NB: THIS FILE CONTAINS MANY QUOTES RELEVENT TO SPECIFIC LITURGICAL ITEMS
*The Lutheran Confessions on Various Matters of Worship:
*
Our churches are falsely accused of abolishing the Mass. The Mass is
held among us and celebrated with the highest reverence. Nearly all the
usual ceremonies are also preserved… Augsburg Confession, Article
XXIV:1,2
Because the Mass is for the purpose of giving the Sacrament, we have
Communion every holy day, and if anyone desires the Sacrament, we also
offer it on other days, when it is given to all who ask for it. Augsburg
Confession, Article XXIV:34
We answer that it is lawful for bishops, or pastors, to make ordinances
so that things will be done orderly in the church, but not to make
satisfaction for sin… It is proper that the churches keep such
ordinances for the sake of love and tranquility, to avoid giving offense
to another, so that all things be done in the churches in order, and
without confusion. Augsburg Confession XXVIII:53-55.
However, it is pleasing to us that, for the sake of peace, universal
ceremonies are kept. We also willingly keep the order of the Mass in the
churches, the Lord’s Day, and other more famous festival days. With a
very grateful mind we include the beneficial and ancient ordinances,
especially since they contain a certain discipline. Apology to the
Augsburg Confession, Article VII/VIII:33
Masses are celebrated among us every Lord’s Day and on other festivals.
The Sacrament is offered to those who wish to use it, after they have
been examined and absolved. And the usual public ceremonies are
observed, the series of lessons, of prayers, vestments, and other such
things. Apology to the Augsburg Confession, XXIV:1
Nothing in customary rites should be changed without a reasonable cause.
So to nurture unity, old customs that can be kept without sin or great
inconvenience should be kept. Apology to the Augsburg Confession, XV:51
*Luther on the Elevation (lifting up the body and blood of the Lord):
*
We do not want to abolish the elevation, but retain it because
it...signifies that Christ has commanded us to remember Him. For just
as the sacrament is bodily elevated, and yet Christ's body and blood
are not seen in it, so he is also remembered and elevated by the word of
the sermon and is confessed and adored in the reception of the
Sacrament. In each case, He is apprehended only by faith; for we cannot
see how Christ gives His body and blood for us and even now daily shows
and offers it before God to obtain grace for us. -- Blessed Martin
Luther, *The German Mass* AE 53:82
*Luther on Genuflecting during the Creed:
*
And when the congregation came to the words “from the Virgin Mary, and
was made man,” everyone genuflected and removed his hat. It would still
be proper and appropriate to kneel at the words “and was made man,” to
sing them with long notes as formerly, to listen with happy hearts to
the message that the Divine Majesty abased Himself and became like us
poor bags of worms, and to thank God for the ineffable mercy and
compassion reflected in the incarnation of the Deity. [Luther on John
1:14]
*Luther on Kissing the Bible:
*
It [kneeling before the Sacrament] is a matter of freedom, just as one
is at liberty to kiss the Bible or not. -- Table Talk 344
*Luther on what was spilled:
*
[In 1542, in Wittenberg] a woman wanted to go to the Lord’s Supper,
and then as she was about to kneel on the bench before the altar and
drink, she made a misstep and jostled the chalice of the Lord violently
with her mouth, so that some of the Blood of Christ was spilled from it
onto her lined jacket and coat and onto the rail of the bench on which
she was kneeling. So then when the reverend Doctor Luther, who was
standing at a bench opposite, saw this, he quickly ran to the altar (as
did also the reverend Doctor Bugenhagen), and together with the curate,
with all reverence licked up [the Blood of Christ from the rail] and
helped wipe off this spilled Blood of Christ from the woman’s coat, and
so on, as well as they could. And Doctor Luther took this catastrophe so
seriously that he groaned over it and said, “O, God, help!” and his eyes
were full of water. (Johann Hachenburg, quoted in Peters, p. 191)
*The Lutheran Confessions on Adoration of the Sacrament:
*
However, no one - unless he is an Arian heretic - can and will deny that
Christ Himself, true God and man, is truly and essentially present in
the Supper. Christ should be adored in spirit and in truth in the true
use of the Sacrament, as He is in all other places, especially where His
congregation is assembled. (FC VII:15)
*Walther (Synod’s first President) on Chanting:
*
It is a pity and dreadful cowardice when a person sacrifices the good
ancient church customs to please the deluded American denominations just
so they won't accuse us of being Roman Catholic! Indeed! Am I to be
afraid of a Methodist, who perverts the saving Word, or be ashamed in
the matter of my good cause, and not rather rejoice that they can tell
by our ceremonies that I do not belong to them?
It is too bad that such entirely different ceremonies prevail in our
Synod, and that no liturgy at all has yet been introduced in many
congregations. The prejudice especially against the responsive chanting
of pastor and congregations is of course still very great with many
people -- this does not, however, alter the fact that it is very
foolish. The pious church father Augustine said, "Qui cantat, bis
orat--he who sings prays twice."
This finds its application also in the matter of the liturgy. Why should
congregations or individuals in the congregation want to retain their
prejudices? How foolish that would be! For first of all it is clear from
the words of St. Paul (1 Cor. 14:16) that the congregations of his time
had a similar custom. It has been the custom in the Lutheran Church for
250 years. It creates a solemn impression on the Christian mind when one
is reminded by the solemnity of the divine service that one is in the
house of God, in childlike love to their heavenly Father, also give
expression to their joy in such a lovely manner.
Whenever the divine service once again follows the old
Evangelical-Lutheran agendas (or church books), it seems that many raise
a great cry that it is "Roman Catholic": "Roman Catholic" when the
pastor chants "The Lord be with you" and the congregation responds by
chanting "and with thy spirit"; "Roman Catholic" when the pastor
chants the collect and the blessing and the people respond with a
chanted "Amen." Even the simplest Christian can respond to this
outcry: "Prove to me that this chanting is contrary to the Word of God,
then I too will call it `Roman Catholic' and have nothing more to do
with it. However, you cannot prove this to me."
If you insist upon calling every element in the divine service
"Romish" that has been used by the Roman Catholic Church, it must
follow that the reading of the Epistle and Gospel is also "Romish."
Indeed, it is mischief to sing or preach in church, for the Roman Church
has done this also . . .Those who cry out should remember that the Roman
Catholic Church possesses every beautiful song of the old orthodox
church. The chants and antiphons and responses were brought into the
church long before the false teachings of Rome crept in. This Christian
Church since the beginning, even in the Old Testament, has derived great
joy from chanting... For more than 1700 years orthodox Christians have
participated joyfully in the divine service. Should we, today, carry on
by saying that such joyful participation is "Roman Catholic"? God
forbid! Therefore, as we continue to hold and to restore our wonderful
divine services in places where they have been forgotten, let us boldly
confess that our worship forms do not tie us with the modern sects or
with the church of Rome; rather, they join us to the one, holy Christian
Church that is as old as the world and is built on the foundation of the
apostles and prophets."
On the elevation:
The abolition of the elevation in Wittenberg in 1542 is not Luther's
doing. Of course, Luther had never considered the elevation a
necessity--the rite was at the time hardly 300 years old--and under
certain premises he could both accept and defend its abolition. Soon,
however, there are testimonies to the effect that Luther thought that
the abolition of elevation had lessened the authority of the Sacrament.
Luther himself writes: "And if the time perhaps comes someday which
gives reason to elevate [the Sacrament], it is free and without peril
to elevate again.""If it comes to the point that the elevation becomes
necessary again in order to avoid heresy or other things, we shall
establish it again."When the Lutheran Confessions speak of the freedom
to re-establish certain ceremonies which have been abolished it was, as
should be noted, the intention of one of the co-authors, Nicolaus
Selneccer, that this refer precisely to the freedom to re-establish the
elevation in accordance with the words of Luther quoted above.The
resistance which the elevation runs up against nowadays confirms very
much its necessity, and the fact that the time about which Luther and
Selneccer spoke has now come. The rejection of the elevated Sacrament
generally proves to be a flight from the Real Presence, the power of the
consecration and the demands of objective religion to remain independent
from the pious human subject (Hardt, The Sacrament of the Altar,
VII, [http://firsttrinity.net/documents/Sacrament%20of%20the%20Altar.htm#fnVII]{.ul}).
Liturgy:
Probably we could express the difference between the two by saying that
awakening is like the fire of the Lord which fell upon the
water-drenched altar of Elijah. It is the incalculable, sovereign
invasion of God, which reveals His power among the heathen. Liturgy, on
the other hand, is that fire which burns upon the altar in the temple
and about which the Scriptures proclaim that it must never be
extinguished. Awakening is lightning from above that ignites a new fire.
Liturgy is the flame of the Lord already burning among us, lighting and
warming the faithful.
Awakening is wrong, therefore, when it rejects liturgy. There is often a
goodly portion of self-righteousness and egocentricity in that judgment.
The old Adam is an unequalled opportunist. When a man is seriously
awakened, it is not very long until the old Adam makes every attempt to
exploit the new situation. (Bo Giertz, “Liturgy and Awakening”).
Φῶς ἱλαρὸν ἁγίας δόξης ἀθανάτου Πατρός, οὐρανίου, ἁγίου, μάκαρος, Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, ἐλθόντες ἐπὶ τὴν ἡλίου δύσιν, ἰδόντες φῶς ἐσπερινόν, ὑμνοῦμεν Πατέρα, Υἱόν, καὶ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα, Θεόν. Ἄξιόν σε ἐν πᾶσι καιροῖς ὑμνεῖσθαι φωναῖς αἰσίαις, Υἱὲ Θεοῦ, ζωὴν ὁ διδούς· διὸ ὁ κόσμος σὲ δοξάζει.
The believer is free of state forms of worship. He worships in spirit and truth. Yet he submits to them, first because he himself is not a perfect Christian and needs to be trained in the faith, and second, in order to help his neighbor become a Christian and grow in the faith (Vilmos Vajta, Luther on Worship, Philadelphia, 1958: 174-5).
In the Christian training of children, ceremonial is particularly necessary and important. Children lean through ceremonies...It is, therefore, also highly important that the right kind of ceremonial be employed in the Christian education of children and that the meaning of the ceremonies is explained to them (Lang, C&C, 8).
Reverencing toward the altar on entering and leaving a church is a reminder of God’s special presence in the house dedicated to the administration of the means of grace and prayer (Lang, C&C, 11-12).
An adiaphoron, therefore, is not a thing that is indifferent. It is only something that is not essential. For many reasons it may be important and very good, but it is not essential. Adiaphoron is not to be applied to the word liturgy, for, as stated above, liturgy refers to everything belonging to the church’s worship, including its essential as well as unessential features...Our fathers who wrote the Book of Concord were very careful not to apply the word adiaphoron to the liturgy but to human rites and ceremonies. (Lang, C&C, 16).
It would be well if in every jurisdiction public worship were uniform and neighboring town and villages observed the same ceremonies as the city (Luther, quoted in Lang, C&C, 18).
Rather than to make an issues of these things in a congregation by bringing them up for a majority vote, it would seem to be more praiseworthy if pastors and laymen would simply follow the traditional rites and ceremonies which the Lutheran Church retained in the Reformation (Lang, C&C, 19).
When Jesus quotes the Psalms, He is quoting the hymnbook of the Jews. There is an old saying that the hymnal is lay theology. As the liturgy and the hymns are repeated year after year, they embed themselves in the minds and hearts of the worshipers. The cumulative effect is that we eventually come to believe what we pray. That is why some of the most effective religious instruction takes place in the Divine Service, often while people do not even realize they are being instructed. But the worshiper who has absorbed the words and phrases of the liturgy and the great hymns has learned to speak the language of his mother, the church (Galatians 4:26). And, of course, your mother is the one who can tell you for sure who your father is! And then it is possible to engage in meaningful discussion of spiritual things. That is how we keep on growing ‘in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’ (2 Peter 3:18), (Albrecht, People’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, CPH: 2005, p. 321).
We assume that we have celebrated Easter worthily if we have been thrilled spiritually and have made a few good resolutions. Emotional impacts may, indeed, be experienced and good resolutions should be made, but these must not be regarded as first in importance. Some persons seldom are subject to profound emotion, while many complain of aridity, particularly on solemn feasts. The essential effect of the Easter mystery cannot be sensed, for it is sacramental in nature. Something happens deep within the spiritual recesses of our souls: Christ enters to bring His saving grace. Of this we must be utterly convinced (Parsch, The Church’s Year of Grace, v. 2, p. 350).
It looks as if they believed people can be lured to go to church by incessant brightenings, lightenings, lengthenings, abridgements, simplifications, and complications of the service. And it is probably true that a new, keen vicar will usually be able to form within his parish a minority who are in favour of his innovations. The majority, I believe, never are. Those who remain -- many give up churchgoing altogether -- merely endure.
Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value. And they don't go to church to be entertained. They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best -- if you like, it "works" best -- when, through long familiarity, we don't have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don't notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.
But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about the worship is a different thing from worshipping. The important question about the Grail was "for what does it serve?" "'Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god."
A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant. You know what I mean. Try as one may to exclude it, the questions "What on earth is he up to now?" will intrude. It lays one's devotion waste. There is really some excuse for the man who said, "I wish they'd remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try expirements on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks (C. S. Lewis, from Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer).
A. Esolen: When we “supplicate” our Lord, we kneel. It’s as natural as smiling, or taking someone by the hand. We make ourselves small. We acknowledge our powerlessness. “Unless you accept the kingdom of God as a little child,” says Jesus, “you shall not enter.” The lintel to that kingdom is low. We must be emptied of ourselves to be filled with God. The language of our bodies is not wholly arbitrary. We cannot say, “We’ll stand on one foot and hold a forefinger to the nose, and *that will signify *that we long for the fragrance of grace.” No one will understand that. We ourselves will not believe it. We cannot say, “We will adore God by slouching in the pew, arms and legs spread-eagled.” It can’t work. We cannot say, “We will emphasize the holiness of the Eucharist we are about to receive, by milling about the aisles to pass small talk with friends.” Our bodies will contradict our purported intention. The “emphasis” will be at best notional. We will not feel it in our pulses. (http://www.thecatholicthing.org/2014/12/16/liturgy-bended-knee/)