It really should have been obvious where to look: Sweden! Here is the prayer that the Latvians Lutherans (in fellowship with the LCMS) offer at the Eucharist:Praise be to You, Lord of heaven and earth. You have revealed your mercy towards Your people in giving Your only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. We give thanks for the redemption You have prepared for us through Jesus Christ. Let Your Holy Spirit come into our hearts to enlighten us with a living faith.
Sanctify by Your Spirit this bread and wine, which earth has given and human hands have made. Here we offer them to You, that through them we may partake of the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
On the same night in which He was betrayed, He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying:
"Take, eat.
This is My body,
which is given for you.
Do this in remembrance of Me."
In the same way, he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to his disciples, saying:
"Drink this, all of you.
This is my blood of the new covenant,
which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this, as often as you drink it,
in remembrance of me."
The mystery of faith!
People: Your death, O Lord, we proclaim and Your resurrection we celebrate until You come again in glory!
Therefore, heavenly Father, we celebrate this Supper in remembrance of Your Son's passion and death, His resurrection and ascension. We will eat the Bread of Life and drink the Cup of Blessing until the day when He comes again in glory.
We ask you: remember the perfect and eternal sacrifice through which, in Christ, You have reconciled us with Yourself. Grant that we may be united into one body, and be made a perfect living sacrifice in Christ.
Through Him, and with Him, and in Him, by the power of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is Yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever. Amen
17 comments:
I like that prayer. Beautiful, IMHO
I guess the next question to ask is how long they've been using that prayer (i.e. did it come in during the LBW/LW era, was it introduced earlier with the Liturgical Movement, or have they been using it all along?).
True to present-day Lutheran form, by the way, that PDF with liturgical texts has Divine Service (type 1) and Divine Service (type 2), with a different Eucharistic rite for the second.
It really is remarkable, though--that one church body has high liturgy in the cathedrals with copes, incense, genuflecting, etc.; standard present-day LCMS-type with albs and stoles; and old-style pietistic black gowns with tabs or ruff collars.
Even though it happens before the verba, it appears that there is an epiclesis of sorts when the celebrant prays:Sanctify by Your Spirit this bread and wine, which earth has given and human hands have made.
Chris,
It is interesting. It's different from the LSB "epiclesis", i.e. "sanctify us" instead of "sanctify the bread and wine".
I've been trying to figure out the Epiclesis for a while now. Obviously we can't give the impression that the Holy Spirit comes down on the basis that we told Him to. On the other hand, it's Christ's Verba that consecrate the Sacrament and effect the Real Presence, and the Holy Spirit is always present with the Word, to enact what it says (even without us asking Him to). I would be more comfortable in a way talking in terms of "The Holy Spirit does and has sanctified this bread and wine," after the Consecration. It's not that we get the Holy Spirit to come, it's that the Holy Spirit is the spirit of Christ, who gives the Sacrament.
Actually, there is an epiclesis not only only the people, but in the next paragraph for the bread and wine. I've always found that what slices through the gordian knot in this regard is Luther's recognition:
For as soon as Christ says: "This is my Body," His body is present through the Word and the power of the Holy Spirit. (AE 36:341)
The Spirit and the Words run together. And to ask for that which most certainly is promised is a very Lord's Prayer-y thing to do. :)
Pr. Weedon, I agree with you on that last part, and I've seen what you've written on this, for example, regarding prayers for the dead. Clearly there is a right and a wrong way to do this, though: praying in certainty for what has certainly been promised or been accomplished already, or praying in doubt as if the thing had not been clearly promised or accomplished (i.e. prayers for souls in purgatory, a "consecratory" epiclesis, an absolution stated as asking for potential forgiveness instead of declaring actual forgiveness). The question, then, is what the difference is.
Can you tell the difference by the text of the prayer itself, or is it hidden within heart of the person praying? Put differently, what is the boundary line for what an epicletic prayer can be and what it can't?
Phil,
From a Lutheran standpoint, what the epiclesis cannot be is consecratory, for the Words of Christ give what they say.
It's one of the difficulties I have with the use of the epiclesis in the LBW rite where it follows the consecration as though the bread and wine were not already consecrated!
So, if the epiclesis is to be used within the confines of Lutheran liturgy in a way congruent with our Symbols it must always precede the actual consecration and the consecration by the Words of Institution must be in fact the answer to the prayer - for this is how the Holy Spirit accomplishes the miracle: through our Lord's own speaking and giving. The Swedish/Latvian prayer strikes me as well within these bounds.
So we do confess against Eastern Orthodoxy, then, that their placement of the Epiclesis is wrong?
And even if we place the Epiclesis before the Verba, though, isn't it still possible for it to be worded in such a way that it gives the impression that we are the ones calling down the Holy Spirit?
It is sort of a classic East/West division of course. Oddly enough, it is St. John Chrysostom who is cited for the Western doctrine of the consecration (which we also find very clearly in St. Ambrose). I think if you contrast the Latvian prayer with the Orthodox anaphora you will readily see the difference, though curiously the Basil anaphora asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit *to show* the bread and wine to be Christ's true body and blood. Still, I've never heard any Orthodox understand that *show* in any different way than the Chrysostom's prayer: *make.* The way the Latvian/Swedish prayer phrases this actually reminds me of that Red Book I mentioned a few weeks ago: "Sanctify this bread and wine that in their proper use they may be to us the body and blood of Christ, the food and drink of eternal life."
P.S. to avoid all ambiguity, Lutherans could pray along these lines if they used an epiclesis at all:
Sanctify by Your Holy Spirit this bread and wine that *through our Lord's words* they may be for us His body and blood, the food and drink of eternal life.
When we use the Prayer of the Church based upon the Swedish order, that's how we ask it.
Pastor Weedon:
I watched the entire Latvian Eucharist that you had posted. I really enjoyed it! It is wonderful to see what Lutheranism can be like when it is not effected by American Evangelical culture. I was impressed by the large number of young people the Latvians were confirming, and by the deep Eucharistic piety so evident among the people. Its funny how when one leaves North America, the Chalice reappears amongst Lutherans as the ONLY way to administer our Lord's Precious Blood. I hope some day American Lutheranism can restore the exclusive use of the Chalice on a very large scale.
Thanks for posting this. It did my heart good to see some traditional Lutheran worship.
Brother Boris
Now if we can just get them to dump the Reformed black preaching gowns.
Pastor Weedon,
My question is somewhat off topic, but as you state these Latvian Lutherans are in fellowship with the LCMS who, I think, claim apostolic succession or historic episcopate for their bishops which is obviously not considered church dividing between the two bodies.
Do any of their bishops participate in the ordinations of LCMS clergy? Would the Latvian church allow a dp or pastor of the LCMS ordain its clergy, including bishops?
Thanks!
I know enough Latvian to know that this Eucharistic Prayer has little or nothing in common with that from the Peterisbaznica in Riga that Pr. Weedon put up here a few days ago. In fact, I am pretty sure that this EP was one of the four or five produced in Sweden for the new "Church Order" of 1986. If this is the case, it may have been translated into Latvian, but it's origins are wholly Swedish, and modern.
Dr. Tighe,
Don't know if it was the one used, but it is from their liturgy book (I downloaded) and put it through the translator and it was manifestly of a piece with the Swedish one. So it's their first option. I didn't explore the other liturgies in the book. I'll have to do that too! Maybe if I post them, one of them will ring a bell with what we heard at that service.
Well, based on some of the verbiage in it, it seems to be a modern product crafted of bits and pieces from the past, much like two of the four EPs in the novus ordo.
I don't know a bloody thing about the Swedish sources, but based on internal evidence only, I would have to concur with Dr Tighe, thus denying the readership yet again one of our famous dust-ups.
PS -- I should have said three of the EPs in the novus ordo, EP1 being a miserable hack job on the Roman canon, it too a modern product based on but not the same as material from the past, but that's a separate issue.
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