at Baptism; oh, and also during the Mass refusing ever to perform the fraction during the Verba.
A Calvinist-minded cleric COULDN'T in good conscience observe these, of themselves, indifferent ceremonies to a Lutheran. Hence, odd as it may sound, in 17th century Brandenburg you could recognize a Lutheran pastor BY his elevation of the Sacrament.
Can indifferent ceremonies carry such weight today? I think, for instance, of a ceremony that is not mentioned in our liturgy, but that has spread to numerous altars of our Synod: the elevation of our Lord's Body and Blood. While we needn't worry (I would hope!) about Calvinists in our ranks, there is the troublesome matter of receptionism (which Fr. Eckardt of Gottesdienst fame has written so well on) - the notion that somehow the Lord's body and blood aren't present when He says so, but only in the split second of the eating and drinking. One who holds to receptionism CANNOT in good conscience elevate and genuflect before the Sacrament which, at that point, so they maintain erroneously, is only bread and wine. The elevation and genuflection, indifferent as they are, profess with clarity: this is the body of the Savior; this is the blood that redeemed the world.
So, I think when it comes to ecclesiastical customs that are in themselves not part of divine worship, we should be cautious of the ditches on either side. Mocking those who observe historical customs because of what they confess is every bit as wrong as elevating that ecclesiastical custom to something necessary for divine worship. There is a middle way - and that middle way is the Lutheran way.
It's interesting that a common joke on the losing side of Vatican II was, we could have saved a lot of time and money by just promulgating "Luther was right" and going home.
To a Catholic traditionalist, the novus ordo is simply a Protestant service, but I have yet to hear a Protestant call it Protestant, better than the Tridentine Rite maybe, but outright Protestant, no.
I think we are confused these days about what is an ordo and what is a "setting", and what is a missal and what is a service book or hymnal. An ordo is not tied to any musical setting, and remains the same regardless of musical setting. Low, high and solemn high Masses are all part of one and the same ordo whose essentials remain the same regardless of choir or rank of celebrant. Similarly, a missal has no music at all.
The "hole" of the removal of the canon was the most immediately noticeable thing about Lutheran worship to me, and took some getting used to, at first seeming minimalist in the extreme.
As time went on, I began to value it, to cherish it, and to find it, regardless of the pedigree of the accretions to the Verba and even granting an original good intention, far better to leave the teaching to preaching and the consecration to the words of Our Lord.
Speaking if which, if you want to have mass according to the original ordo, I suppose I could lead a seder -- though it's been a while since I went to one so I might be a little rusty -- where the magnificent reality of the Verba, in place of the blessings usually said, stand out with all the force they must have had in the Upper Room when instead of what they came for, they heard This Is My Body, This Is My Blood.
I think he made himself quite clear.
I have, over the years, come to concur with the assessment PE that it has a beauty of its own that is hard to beat - the simple Our Father and Verba Christi.
I do notice that LSB followed a variety of expedients though in elaborating the Thanksgiving - and one of the least obtrusive of those was simply expanding the Prefaces and increasing the number of them. Not quite to the point of the Mozarabic rite with one for each Sunday and holy day, but now numerous Sundays and holy days have their own thanksgiving. The expedient used in DS IV is also of interest, where the variable cause for thanksgiving is inserted not into the preface, but the Eucharistia.
I think when Lutherans speak of "ordo" we're thinking primarily of ordered action, not text per se.
The other being, the nature and the details of what this liturgical pogrom was in the RCC I have never heard a Lutheran understand at all.
I mean no disrespect here at all, but frankly, most Catholics didn't understand it either.
Lutherans had their own problems after the Prussian Union.
Christine
"I have a high regard for LSB, and for all those who worked on it, but ... I had little idea it was an act of God!"
Heh heh, Pr. McCain. Now, we all know that the source of truth is in the Magisterium of the Synod. :-P
On a more serious note, while "liturgical pietism" is a bad thing, and Pietism itself is clearly wrong, how will we know when we've crossed the line and we start using "Pietist" as an epithet just like some use "Romanist"? Not saying it's being taken too far today, but without a doubt it could be. I had heard that Dr. Marquart made a comment on how piety shouldn't be deprecated just because Pietism is a bad thing.
"Okay, well, when it comes to DS I/II it might be of use to know the origins of the Eucharistia that we employ there. It is NOT something from Vatican II. It predates it. The Eucharistia found in that order is essentially adapted from the Lutherische Agende, Berlin, 1955..."
Pr. Weedon and Past Elder,
In my understanding, the forces that caused Vatican II were at work for a while beforehand, and the liturgical research forming the Novus Ordo grew, to some extent, out of the Ecumenical Movement and the liturgical scholarship of Casel and Dix. Or at least so says Quill in his book on the Liturgical Movement and American Lutheranism. Just because something predated the actual Council by a few years doesn't convince me that it wasn't drinking from the same water; the letter Pr. McCain has cited from Sasse concerning the "Hochkirche" movement is, in my understanding, referring to that same stream of thought as it began to infect German Lutheranism with interesting characters like Friedrich Heiler.
Past Elder, don't those "Reform of the Reform" folks maintain that the Novus Ordo was a separate development from Vatican II itself? And would you agree or disagree with them on that point?
I'm in Northeast Ohio as long as the Akron area counts, by the way.
The elevation and genuflection, indifferent as they are, profess with clarity: this is the body of the Savior; this is the blood that redeemed the world.
Recognizing, of course, that the absence of these gestures does not NECESSARILY indicate either receptionism or denial of the Body and Blood.
A therefore B does not necessarily mean not A therefore not B.
(Speaking as one who elevates and bows, though that fact is irrelevant.)
In short, the foundations for the liturgies of LSB are overwhelmingly simply Lutheran in origin and not necessarily tied to the Vatican council at all.
Thanks for this brief summary, Weed. You summarized the work of our committee very nicely! The historic Lutheran liturgical road is much broader than many would realize. The 17th century Kirchenordnungen are very enlightening in this respect.
"Recognizing, of course, that the absence of these gestures does not NECESSARILY indicate either receptionism or denial of the Body and Blood."
I would question whether this is always the case; while no ceremony is mandatory for all time, doesn't the idea of a "confessional ceremony" in fact mandate the use of certain ceremonies when they are needed to confess against certain errors present at specific points in church history? This is to the extent that while the absence of those ceremonies doesn't indicate anything by itself, the absence of them during the Crypto-Calvinist influence, for example, would in fact indicate Calvinism?
Pr. Weedon, you appear to have hit a nerve with most everyone...
In some ways, it's better that I became Lutheran in WELS rather than LCMS. In my experience of various LCMS parishes, were that my whole experience I would not know that there is or ever was a Common Service, or anything else all that much different from what goes on in the novus ordo RC parish I am "supposed" to belong to two blocks down, if I'm lucky and the service is not, recalling the wonderful words of Luther at the Movies, led by a lunatic whose idea of worship is akin to en episode of American Idol.
You're quite right Christl, most Catholics haven't a clue what really happened and still think the big change was from Latin to English, not knowing the Latin changed too.
Interesting that after a Prussian Union forced upon us by governments, we come here and set about an American Union ourselves!
PS, I don't have a real problem with DSIV or DSV.
I completely agree about indifferent not meaning inconsequential. The command of the Lord is not the only good reason for doing something, it is the only good reason with a divine command. If it ain't in the Bible we ain't doing it is one thing; if it contradicts the Bible we ain't doing it is quite another, and not the only good reason for doing or not doing something.
Yes Phil, you are quite right, what happened in 1960s Rome didn't just happen but was the result of several decades of activity in and out of Roman circles, against which the popes of the day warned re the RCC, and whose subsequent adoption as liturgical Protestant bodies have moved leftward across the board shows the same effect there; they indeed drank the same water.
Phil -- since it is an RCC intramural matter, I'll try to keep my answers to your questions uncharacteristically short.
The traditionalists are the ones who hold the novus ordo, promulgated after and not during the council, to have gone beyond the scope of revision envisioned by the Council and therefore not valid even by the Council's lights.
The "reform of the reform" is a movement of the current regime, holding that the problem is not the novus ordo per se, which is the (now) ordinary form of worship, but the excesses done in its name which went unchecked for too long. And no, I do not agree with them; the novus ordo and its excesses are simply different points on the spectrum of dissent from what was theretofore Catholicism.
Pr. Weedon, you appear to have hit a nerve with most everyone...
No nerve; just interest. At the close of the day and at the Benediction, we are in remarkable agreement. If we didn't have DS 1/2 and 3 year lectionaries, we'd find something else to bicker about.
Just for fun.
Thanks.
I swear, I only read the "New Liturgical Movement" blog for the pictures, honest...
Yeah, same deal for the Playboys stashed somewhere out in the garage, probably with the Documents of Vatican II and other pornography.
I was gonna check the job listings in Hamel, but now I'm thinking Hacienda Heights.
"...oh, and also during the Mass refusing ever to perform the fraction during the Verba."
Actually, I think it was a refusal to perform the fraction at all, ever, anywhere. Nischan wrote an article about the fractio panis as a flashpoint of conflict between Lutherans and Calvinists in 16th century Germany. I think it was published originally in the journal *Church History* and then appeared in a posthumous collection of Nischan's essays. Nischan mentions in it, as I recall, that in some Lutheran churches the practice of consecrating a larger host for the celebrant was discontinued in order not to have to break it before reception.
It was Nischan who, when I asked him at a session of the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference not long before his death, what was the last Lutheran landeskirche in which the elevation was retained, and until when -- expecting it to be a date sometime in the 1660s -- replied "Schleswig-Holstein" and "1797." This struck me as strange, since S-H was ruled by the Kings of Denmark, and the elevation had been abolished in Denmark in 1556, but I subsequently learned that the elevation was REQUIRED in the Church order and liturgy which the Danish Crown issued for Norway in 1685, and that it remained on the books there, although increasingly disused, until 1814.
The historic Lutheran liturgical road is much broader than many would realize.
Bingo! Give that man a cigar.
Of course, anyone who revels in the singing of a metrical version of the Te Deum by Starke, set to the music of Holst, automatically places himself under suspicion of going wobbly, at least to hear it from some corners of the Synod.
; )
Not from the corner of the Synod that is me!
P.E.
I just entered your name in the central data base under "not liturgically pure" and "not sufficiently courteously reverent" and also under "insensitive to the need to maintain Jacobian English in the liturgy."
You have been notified.
:)
Dr. Tighe,
Wonderful data. Thanks!
I have genuflected although I generally do a profound bow.
Though there are specific points within them that would be worthy of debate, the eucharistic liturgies of the ELCA's ELW and WOV also fall within the broader pale of the Western form of the mass well known among Lutherans as well as LSB/HS98/LW/TLH.
Of course we have some specific points to discuss there, but in terms of form, it is obvious that they all fall within the Lutheran family.
The point is not how broad and diverse we are, but how commonly found is the Lutheran form of the mass (with a few caveats).
What should be true in every case is that we use the form well, with all of its built in diversity, yet struggling for faithfulness not to repristinate an ancient form but to make sure that in each of these the Gospel speaks loudly and clearly, without distraction that overwhelms its voice.
BTW, I have never found the naked Verba simple and pleasing. It has always been rather jarring and abrupt to go from the richness of the historic preface, proper preface, and Sanctus into the Verba without a prayer of thanksgiving to set the stage. Just as then, so now the Words of Christ were not naked but fleshed out. It is well to remember that Jesus did not repeat the Verba in the Upper Room but the Verba attempts to capture what Jesus did pray (albeit in summary form "He gave thanks...").
PTM, censor deputatus -- you know I have no more problem with individual cups (aka shot glasses) than with individual wafers, don't you?
Such is my fate, to be a liberal among conservatives and a conservative among liberals.
If anything, except a devout remnant, about the E?CA falls within the Lutheran family, it's time to pack it in. Maybe after the last convention it should be written E??A.
The best, most vested, by the book, organ, choir, hymns and not a praise band or babe in sight "Lutheran" service I know is the local cable telecast of an ELCA service led by an ELCA priestitute.
Fortunately Jimmy Swaggart is on the hour before.
Pastor Weedon, what does the 1531 Swedish rite do with the Sanctus/Benedictus? I can't remember off the top of my head how it's done in the LSB service it's in. Though if I remember correctly, we have the Luther chorale on the Sanctus after the Verba.
When the committee was talking eucharistic prayers, was their any consideration of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer Anaphora or the prayer used at Zion Detroit (I think written by Rev. Evans)?
Brian,
Swedish rite followed FM in locating Sanctus/Benedictus qui venit AFTER the Verba; but Sweden also expanded the preface into a full prayer of thanksgiving - a quite powerful one, I might add. Most of the thoughts of that prayer are retained in the one preface provided in DS IV.
The working group on the Lord's Supper liturgy had all the previous attempts before us, and that includes the Cambridge prayer from Worship Supplement which was largely based on 1549. I don't think Zion's prayer came into consideration, though. My own recommendations can be read in my essay in *Through the Church the Song Goes On.* I argued for offering a Eucharistic prayer with the Verba in it along the lines either of the Synod's revision of SBH from El Culto Christiano, from the German prayer I cited above, or from the Swedish order in the manner Maxwell and I suggested (and which Tim Quill cites in his work on the Liturgical Movement and American Lutheranism).
The liturgy used at Zion Detroit was one of the first things I stumbled upon as I looked beyond WELS.
I remember thinking, I might stumble on the English, but otherwise I'm good to go.
Seemed exactly the retained yet reformed sort of thing the BOC was talking about.
Perhaps even more striking than Zion's liturgy, Terry, is the revision of the Roman Canon according to Lutheran criterion that Pr. George H. Strack put together (he's a pastor of the LCC):
We come to You, Father, with praise and thanksgiving, not as we ought, but as we are able. We beg You to accept and bless the prayer we offer you. Do not consider what we truly deserve, but grant us Your forgiveness. We ask this, through Jesus Christ, Your Son. In communion with Him, we implore You, Lord, remember Your only, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Watch over it and guide it. Grant it peace and unity through the world. We pray for N. and N., our bishops, and all who hold and teach the catholic faith that comes to us through the apostles.
Remember, Lord, Your people, especially N. and N., those whom we name in our hearts. Remember all of us gathered here before You, our living and true God. We pray for our well-being and redemption. Grant us peace in this life and a place in the world to come, through Christ our Lord. In union with the whole Church, we honor Mary, the mother of Jesus, our Lord and God. We honor Joseph, her husband, the apostles, confessors and martyrs (especially N.) and all the saints. Empower us to imitate them in lives of faith and service.
Bless and sanctify with the power of the Holy Spirit, this bread and wine, which You have given us, that they be unto us the body and blood of Your dear Son, the food and drink of eternal life.
Enable us to celebrate worthily this sacramental mystery, the New Covenant of our Divine Redeemer: who on the night in which He was betrayed, took bread and gave thanks... for you and for all people, for the forgiveness of sins. Do this for the remembrance of me.
Let us proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again (yeah, Terry, I know...)
Father, we bless You, for the saving presence of Christ in this sacred meal. He is the Lamb of God, who gave Himself once and for all, as a holy, immaculate and perfect sacrifice for our sin, and for the life and salvation of the whole world. For this we praise You.
We beseech You, Father, look with favor upon us and receive our thanks as You accepted the offerings of Your servants, Abel and Noah, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the bread and wine offered by Your priest, Melchisedech.
Almighty God, in union with them, we pray that Your holy angel carry our worship to Your altar in Heaven and unite us in the unending liturgy of Your servants of every time and place, through Christ our Lord, from whom all good things come.
Through Him, with Him, in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is Yours, almighty Father now and forever.
OK, so that prayer is kinda sorta akin to the one in the the Swedish Missal, but is not an actual translation of the same.
Correct, it would be safe to say that DS IV's preface is based upon the Swedish, but further than that I wouldn't go. Yet it DID have a 16th century Lutheran basis.
The other thing that struck me in those days was the Lutheran version of the St John Chrysostom liturgy used by the Ukrainian Lutherans, to which my blog has always linked and I think you have linked to it in a post or two as well.
Now that's the real deal Eastern Style, no Options A,B,or C, no "settings" 1,2,buckle my shoe, no here's the readings unless those are the readings, no this is the calendar but this is the calendar too.
Nor did the Common Service, when it was written, do such nonsense either. Nobody did until the last century, which is more my point that the particulars.
They are actually in KELK (oder CELC) as is WELS.
Watch over it and guide it.
Arggghhh. One of my biggest peeves with the Roman novus ordo --referring to the church as "it" rather than "her." This is supposedly being restored by Rome in the new missal translation -- if the bishops can ever stop arguing about whether or not the laity are capable of understanding the revisions.
Christine
Back to the subject, there's a lot of ELCA influence in the congregations I serve, and this has influenced the thinking. So, to more clearly draw the lines between the two groups, I abstain from using DSI and II. If the ELCA would significantly change and stop using these services, I would be somewhat open to using them, but it's most certainly not my first choice.
I'd love to see that Swedish stuff in English. Maybe as an appendix to something by Bishop Giertz.
If you have Reed, Brian, you have some of the most interesting Swedish stuff - the Red Book of John III. Evanson sent me a xerox of his copy of that. Sweet! It does what I've become in the habit of doing: it front loads the canon into the intercessions - including the epiclesis!
I have Edition 1 of Reed. Should get Edition 2 someday. But it tends to be expensive. Can't remember if that was in both editions.
And if The Bride of Christ ever publishes again, might make a good spot for this stuff.
Though there are specific points within them that would be worthy of debate, the eucharistic liturgies of the ELCA's ELW and WOV also fall within the broader pale of the Western form of the mass well known among Lutherans as well as LSB/HS98/LW/TLH.
Lord have mercy! I keep the "faithful remnant" in the ELCA, The WordAlone Network, in my prayers. As for the rest of it, being a survivor of the ELCA and its increasing syncretism and unionism I must with all due respect vigorously differ!
Christine
Yeah, same deal for the Playboys stashed somewhere out in the garage, probably with the Documents of Vatican II and other pornography.
Definitely a hint of Fred Reed curmudgeonly humor. I must admit, I like it! We'll have to break out the Don Julio the next time you touch down on the left coast.
Bingo! Give that man a cigar.
Montecristo Cabinet de Cincuenta 748
For an English version of the Swedish stuff, get a copy of Erik E. Yelverton's *The Mass in Sweden* (1919); it reprints the central portions of all the Swedish rites between 1529 and 1893. It was recently reprinted, and cheap-ish copies can be found on Abebooks.com, amazon.com and elsewhere, e.g.:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=yelverton&bi=0&bx=off&ds=30&sortby=17&sts=t&tn=mass+in+sweden&x=41&y=9
His other books, *The Swedish Rite* (1921), a translation of the 1917 Swedish Liturgy:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=yelverton&bi=0&bx=off&ds=30&sortby=17&sts=t&tn=swedish+rite&x=53&y=10
and *An Archbishop of the Reformation: Laurentius Petri Nericius, Archbishop of Uppsala 1531-1573, A Study of his Liturgical Projects* (1958):
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=yelverton&bi=0&bx=off&ds=30&sortby=17&sts=t&tn=archbishop&x=41&y=16
are also of great interest.
Geez Swirlie, one of them is Polish-American from Chicago, with a picture of JPII in the background. Nuttin compared to the Katarina Witt issue though, and she's Lutheran too (I think, but if not, here's to a critical event).
Fred Reed? Maybe I'm Scuttlebutt, in which case, I'd better give myself that hotline to the pizza joint.
We're breaking out Don Julio? What's he in for?
Thank you, sir! I'll have to get those once I'm situated on vicarage and have the necessary funds!
...confessional Lutheranism does *not* embrace the notion, as does Rome, that the specific form of the Divine Service, carries with it some kind of Divine mandate.
Rites and ceremonies can, and very well may be, changed, at any time. There is no "best form" in the final analysis. To get hung up on such things, as some do, does not serve the Gospel.
What confessional Lutheranism heartily embraces is the view that all things should be done decently and in good order...
The historic Lutheran liturgical road is much broader than many would realize.
I'd say it's pretty clear where the LCMS stands.
So much for lex orandi est lex credendi in any sort of patristic sense.
Of course, people are still allowed to play dress-up and mix and match according to aesthetic and/or intellectual predilection.
Well, Anonymous, this is one of the things that sends people to Rome or East.
Who decides what is "decent", what is "in good order", who decides when is the time for change, and what changes are indicated? Who's in charge, how do we know they are in charge, and how do we know they will get it right?
That's one thing about being a former academic, former elder, not a blackbird, and also a butt in the pew. Most of the butts in the pew aren't going to pore over rites used here and there over time or get excited at more scholarly works they can read on same.
It carries a message when there's five or pick a number ways to do something, choices within each way, two sets of readings, two calendars, on and on, and the result doesn't seem all that much different than what happens in the church down the street with their new worship books too.
And the message is -- well we're really all on the same page anyway, it doesn't make that much difference, we've all come a long way from a dark past, hey why can't we try this too, this is what people relate to now, on and on.
And the exodus to Rome or the East is matched by an exodus to Willow Creek or the nearest "community" church -- which in some cases used to have OUR name on the door.
Another reason to heed what this Augustinian renegade wrote in the preface to this little catechism he wrote -- this is all fine in theological and other learned circles, and when you're there, have at it, but otherwise, pick something and stick to it.
Lex orandi lex credendi happens. The "liturgical movement" knew it, and were quite clear that a break with the traditional liturgy, and the preaching tradition associated with it, must happen. In this way, what is taught to some in class that faith and faith documents can be understood in various ways by various means is indirectly "taught" to all in church that there's no one way, but many valid ways and perhaps more we haven't thought of yet.
Mix and match to suit.
this is all fine in theological and other learned circles, and when you're there, have at it, but otherwise, pick something and stick to it.
There's wisdom in that. Having two calendars, two sets of readings, etc. just about guarantees that on any given Sunday LCMS Lutherans will never hear the same readings and sermons on those readings in all parishes.
Christine
Pastor Weedon, you wrote:
"It does what I've become in the habit of doing: it front loads the canon into the intercessions - including the epiclesis!"
In essence, I am gathering that you are saying that your use is to include the many intercessory prayers that were once a part of the Canon (not meaning the exact words of ye old Roman canon, but the notion of intercession that was present in it) and placing them in the General Prayer, and including an invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the gifts (and people?) during the General Prayer.
If I am mistaken, please correct me.
If I am not, how is that framed out in the Liturgy? When is the Offertory, Sursum Corda, etc., in relation to the General Prayer in your use?
Rob+
Father,
What we often use is something like this or a variant of it (called "the Remember Prayer" by one of my former vicars). In LSB 3, this would fall between the presentation of the gifts and the Sursum:
We come to You, Holy Father, with praise and thanksgiving, through Jesus Christ, Your Son. Through Him we ask You to accept and bless the prayers and gifts we offer - for we offer You in thanksgiving only what You have first given to us in love. Lord, in Your mercy, R.
Remember, Lord, Your holy church. Watch over her and guide her. Grant her peace and unity throughout the world. Lord, in Your mercy, R.
Remember, Lord, our Synodical President, Gerald, our District President, Herbert, together with all pastors and servants of the Church. Grant them to hold and teach the faith that comes to us from the apostles. Lord, in Your mercy, R.
Remember, Lord, our President, our public servants, and all in our armed forces. Guide, bless, protect and uphold them in honor. Bring all nations into the ways of peace and justice. Lord, in Your mercy, R.
Remember us, Lord, in Your kindness and love, and grant us seasonable weather and an abundance of the fruits of the earth. Lord, in your mercy, R.
Remember, Lord, all who suffer for Your name, all who are in prison, the hungry and ill-clad, the poor and the lonely, those who travel, and all who cry out to You in their time of need, especially: ... Lord, in your mercy, R.
Remember all who are gathered here before You, our living and true God. We pray for our well-being and redemption. Order our days in your peace, deliver us from the danger of eternal death, and number us among Your chosen flock. Though we are sinners, we trust in Your mercy and love. Do not consider what we truly deserve, but grant us Your forgiveness. Lord, in Your mercy, R.
Remember, Lord, N. and all our sisters and brothers who have fallen asleep in Christ our Savior. Refresh their souls with heavenly consolation and joy and fulfill for them all the gracious promises in Your Word which You have given to those who believe in You. Lord, in Your mercy, R.
Holy Father, in communion with the whole Church we honor Your saints, in whom You have given us a mirror of Your mercy and grace. We praise You especially for the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph her husband, St. John the Baptist, Saints Peter and Paul, and all Your martyrs. Give us grace to walk before you with faith like theirs, and in accordance with their prayers grant us a share in their heavenly fellowship. Lord, in Your mercy, R.
Lord God, we pray You, bless and sanctify, with the power of Your Holy Spirit, this bread and wine, which you have given us, that through our Lord’s Words they may become His body and blood, the food and drink of eternal life.
And grant us worthily to receive this sacramental mystery, the New Testament of our Divine Redeemer, for He is the Lamb of God, who gave Himself once and for all, as a holy, spotless and perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sin and for the life and salvation of the whole world.
Through Him, with Him and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is Yours, Almighty Father, forever and ever.
Geez, pretty much the canon stuck in the end of the offertory so there won't be a canon.
Basically, but that leaves the Verba free to stand in all their glory and the canon's intercessions were pretty comprehensive and so putting them back into the prayer of the Church (as inspired by the King John Red Book) made a great deal of sense to me.
There is no Prayer of the Church in what I grew up with. No intercessions either, in the sense of someone or something specific to the time and place, like for a parishioner's recovery from illness etc. The sermon isn't even listed as you go through the Mass in my old missal, parenthetically in my dad's. There would be one on Sundays, maybe ten minutes or so, maybe or maybe not on weekdays.
OTOH, the Mass was offered for an intention, which may be printed in the bulletin. This means someone, usually with a few $$ too, requested the Mass to be "said" for this or that intention. Of course you could unofficially, as it were, go to Mass and offer it up for your own intention too.
Revisited an article by Dr Horn from The Lutheran Quarterly on "The Lutheran Origins of the Common Service". Was struck this time by 1) how concerns for adaptibility etc were very much considered and 2) how functionally except for a few places we now have neither a Common Service nor a common service.
This ongoing subject (not in your blog only, but in several others)is perplexing to me. I guess I'm a "liturgical pietist".. and I'm happy that way.
I've heard it put this way:
Liturgy is adiaphora, as long as there is unity. But when there is no unity, there is no adiaphora.
Well, there is no unity... so we should get back to basics, IMO.
OTOH, the Mass was offered for an intention, which may be printed in the bulletin. This means someone, usually with a few $$ too, requested the Mass to be "said" for this or that intention. Of course you could unofficially, as it were, go to Mass and offer it up for your own intention too.
Hey, PE, in the novus ordo RC the Mass intentions ran around $10.00 (maybe more or less, depending on the diocese).
But darn it if I didn't almost always miss the days that the "Mass Book" was opened to enroll the intentions!
What's a working gal to do!
Christine
"liturgical pietist"..
I have been called this. But I am in great company. :)
The name "Lutheran" also started as an insult.
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