A very spiritual Sunday

 Yesterday I attended two different church services, and one political gathering that opened with prayer and closed with the Doxology.  I was so tired I went to bed at 8 p.m. and slept until 4 a.m.  That's rare for me.  

I started with the 7:30 Mass at St. Andrew about 2 miles away.  I enjoyed the beautiful music, all the scripture--Psalm, Epistle, Gospel, the Nicene creed, and The Lord's Prayer.  I don't remember what the Homily was about--they are usually quite short. Then at 9:30 I went to Grace Fellowship which is about a mile north of our home, on the same street. Very friendly, young congregation.  Someone met me in the parking lot and walked me into church, explaining a little history since I told him it was my first visit.  Then when I noticed his nametag I realized I'd met him several times at Panera's where I use to go for coffee in the morning. Despite their friendliness and commitment to Christ and the Gospel, I won't go back.  Like a lot of churches with a young congregations, it was an assault on my ears and eyes. I was prepared for the noise, because our son used to play in a praise band. This was much, much louder, and since I'm on a heart rhythm drug that can be dangerous as one's heart tries to work with the thuds and booms. The light was a surprise.  It was in the dark.  All the nice windows (stained glass from the previous denomination that owned the building) are covered with darkening drapes, and sound absorbing objects are between windows (didn't do much). When the sermon started (video from Pickerington, Ohio Grace Fellowship church), the lights came up a little so one could take notes.  There were maybe 8-10 narrow columns of light in the front behind the large video screen.  When I blinked, each column would expand to about four.  It was very distracting. So my ears hurt and my eyes burned. That's not a worship experience, but it is a sensory experience which young adults may enjoy.  I still have my good hearing.  I was one of maybe 3 people people over 60. 

In the afternoon from 2-4:30 (ran long) I went to a friend's home with about 10 other like minded Trump supporters from my church.  There was one woman we all met for the first time, the founder of WomenFightingForAmerica.com.  Since our church has been on lockdown since April, it was really good to see people I hadn't seen in 6 months. The guest from Florida and our host talked a lot about what is at stake in this campaign--particularly religious freedom--but others talked about their concerns about our community which has been moving from red to purple to blue these last 2-3 elections, our schools which are buying into Critical Race Theory, the plans the left has for riots in DC after the election, regardless of how it turns out, and the squishiness of some evangelical churches and organizations. Very little was said about Trump because we don't see this as a race between Trump and Biden, but between two different philosophies and sets of values.

Epiphany, January 5, 2020

Today is Epiphany, the day Christians celebrate the Magi searching for, finding and worshiping the baby Jesus.

Sermon of Odilo of Cluny, who lived in the 10th century (962-1049).

Today is festive enough in its own right, but it stands out all the more clearly because of its proximity to Christmas.

When God is worshiped in the Child, the honor of the virgin birth is revered. When gifts are brought to the God-man, the dignity of the divine motherhood is exalted. When Mary is found with her child, Christ’s true manhood is proclaimed, together with the inviolate chastity of the Mother of God.

All this is contained in the evangelist’s statement: “And entering the house they found the child with Mary his mother, and bowing down they worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

The gifts brought by the wise men reveal hidden mysteries concerning Christ. To offer gold is to proclaim his kingship, to offer incense is to adore his godhead, and to offer myrrh is to acknowledge his mortality.

We too must have faith in Christ’s assumption of our mortal nature. Then we shall realize that our two-fold death has been abrogated by the death he died once for all.

You will find a description in Isaiah of how Christ appeared as a mortal man and freed us from our debt to death. It is written: “He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.”

The necessity of faith in the kingship of Christ can be demonstrated on divine authority, since he says of himself in one of the psalms: “I have been appointed king by him,” that is, by God the Father.

And speaking as Wisdom personified he claims to be the King of kings, saying: “It is through me that kings reign and princes pronounce judgment.”

As to Christ’s divinity, the whole world created by him testifies that he is the Lord. He himself says in the gospel: “All power has been given me in heaven and on earth,” and the blessed evangelist declares: “All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.”

Sermon 2 on the Epiphany: PL 142, 997-998

Poetry and music—how the schools and churches fail us

Although this is a challenge for Catholic schools and churches, it applies to all worship leaders and educators: poetry and music. Even when I was in school 60 years ago, my mother complained that we didn't have enough poetry in our curriculum.

"First, get rid of the lousy poetry and lousy music. Stupidity is always a vice, says Maritain. Nobody says, “It doesn’t matter what movies my child watches, so long as he watches movies,” or, “It doesn’t matter what my husband drinks, so long as he drinks.” Get rid of it. Nobody but the church performers enjoys it anyway. Replace it with real hymns. Don’t think you can get those from the big presses, OCP and GIA and such, because they have mangled the texts and dragged them through the mud. Sing the poems, as they were composed.

Second, return to poetry. The time is short, and the reward immense. Fifty lines of Tennyson can be committed to memory; five hundred pages of Dickens, not so fast. Have every student in your schools learn, say, twenty poems by heart. And their elders, too, might join in – have a Poetry Night in your parish, with the stipulation that every poem be written in meter.

We are suffering from cultural dementia, muddied and dulled by the strokes of the modern. It is time, little by little, for recovery."

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2019/02/23/recovering-from-cultural-dementia/?

Not being Catholic, or even musical, I didn't know what OCP and GIA were, so I looked it up. The comments from the musical directors are hilarious.

https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/8615/what-is-your-favorite-gia-or-ocp-hymnal-/p1

Just a little word--at

A very common phrase among Christians is, "God will meet you where you're at," and it just hurts my ears. I heard it three times in worship this morning. What is the purpose of "at?" What does it link? Why not, "God will meet you where you are."

So I looked at a grammar page and found, "We meet you where you’re at and bring you where you want to go with a free placement test."  Even the English teachers say it.

Prepositions are difficult for English learners, and we make them more difficult by dropping them where they have no function.

Some worry that the Trumps didn’t sing the hymns or recite the creed at Bush 41 funeral

I am a Lutheran and our one congregation has 3 styles of worship, traditional, contemporary and loud rock, and I don't sing many of the praise/songs at some of the alternative services because I don't know them or I don't like them. Also, not all Christian churches use the Apostles Creed, and not all Christians are familiar with it. I've attended services where it sounds like a local committee wrote the creed of the day, and I don't say it. There are 35,000 (approx.) Protestant and non-denominational/Bible only groups, plus multiple rites within the Catholic tradition, many orthodox and Eastern Christian groups. Christianity is a very big tent, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-language and multi-liturgy or no liturgy, and there are no requirements to sing or recite anything, especially when in unfamiliar territory. The trick to attending a different service is to always sit in the back row and observe--which obviously the Trumps couldn't do.

Unfortunately, many in the media used the very lovely tributes to Bush 41 to slam Trump.  They just can’t help themselves.

Hymns of praise

 

We attend the traditional service at our Lutheran church (NALC) in Upper Arlington, Ohio.  There are two other types of services—one I call “happy clappy” which I’m guessing is mostly post-1960s songs and praise music without liturgy and the other “clangy bangy” with very loud guitars and drums, and we have two locations for one congregation. Right now we have a total of five services, but I can remember a time when we had 10, trying to suit all the tastes in worship style and preaching. Our traditional service at Lytham Road has a choir and the other two have praise bands with perhaps a quartet to lead the music.  The pastors rotate, so we all eventually hear the same sermons by the same pastors. Right now we’re in a study called “Gathered,” which is about worship.  Last week was on music (song) with sermon by senior pastor Steve Turnbull and yesterday was the sacraments by Aaron Thompson who is director of the high school ministry.  Lutherans have two sacraments—baptism and communion, but for 1500 years the Christian church had six sacraments, but Martin Luther cut them to two, and today many Protestant and Bible and non-denominational churches have no sacraments, only memorials.

So this all leads to the opening hymn of praise, “Praise the Lord! O Heavens. I always read the information about the hymn writers at the bottom of the page (I don’t like to read words on a screen, because I like to see the music so I can practice my dwindling ability to read music.) This one said, Text: The Foundling Hospital Collection, London, 1796.  One of the beautiful things I appreciate about the Internet is I don’t have to wait long to satisfy my curiosity. An antiquarian book dealer, Simon Beattie of London had one for sale and was discussing its history. You can go to his website for further explanation of the institution and its collection, and also http://www.intriguing-history.com/foundling-hospital-collection/  The hospital has a fascinating history which includes Dickens and Handel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundling_Hospital

The Foundling Hospital, Britain’s first children’s charity, had been established by Thomas Coram in 1739.  ‘The Hospital chapel, in use by 1749 and officially opened in 1753, soon became well known for its music as well as for its elegant architecture and adornments …  The singing of the children at ordinary Sunday services was a great attraction to fashionable London and became an important source of income to the Hospital through pew rents and voluntary contributions.  Music was specially composed and arranged for the Hospital chapel, and the success of the singing led to a demand for this music, which was met by the publication of a book called Psalms, Hymns and Anthems; for the Use of the Chapel of the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children.  It is generally known more informally as the Foundling Hospital Collection’ (Nicholas Temperley, ‘The Hymn Books of the Foundling and Magdalen Hospital Chapels’, Music Publishing & Collecting: Essays in Honor of Donald W. Krummel (1994), p. 6).  [from Beattie’s blog)

This hymn is in the 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship and the Lutheran Service Book and Hymnal of 1958, which notes the text is by John Bacchus Dykes, 1823-76, which wouldn’t work with the copyright of 1796.

Praising God for a great Sunday

What a great Sunday. Church at Upper Arlington Lutheran (Lytham Rd.) with liturgy, wonderful hymns (O worship the king, Rise up, O Saints of God, Beautiful Savior), challenging sermon by Joe Valentino, the Lord's table with anointing, and the choir singing, "Oh, how I love Jesus "(arr. Lloyd Larson). Then it's lunch and study with our church fellowship group, and a cello quartet recital later in the afternoon at Highlands Presbyterian church.

http://www.beckenhorstpress.com/o-how-i-love-jesus/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutheran_Book_of_Worship

Ten hymns on aging and our “golden” years

http://www.hymnary.org/hymnal/ALY1976

I'm generally not a joiner, but as a age, I appreciate hymns and liturgy more. "The mission of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada is to encourage, promote, and enliven congregational singing." If the sermon, announcements and Sunday School lesson are a bust, and the layman reading the Bible passages mispronounces all the place names, hymns and liturgy are there for us to worship Jesus, the whole point of attending. This organization looks promising:  http://www.thehymnsociety.org/

Sing for Joy is the St. Olaf choir web site with beautiful choral music that follows the lectionary. http://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/

Misconceptions about worship

Here’s something American Catholics and American Protestants share—we are overly concerned about how we feel during worship.  It’s all about me.  No, it’s about the risen Jesus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkoaLfR_iCg#t=94

We Americans in any case rather have come naturally to think that in the liturgy we want to express ourselves, and if it doesn’t feel like us, then we don’t want to say it!

But the whole tradition of liturgy is not primarily expressive of where people are and what they want to say to God. Instead it is impressive. It forms us, and it is always bigger than any given community that celebrates it.

Father Jeremy Driscoll

If you're skipping Sunday worship . . .

This week I've been reading "A history of Lutheranism" by Eric W. Gritsch (Fortress Press, 2002). Very readable. In chapter 3 (p. 71) there is this interesting explanation on "a catechetical way," and I say interesting because I didn't get much catechism, i.e. instruction, (became a member in the loosey-goosey 70s), and it's not clear to me what our Lutheran (UALC, Columbus) congretation does to instruct new members these days--looks like 2.5 hours on a Sunday afternoon.

"Because Luther had advocated a spiritual equality between clergy and laity based on baptism, he made the ordained and nonordained partners in Christian formation through worship and education. Accordingly, participants in worship need to understand and become part of the Sunday liturgy, and they need to experience their station in life as a divine calling to make faith active in love. Thus, there is an intimate link between the Sunday celebration of God's love in Christ and the Monday obligation of love of neighbor."

Isn't that nicely said? Loving God, and neighbor as yourself begins with Sunday worship. Then the author goes on

"Worship through word and sacrament is the inhaling of divine power, as it were, and making a living in the world is exhaling."

Some of the music in our worship service geared to the youth and gen-x families is so loud and thumpity-bump-bang-crash that I suspect some are mistaking an increase in heart rate for divine power, but then Bach and some Wesley hymns do that for me.

"(p.40) Worship and education were to Luther the twin pillars of Christian life. That is why he urged everyone, especially pastors, to use the liturgy of word and sacrament, together with the catechism, as the bridge from false security and vanity to proper conflict with the world's evil. . . his pedagogical theory is fundamentally collaborative and reinforcing, with the emphasis on voluntary education at home, enforced in church and school."

Sounds quite modern to me. Luther thought that the monastic schools were poor and advocated public schools so that parents could be involved, and he also recommended the establishment of public libraries! I didn't know that. I think we skipped that in the history of librarianship when I was in graduate school.

4219

e.e. cummings on richard dawkins

e.e. cummings wrote to his sister Elizabeth in 1954: "if you take Someone Worth Worshipping (alias 'God') away from human beings, they'll (without realizing what they're doing) worship someone-unworthy-of-worship); e.g.; a Roosevelt or Stalin or Hitler--alias themselves." Probably also applies to environment-fundamentalists, but cummings died in 1962 before the current pantheist panic.

The above information appears on p. 371 of "A poem a day," edited by Karen McCosker and Nicholar Albery.

Standing Women

"In the spirit of Mother Earth." This is an event being held today in 63 nations at 1 p.m., according to the Columbus Dispatch.

I don't care who or what you worship, but worshiping Mother Earth isn't benign or positive thinking. It's a very, very old religion. People were no more peaceful when the men went off to war with battleaxes and spears and the women gathered berries and roots, birthing in huts in the woods and bowing down to trees rocks and ancestors.

Now someone will jump on me and proclaim that I'm negative and hateful just because I point out the obvious.