...there is simply nothing so peaceful and calming as to light the candles on the family altar, burn some incense, take out your
Treasury, sing the liturgy of Evening Prayer and let the peace of God fill your heart and drive away all the rush, all the anxiety, all the hurry-sickness. God has a peace for us that the world cannot give...
9 comments:
Incense and candles and icons (from the picture) with prayer? I'm sure the LCMS purity police (lead by Past Elder and McCain) are going to come after you for that one.
Chris,
There are sometimes I wonder if you understand the Church you left. Neither Past Elder nor Pr. McCain would likely be troubled by either. By teaching that they were necessary? Yes, indeed. But by using them because they are fitting? Not at all.
Me too Chris. I have no idea whatever why a person would have a "family altar", and I know people who similarly find nothing to peaceful and calming as to light some candles, burn some incense, take out the bowl and let the peace of uh, whatever drive away all the anxiety etc, but hey, if someone enjoys it in their Christian Freedom, well hey. Wear blue and call it Sarum!
Oh, but thanks -- I'm flattered to be put in the company of Pastor McCain!
Svenska, not Sarum... :)
Well, the ruddy Swedes used it, yes, and so for that matter did the Mozarabic Rite, but it got the name Sarum blue because the Sarum Rite did too. But the resurrection of these past usages is a modern thing from the "scholars" for whom traditions are the raw material of scholarly liturgical pastiches.
I think Pastor McCain's objection to iconography (on this blog, as I recall) was not to their use at all, but to them being used to adorn a Lutheran altar. I disagreed with him on that point (and was a Lutheran at the time), but I do see a distinction between their devotional use and their use in Church architecture. If for no other reason than the latter is public and the former is private.
Beautiful altar, by the way, Pastor Weedon. I believe that is an icon of the nativity to the left of the cross? We have two of those (somewhat different from your particular example), since we were Chrismated at the Nativity. That particular icon has a lot going on. One could meditate on it for years and not fully plumb its depths. It is fascinating to me that some of the icons contain a whole lot more truth than could be written on a similarly sized page.
Past Elder and McCain have routinely spoken out against such things as affectations and thus, not necessary. They may have spoken in jest, but I couldn't tell.
And I do understand the church I left. And I'm better for it.
Chris,
Maybe I'm just tone deaf, but I hear a different sort of critique ring out in Pr. McCain's criticisms; and as for Terry, well, it usually depends on whether or not it has the sniff of novus ordo about it!!! (Yanking your chain, Terry!). And I didn't mean to insult you, Chris, by suggesting that you may not have fully understood the church you left - so very many don't. Their perspective tends to be limited by the Lutheranism that they have themselves experienced. I'm sure you wouldn't Orthodoxy judged merely by the limited experience of this or that person - so too with Lutheranism, which tends to be richer far and deeper and wider than many American Lutherans ever guess. That's all I was getting at. A blessed Advent to you as we prepare for the joys of the Christ-Mass!
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