Must Read: Pr. Asburry Tackles the Tithe

Check it out here:  Tithe. He'd absolutely correct.

New Lutheran Quote of the Day

But the Father did not only make everything through His Son, but also in Him and for Him.  -- A. C. Piepkorn, The Church, p. 195

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

If you want to be a Christian, take care that you do not pass over this banquet. -- Blessed Martin Luther, Sermon for Trinity 2, House Postils 2:249.

Patristic Quote of the Day

Christ, seeing His Church in white garments, this Church for whom He, Himself, as you see in the prophet Zachary, was clad in a robe of ignominy, seeing the soul purified and washed in the baptismal bath, says:  "Thou art beautiful, my love, thou art beautiful.  Thine eyes are like doves and there is no stain in thee," because sin was destroyed in the water. -- St. Ambrose, De Myst. 37

Liturgies et Cantiques Lutheriens

My friend Pr. David Saar was unbelievably kind and shipped a copy of the new French hymnal to me.  I have only had a few hours to look it over, but I find it to be outstanding.  No, I don't know a word of French.  That will never stop me.  It's a romance language and it's easy enough to figure out if you stop and think about it - just don't ask me to pronounce it!  This is a random list of things I've found of interest, most of them I think are quite well done; a couple not so much.

* No historic lectionary even as an option; it's pure novus ordo. MAJOR sadness.
* Timothy and Titus are commemorated together on January 26 - that's a wise move.
* Mary is commemorated upon September 8th (her traditional Nativity); but there is no mention of it being her Nativity, and there is no celebration at all on August 15 - that is a sadness.
* A couple names in the commemorations that I'm not familiar with, but that I take it would have special meaning to French Christians:  Hubert de Maastricht, Lambert de Maastricht, Maurice d' Agaune, Edwige de Silesie.
* The psalms are beautifully laid out and pointed for chanting in a very easy to follow manner, using boldface to indicate the syllables on which to change pitch; there are occasional antiphons printed throughout the Psalter.  Like LSB, it is not the complete Psalter.
* Three Orders of "The Liturgy of the Holy Communion."
* Gloria in Excelsis is the ONLY option and is omitted, as expected, in Advent and Lent
* "And with your spirit" is the consistent response to the salutation.  FANCY THAT!
* The collects and proper prefaces are ALL IN THE HYMNAL!!!  BRAINSTORM, what?
* The Creed (Apostles or Nicene) ALWAYS follows the Hymn of the Day and Homily
* For Liturgy A and B, there is an offertory prayer after the Offertory; three choices.  The first option is familiar from LBW, but first appeared, I believe, in the Contemporary Worship series in the 1970's:  Merciful Father, we offer with joy and thanksgiving what You have first given us - ourselves, our time, and our possessions, signs of Your goodness and symbols of our love.  Accept them for the sake of Him who offered Himself for us, Jesus Christ, our Lord.  That would be a definite plus.
* A and B use the longer option from LSB 1 and 2 - but a shorter form is not apparently an option.  So you get the Prayer of thanksgiving, the Words of our Lord, the Proclamation of Christ, then the Our Father.  I count this a strength.  In Service C (which is rather like DS 4 in LSB) you have the same order we have in that rite.
* A and B have an invitation to communion immediately following the Agnus Dei.  I am supposing that the pastor holds the elements towards the people as he announces:  The gifts of God for the people of God!  Their response is the traditional:  Lord, we are not worthy to receive you into ourselves, but speak the word and we shall be healed.  Some indebtedness to the 1969 Worship Supplement there.
* B makes use of the Louis Bourgeois rimed paraphrase of the Nunc Dimittis, I believe, to it's traditional tune (we use that tune for "O Gladsome Light, O Grace")
* All three liturgies provide the same three post-communion collects from which to choose.
* The Taize Kyrie, Kyrie Eleison is set to the longer litany we have in Evening Prayer.
* Four Offices are provided:  Matins, Sext, Vespers and Compline.
* Orders are included for Baptism, Admission to the Sacrament, Marriage, Funeral
* Special uses are provided for the first Sunday in Advent, Penitential seasons, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and the Vigil of Easter, Private Confession and Absolution, and visiting of the sick.
* Athanasian Creed and Small Catechism included as well.

That's about as far as I'm going for tonight, but over all, a VERY well done book.  Pr. Saar and others who worked on it, also worked on LSB, and if I may say so, they have at almost every point offered improvements.  I thought the Bourgeois Nunc Dimittis was especially fitting with a french speaking culture.  I'll be exploring the hymns a bit more later!  But after a couple hours with it, I must confess:  Well done indeed.  What a resource for work with Haitians and numerous other French speakers around the world!

Curiouser and Curiouser!

Today's Reporter lists Errata in the Convention Workbook.  President Gilbert's NID report caught my attention.  In his original report the words "human care" were replaced with "Synod reports."  A quick check of the Convention Workbook online reveals that the exact same displacement occurs on p. 122, 123 (English District report); p. 131 (Nebraska District report); p. 133 (North Dakota District report); p. 134 (Pr. Gilbert's NID report); and p. 138 (Rocky Mountain report).  Why on earth would one execute a global search and replace for the words "human care" with the words "Synod reports"?  It gives one furiously to think.

New Lutheran Quote of the Day

It is as a baptized member of the Christian community that the individual receives the Holy Communion, and it is precisely the sacrificial giving up of oneself for Christ and for the sake of His Bride the Church that our reception of the Holy Communion implies.  We receive it no only so that through it God might strengthen us individually in faith toward Him, but also that He might increase our fervent love to one another. -- A. C. Piepkorn, The Church, p. 240.

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

This preaching of Christ is the great and glorious supper with which he feeds his guests and sanctifies them through his holy Baptism, and comforts and strengthens them through the Sacrament of His body and blood, that nothing may be wanting and a great plenty may be at hand and all become satisfied. -- Blessed Martin Luther, Sermon for Trinity 2, Church Postil IV:44.

Patristic Quote of the Day

His mission was no pursuit or hounding of us, it was an invitation to us; it was in love, not in judgment.  -- Epistle to Diognetus, par. 7

28 Days

Took Jo to see a new doctor this morning, and she put her on the elimination diet for the next 28 days. I could honestly think of no way to get Jo to agree to this regimen if she had to eat it alone, so we're eating it with her:  Jo and Dave,  Cindi and I.  Plus Bekah, too, she thinks.  Lord, have mercy. Will let you know how it goes... I just keep telling myself:  "It's just 28 days, you can do just about anything for 28 days." And my favorite question I think is going to be:  Is it July 4th YET??? Dinner tonight was a bit of experimenting (no real time to cook after dr appointment, cleaning up the pantry, and restocking it by grocery shopping) - a fresh salad, humus on rice crackers, almond butter on rice crackers, buckwheat groats (which tasted amazingly like oatmeal) served with some almond milk, and lots of fruit: strawberries, blueberries, cherries, and blackberries. Also about four cups of herbal tea. We can do this - and may it bring some good answers for Jo's many issues. You all pray we can support her all the way through and keep her strictly on it!

Quartet

was fabulous today in singing the Introit, Gradual and Verse in beautiful 4-part harmony, but the crown jewel was singing "Lord, Thee I Love" with the quartet doing the second stanza during the distribution of the holy Sacrament.  Beautiful, just beautiful.

Oh, my.

Well, today Cindi not only baked my favorite - pizza - but also a knock-your-socks off strawberry-rhubarb pie with an outstanding lo-carb crust. We both had a piece at lunch.  We went out to dinner and then to the movies (Robin Hood - I thought it was surprisingly good, but why did they cremate the old Lockley? - I don't think that would ever have happened in Christian Britain), and back home.  We decided to have another piece of pie, since, after all, it is our anniversary.  As I'm eating it, I look over to the counter and notice an empty pie plate.  I asked:  "Did we just eat the whole pie in two sittings?"  "Yup."  "I ate half a pie today?"  "Yup."  Good thing anniversaries don't happen every day...

Our Little Friends

The coon wants to know why it can't eat in peace!  Lucy enjoying a swim.

Thanking God for 28 Years Together...

...it was Saturday, June 5, 1982 that Cindi and I were married at the Lutheran Church of St. Andrew, in Silver Spring, MD.  It was overcast most of the day, with occasional rain.  Greg Walton was my best man and Debbie DeVries (now Dillon) was the maid of honor.

Cindi has been an incredible icon of God's mercy and grace in my life.  We've been friends since we first met in 7th grade. Way back then she already captured my heart through my taste buds:  she had the best hot cinnamon toothpicks you could find at Belt Junior High Schooll!  We have had a ton of fun - Cindi's grandmother always found our antics entertaining.  John Fuchs once said:  "I'd like to be a fly on the wall of that house."  Our kids know we're weird and that we don't care one little bit.  Tickle fights and pillow fights and all sorts of nonsense are our usual fare.

Through the years together, the golden thread of music has been our mutual delight.  I remember so well when Pr. Aufdemberge and Jo first visited St. Paul's for Vespers and heard her singing the Magnificat.  He turned around to ask if he could inquire the name of the angel who sang so heavenly.  I hope that the Lord gives us many more years of making music and delighting in our long companionship and friendship.  And for the years He has already given, all glory and praise and thanks!

New Lutheran Quote of the Day

We have already stressed that the Sacrament of the Altar is a making present again of God's act in Christ, His nativity, His baptism, fasting, and temptations, His perfect life of obedience, His rejection, His last supper, His agony and blood sweat, His betrayal, His arrest, His cross and execution, His precious death and burial, His glorious resurrection and ascension, and in anticipation and hope His self-disclosure to vindicate and liberate His church and His creation at the great palingennesia (regeneration). All this is made present before God and before us. This sacrifice, this oblation, this offering is for the world. It is retroactive to the first human being, and it thrusts forward in its saving effect to the end of the age. Although the essential historical moment of His once-and-for-all sacrifice is chronologically in the past, the one priest is Christ and the one victim is Christ. -- A. C. Piepkorn, The Church, pp. 191,2.

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

Remember that you cannot do anything to be saved, but there is much you can do to forfeit that salvation.  God earnestly desires all people to be saved.  He has not appointed a single individual for damnation.  -- C. F. W. Walther, God Grant It! p. 484.

Patristic Quote of the Day

Bearing the Cross upon His shoulders, on which He was about to be crucified, He went forth; His doom was already fixed, and He had undergone, for our sakes, though innocent, the sentence of death. For, in His own Person, He bore the sentence righteously pronounced against sinners by the Law. For He became a curse for us, according to the Scripture: For cursed is everyone, it is said, that hangeth on a tree. And accursed are we all, for we are not able to fulfil the Law of God: For in many things we all stumble; and very prone to sin is the nature of man. And since, too, the Law of God says: Cursed is he which continueth not in all things that are written in the book of this Law, to do them, the curse, then, belongeth unto us, and not to others. For those against whom the transgression of the Law may be charged, and who are very prone to err from its commandments, surely deserve chastisement. Therefore, He that knew no sin was accursed for our sakes, that He might deliver us from the old curse. For all-sufficient was the God Who is above all, so dying for all; and by the death of His own Body, purchasing the redemption of all mankind.

The Cross, then, that Christ bore, was not for His own deserts, but was the cross that awaited us, and was our due, through our condemnation by the Law. For as He was numbered among the dead, not for Himself, but for our sakes, that we might find in Him, the Author of everlasting life, subduing of Himself the power of death; so also, He took upon Himself the Cross that was our due, passing on Himself the condemnation of the Law, that the mouth of all lawlessness might henceforth be stopped, according to the saying of the Psalmist; the Sinless having suffered condemnation for the sin of all. 

 -St. Cyril of Alexandria, Gospel According To John, Book XXII, CHAPTER XIX.  [HT:  Ken Boeker]

New Lutheran Quote of the Day

This Christ, bodily and, if you will, bloodily present in the Sacrament of the Altar, is not merely a human being.  He is the human being, the model, the standard, the blueprint, the die, that determines what authentic humanity is, from the first human being to the last.  We human beings - all of us - have not only our salvation but our very humanity in Christ.  He stands both as the initial and the ultimate man, the exemplar of human virtue in its most eminent perfection and the one whose irrefragable integrity stands as the judgment upon all our lapses from genuine humanity.  -- A. C. Piepkorn, The Church, p. 191.

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

Whoever can say to God from the bottom of his heart, 'Thou art my beloved Father and I am Thy child' will obviously defy all the devils from hell, and with a joyful heart despise all the world's threatening and boasting. -- Blessed Martin Luther, Day by Day, p. 232.

Patristic Quote of the Day

Nothing is hidden from the Lord; even our most secret thoughts are ever present to Him. -- St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ephesians par. 15.