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Closed Communion and Visitors
By Holly Scheer Summer is a pretty common time to travel. The kids are out of school, and we’re ready to go new places and see new things. Fun times for everyone! Unless travel takes us out of our home congregations over Sundays, and there isn’t a church in fellowship with where we are traveling. Then the fun can be tinged with some apprehension and nervousness. It’s the same feeling we have when family or friends come visit and they’re not members. Will telling them they can’t commune offend them? Will this cause a rift? Is it better to just not attend church at all? No! Attend church! Attend church…
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I’m Pregnant! Should I still take the Lord’s Supper?
By Vanessa Rasanen “Dear Katie Luther Sisters, I’m pregnant, and I just read newer guidelines that say no amount of alcohol is safe during pregnancy. Can I still partake in the Lord’s Supper?” Yes, you can, and you should. It’s good for you and the baby. Next question… I’m just kidding, of course. Not about my answer, but about that being all that needs to be said on the matter. The Truth is the Lord’s Supper is good — for both you and your unborn little one. It is there in the bread and wine that Christ our Lord comes to us personally, physically, and substantially to give us the very forgiveness…
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Article XXIV: Of the Mass
Falsely are our churches accused of abolishing the Mass; for the Mass is retained among 2] us, and celebrated with the highest reverence. Nearly all the usual ceremonies are also preserved, save that the parts sung in Latin are interspersed here and there with German hymns, which have been added 3] to teach the people. For ceremonies are needed to this end alone that the unlearned 4] be taught [what they need to know of Christ]. And not only has Paul commanded to use in the church a language understood by the people 1 Cor. 14:2-9, but it has also been so ordained by man’s law. 5] The people are…
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Smalcald Articles–Part III, Article VI. Of the Sacrament of the Altar
Part III, Article VI. Of the Sacrament of the Altar. 1] Of the Sacrament of the Altar we hold that bread and wine in the Supper are the true body and blood of Christ, and are given and received not only by the godly, but also by wicked Christians. 2] And that not only one form is to be given. [For] we do not need that high art [specious wisdom] which is to teach us that under the one form there is as much as under both, as the sophists and the Council of Constance teach. 3] For even if it were true that there is as much under one…
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Article XXIV (XII): Of the Mass, Part 3
And although our belief has its chief testimonies in the Epistle to the Hebrews, nevertheless the adversaries distort against us mutilated passages from this Epistle, as in this very passage, where it is said that every high priest is ordained to offer sacrifices for sins. Scripture itself immediately adds that Christ is High Priest, Heb. 5:5-6,10. The preceding words speak of the Levitical priesthood, and signify that the Levitical priesthood was an image of the priesthood of Christ. For the Levitical sacrifices for sins did not merit the remission of sins before God; they were only an image of the sacrifice of Christ, which was to be the one propitiatory…
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Article XXIV (XII): Of the Mass- Part 2
What a Sacrifice Is, and What Are the Species of Sacrifice. [Now, lest we plunge blindly into this business, we must indicate, in the first place, a distinction as to what is, and what is not, a sacrifice. To know this is expedient and good for all Christians.] 16] Socrates, in the Phaedrus of Plato, says that he is especially fond of divisions, because without these nothing can either be explained or understood in speaking, and if he discovers any one skilful in making divisions, he says that he attends and follows his footsteps as those of a god. And he instructs the one dividing to separate the members in…
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Article XXIV (XII): Of the Mass- Part 1
At the outset we must again make the preliminary statement that we 1] do not abolish the Mass, but religiously maintain and defend it. For among us masses are celebrated every Lord’s Day and on the other festivals, in which 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 like things. 2] The adversaries have a long declamation concerning the use of the Latin language in the Mass, in which they absurdly trifle as to how it profits [what a great merit is achieved by]…
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Maundy Thursday
When I was growing up I thought Maundy Thursday was people pronouncing Monday Thursday slightly strangely and I couldn’t really understand why they were combining the two days. I didn’t know what it was about, really, and while I knew that it was some pre-Easter holiday (I’m cringing, too, here, sorry!) I didn’t really think that anything terribly important was happening or commemorated on this day. Oh, I was wrong. I was so wrong. Sometimes it’s frankly embarrassing looking back at the sure certainty of childhood and the things we’ve (OK, I) misunderstood. Maundy isn’t a mispronunciation of the beginning of the week. Nor is it some unimportant place holder…
