A few days ago, a kind friend sent me the Trinity Sunday Sunday booklet of a (Missouri Synod) Lutheran Church. The Collect printed was the Tidentine/Prayer Book Collect ... and the Creed was the ... yes!! ... Athanasian Creed (with Filioque).
And a few weeks ago, I had enabled a Comment which revealed that, in another transpontine Lutheran Church, the Gospel reading was the same as in Sarum/Prayer Book.
Is this simply copying from Anglican formulae? Or, more interestingly, is it a continuation of the usages of late-Medieval Catholic Europe?
If the latter, I wonder if the immemorial traditions of Scandinavia, the British Isles, North Germany deserve to be given the respect of being authorised for Catholic use, not only in the Ordinariate, but thoughout those parts of Europe where they were in use before the Reformation.
And, surely, there are many healthy and wholesome things which could could be recovered for Catholicism from the sounder elements in Lutheranism.
Six years ago, I contributed, to the Canadian Lutheran Theological Review, a review of an extraordinarily fine Commentary On Ephesians by Dr Tom Winger. If that was an example of modern conservative Lutheran Biblical Scholarship, we could all benefit from it. Especially now that Anglicanism has given up on the Bible.
Looking even further into an exciting ecumenical future ... why not admit Lutherans to the Ordinariates? Or let them have their own?
Perhaps not immediately ... PF, with a lot of silly rhetoric anbout 'Proselytism', rubbishes the fine example of Ecumenism bequeathed by his predecessor. But, under a new Holy Father, Ecumenism and Unity may once again be viewed with favour.
I just don't understand how serious committed Christians can wish to remain outside the Church founded by Our Lord. What is it that they put above His call to unity?
ReplyDeleteHappy 10th anniversary on your ordination as a priest in full Catholic communion.
ReplyDeleteThe Missouri Synod's "Lutheran Service Book" of 2006 authorises two Lectionaries for the Sunday service. The first is a slightly modified version of the Novus Ordo's three-year Lectionary.
ReplyDeleteBut the second is a One-year Lectionary based on the usages of late-Medieval Germany, although with the addition of an OT reading. For example, the readings for Trinity 1 are Genesis 15:1-6, followed by 1 John 4:16-21 and Luke 16:19-31 as in Sarum/Prayer Book.
Even the Ordinariates have adopted the three-year Mass lectionary. But, following the example of the Missouri Synod Lutherans, could they not at some point also allow a traditional one-year Lectionary?
German Protestant (not only Lutheran) churches do preserve the same medieval transalpine readings as Anglicans, plus some of the ancient collects. The latter may be a relic of post-war archaeologism rather than an "immemorial" tradition, the former certainly isn't.
ReplyDeleteOnce when I was on a FB group for churches (no longer on that personal info harvester), I noticed that Lutheran church interiors looked far more Catholic than the usual stuff in a suburban parish Catholic church. And this wouldn't be just for Danish or Swedish Lutheran interiors which existed in a context where older traditions weren't forgotten, or a German dom influenced by 19th century Catholicising tendencies, but also places of more modern construction. The altar rails and overall construction of the church furnishing created far more sense of a sanctuary than in some modern suburban bare brick and loud coloured carpet resurrectifix wonder across which various lay parish council, holiest people in the parish, tramp during New Mass. And that's without considering some pleasingly phrased Lutheran liturgical texts, as mentioned in the 'Original Post.' Hope a Lutheran Ordinariate happens as Fr hopes.
ReplyDeleteI read or heard somewhere some time ago that Benedict XVI had the idea of Lutheran Ordinariates as well.
ReplyDeleteDear father Hunwicke,
ReplyDeletethere is a new papal letter out on liturgy.
It starts with the latin quotation of Lk 22,15
Desiderio desideravi
hoc Pascha manducare vobiscum,
antequam patiar (Lk 22:15)
so that desiderio desideravi is also the title of this apostolic letter of His Holyness.
The vatican website has it in english, so probably drafted by A. Roche:
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_letters/documents/20220629-lettera-ap-desiderio-desideravi.html
An ordinariate for Lutherans was discussed in the beginning of 2013, but independent of a formal ordinariate structure, there exist some Lutheran groups who could be considered as 'Lutheran Catholic'. See for example
ReplyDeletehttps://johannesbruderschaft.eu/diakonatsweihe-2018/ r
Frjustin- I have also thought that the LCMS one year lectionary with OT would be a good reference point with any "reform of the reform" in terms of a better and more limited reform of the TLM.
ReplyDelete