Volume 25 December 2013
No. 12
CALAMITY AS AN AID TO PREPARATION
The stories of the hellish
situation in the Philippines
are still coming in, as people struggle to cope with the devastation left in
the wake of Typhoon Haiyan. There are
stories of the sight and stench of dead bodies, of untold thousands of people
awaiting shipments of food and water, of airlifts to locations of refuge. Our LCMS response team is on the ground
bringing relief as well, gathered from congregations large and small around our
country.
And just as the
news was settling in, mammoth tornados swept across the Midwest
on Sunday the 17th of November.
Closest to us among those affected are the communities of Washington and
Pekin, to which I’ll be continuing to offer support and supplies directly from
our congregation—a coordinating center has been set up at St. Peter’s in East
Peoria. Although the disaster in our backyard is nothing like the unspeakable
losses in the Philippines ,
nevertheless for those who have lost their homes in Washington , the thought that it could have
been worse is hardly consoling.
These
kinds of events are sobering to all of us; but according to the faith, they are
meant to serve that very purpose. The
psalmist declares, “Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now have I kept
Thy word . . . It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn
thy statutes (Psalm 119:67,71).
Why do these
things happen? In short, to show us in
no uncertain terms that we live in a fallen world that is sorely in need of its
Redeemer. This world is not what it is
supposed to be, and we await its restoration to perfection on the day of
Christ’s return.
This brings me to
the matter of Advent, which fills nearly all the month of December. Advent means “coming,” and is both a time of
awaiting Christmas and, perhaps more so, a time of preparation for Jesus’
return in glory. The calamities that we
see in the world and in our own lives can actually serve to help us await and
prepare, if they are mixed together with the word of God.
Thanksgiving will
have more meaning for people who know these things; so will Christmas, I
expect. For even the gatherings of
families and friends, and the love shared there, as important as those things
are to us, cannot be compared with the surpassing love of God in Jesus our
Lord. It is love that moves him to show
us in sometimes very painful ways what we need to remember, although it breaks
His heart more than it does ours to see the devastation and loss people must
suffer. But there is no other way.
Therefore,
beloved, (as the Apostle says), do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
which is meant for your good. As our
fathers used to chasten us for our good, so our heavenly Father has not
deserted us, but would have all come to the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ;
and calamity, as troublesome as it can be, has a way of helping toward that
end.
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Pastor Eckardt
Epiphany Vespers on Sunday Night, January 5th;
Epiphany Mass and Retreat the Next Day
Our annual winter Vespers is scheduled for Sunday night,
January 5th, 2013, at 7 pm. This is the Eve of Epiphany.
It will be followed by our traditional wine-and-cheese
reception, another annual tradition.
Then on Monday January 6th, we’ll have a Day of Theological
Reflection, beginning with Epiphany Mass at 9:00 a.m. This will be our fifteenth retreat in the
Theological Reflection series, and is entitled,
st. luke’s subtle
confessions of Jesus’ divinity
This retreat will focus on several passages in the Gospel according to St. Luke that subtly
show the divinity of Jesus. While the
overt references to Jesus in this Gospel are hard to miss, the subtle ones
provide further insight into this evangelist’s keen awareness of who Jesus is.
Thanksgiving Observed Wednesday Evening Before
As is our custom, we will celebrate Thanksgiving at Wednesday
mass the night before (November 27th) at 7 pm
First Tuesday Meetings Dec. 3
On Tuesday, December 3rd, Altar Guild meets as
usual at 6 pm, and Elders at 7:30 pm.
Between them we will hold vespers at 6:45 pm. All members are invited to attend.
Special Masses Wednesdays
St. Nicholas’ Day will be observed Wednesday, December 4th
(transf., Dec. 6) at our 7 p.m.
mass.
December Birthdays
12/10 Isaiah Madsen
12/11 Chris Harden
12/13 Michael Eckardt
12/13 Lynn Woller
12/20 Peter Eckardt
12/20 Rachel Rowe
12/25 Robert Melchin
December
Anniversaries None
December
Ushers
Allan Kraklow, Steve
Kraklow, Tom Wells.
Shut ins
Mary Hamilton at home; Anna Baker
at home; Mirilda Greiert at Kewanee Care; Emmy Wear at Williamsfield Home in
Williamsfield.
Choir Rehearsals in
December
No choir rehearsal on December 4th (JOTS combo is
playing after mass at the Boss center); Choir rehearses on the 11th;
on the 18th is caroling (see below).
Carolling December 18th
Let’s go caroling on Wednesday, December 18th,
after mass. We’ll plan to go to some
members’ homes, and/or nursing homes, as time permits. This will replace choir rehearsal that night
(Choir members, we’ll practice while caroling, but others, join us!)
In Our Prayers
In
addition to our shut-ins, our current list of prayer intentions at mass
includes the names on the lists here following.
Anyone wishing to update the lest by addition or subtraction, please
inform the pastor.
Sick or infirm:
in our parish:
Ann Baker, Sara Bidni, Emilie Ricknell,
Linda Rowe, Sharon Hartz, John Sovanski, Jean Russell
And all of our shut-ins.
And also:
David Dakin [re Harris]
Anna Rutowicz [re Harris]
Julie Ross [Svetlana Meaker’s daughter, cancer]
Caleb Cleaver [Ricknell]
Christian Johnson [re Kemerlings]
Madison Lindsay [re Andersons
Tom Fornoff [Jean Russell’s brother-in-law]
Rev. Don Chambers [Manito]
Rev. Brian Feicho [E. St. Louis ]
Stacie Liese [wife of Rev. Michael Liese ]
Michelle Steuber [re Fischer]
Marilyn Johnson [relative of the Kemerlings]
Jill Matchett [re Shreck]
Michele Dador [friend of Kemerlings]
Rick Nelson [Ricknells’ son-in-law]
Tammy Johnson [Kemerlings’ daughter]
Christopher Krueger, undergoing tests,
Anthony Strand, friend of Murphys, who
has cancer
In the military:
John Eckardt
Donny Appleman [re Ricknell]
Thomas Kim [re Shreck]
Jaclyn Harden Alvarez
Michael Creech
and Richard Heiden [re Eckardt]
in trouble:
any unborn children in danger
of abortion
Those suffering persecution
in Egypt, Nigeria, Eritrea, Guinea, Khazakstan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, China,
the Philippines, Laos, Vietnam, North Korea, and elsewhere.
Here are some details:
The
executions were public and took place in seven cities across the country,
according to the JoongAng Ilbo. In the port city of Wonsan
The
families of the victims were dispatched to political prison camps, the paper
also reported—a move in keeping with the regime's long-standing policy of
punishing three generations of a family for one member's transgression. Most
inmates do not survive long in North
Korea
- Melanie Kirkpatrick, The Wall
Street Journal
Altar Guild
Notes
Advent begins the first Sunday in December. The four Advent
Sundays’ color is violet. If roses are obtained, they may be placed on
the Third Sunday in Advent, December 15th.
St. Nicholas’ Day will be observed Wednesday evening,
November 4th, at 7. Color
remains violet (Third Class Feast).
St. Lucy’s Day will be observed on Wednesday, December 11th,
at 7. Color is violet. (Third Class Feast)
The three Christ Masses will be held as usual, 7 pm
Christmas Eve, 12 midnight, and 10 am Christmas Day. Color is white.
The Circumcision and Name of Jesus will be observed on New
Year’s Eve, the 31st, at 7 pm. Color is White.
Decorating During Advent
As is our custom, we decorate the church little by little
during Advent, until finally all is complete for Christmas. The
day on which volunteers are needed help put up the tree is Saturday, December 7th,
beginning at 9 am. Please help!
Advent for
the church is a time of penitential preparation for the coming of Christ
(that’s why the color is violet). It’s
helpful to remember this as we also prepare our households for Christmas. Unlike the commercial and secular world, the
Church’s celebration of Christmas begins with
Christmas, and runs the twelve days of Christmas, until Epiphany (note, for
instance, that our Christmas Vespers is after Christmas). The finest way to prepare for the coming of
Christ is by contrition and confession.
The
Lighter Side
A woman called her husband to ask
if he could stop by the grocery store on his way home from work: “Honey, please
pick up a gallon of milk and, if they have eggs, get six.” So the man brought home six gallons of
milk. His wife said, “Why all the milk?”
He replied, “They have eggs.”
Hat
tip – Jennifer Madsen
The New Testament in His Blood
This series contains brief
liturgical explanations which appear in Pastor Eckardt’s book The New Testament in His
Blood (Gottesdienst, 2010).
Our Father and Words of
Institution
At this point in the
Mass—from the Our Father and Words of Institution until the time of
distribution—it is fitting, if possible, for the entire congregation to kneel,
in humble acknowledgment that here
Christ is condescending to come to us in pity and mercy. During the Our Father,
the celebrant holds his hands out or up high, and chants what, together with
the Verba, forms the essence of our canon. Jesus instructed His disciples to
pray using these words. He did not offer that command in a vacuum, but, we may
rightly assume, meant for it to be used especially in connection with His
Supper.
At the consecration the celebrant
takes the Host into his hands, just as Jesus Christ, at the Last Supper, took
the bread and wine into His hands. The noted Roman Catholic French cleric
Charles Arminjon (1824-1885), writing in The End of the Present World and
The Mysteries of the Future Life, declared that here the priest’s words
cease, his personality disappears, and the voice of Jesus Christ replaces that
of His minister. Arminjon was right: here the minister is doing his ministering
in a most fundamental and Biblical sense.
Hence the celebrant has his
back to the people during the Sanctus, the Our Father, the Verba, and his own
self-communion, as if to hide the face of Christ, who died and thus was hidden
from His people; but when the celebrant turns to them again for the Pax, saying,
“The peace of the Lord be with you alway,” he is essentially repeating the
words of Jesus who thus spoke to His disciples in the upper room on the day of
His resurrection. There is an old rubric that provides simply that the words be
“Pax vobiscum” (“peace be with you”), dropping “of the Lord” when spoken by a
bishop, which provides a verbatim repetition of the words of the risen Lord,
and some early councils (for instance, that of Braga in 563) allowed both
bishops and priests to use the same form of salutation.
Similarly we may note the
anecdotal account from Bishop Vsevolod Lytkin of the Siberian Lutheran Church
of an elderly woman in a remote village in Siberia who, upon gaining form him
her first opportunity to receive the Sacrament, whispered to him after the
service, “almost literally repeating the words of Saint Simeon (St. Luke
2:29-30): ‘Through all my life I dreamed to meet a Lutheran pastor. Now I can
depart in peace because my eyes have seen the Pastor” (Siberian Lutheran
Mission Society, Vol. 7.3, December 2008, 6).
It is particularly here, when
the Holy Elements are consecrated, that the pastor may be seen as a living icon
of Jesus.
The Formula of Concord
insists that “the words of institution are to be publicly spoken or sung before
the congregation distinctly and clearly, and should in no way be omitted” (SD,
VII, 79).
This is said in opposition to
the practice which arose in the sixth or seventh century, of the celebrant’s
saying the canon of the Mass (which includes the Our Father and the Words of
Institution) virtually silently. The people knew the words were being said, but
they could not hear them.
This was likely an outgrowth
of a venerable third century practice called the disciplina arcani in
which the catechumenate were not allowed even to remain present for the liturgy
of the faithful, when the Our Father and the Verba were said. There was a very
close scrutiny kept
regarding those who could
even hear those words in the liturgy. And even when they were preached or
written about, it was done only obliquely, using intentionally vague
expressions. The idea behind this practice was a worthy one, namely to uphold
the sanctity and holiness of the Sacrament, in much the same way as the name of
God was not to be spoken aloud during Old Testament times. There was even a
practice among women of donning their veils at this time, and the doors of the
church are watched so that no one but the communicants may be present. The
overall idea at work was that a great mystery is here, at which we bend the
knee and worship with sighs too deep for words. This understanding is actually
considered by many to have been a key contributing factor in the appeal of the
church in its early centuries. Although we no longer have the disciplina
arcani, we can learn from its use. There is no need, for example, to take
school children into the sacristy and have them taste unconsecrated bread
before their first communion, as if to remove the mystery. The mystery ought to
be preserved; after all, that’s why we call it a sacrament.
Yet as we consider this
history we also find an instance of a noble idea taken too far, particularly in
the rise of the “secret” utterance of the canon. For by the seventh century,
nobody at all was able to hear the clearest expression of the Holy Gospel.
Virtually every instance of the arising of a faulty or poor practice in the
history of the Church can be traced to some pious or decent idea or purpose now
come to be abused, and this is no exception. The removal from the hearing of
the people of the Words of Institution—which Luther regarded as the purest
expression of the Gospel—should not be taken otherwise than as a diabolical
robbery of the words of our Lord from His people. One of the salient features
of the Reformation was to provide that the Gospel was heard. Often this is
misunderstood to mean merely that Bibles were put in to the hands of the
people. Although the printing press was certainly a tremendous invention which
aided the success of the Reformation, the primary place for the hearing of the
Gospel was at Mass.
There is on the other hand no
warrant for providing that all the people say the Our Father aloud at this
point. Although certainly the Our Father is and ought to be chief among the
daily prayers of Christian people, and therefore is properly said by all during
the prayer offices (Matins, Vespers, etc.), yet at Mass it takes on an
additional, consecratory purpose, and therefore ought to be said by the
celebrant alone. Although the custom of congregational recitation of the Our
Father with the celebrant at Mass is common in the twenty-first century, is a
Roman Catholic innovation from De Musica Sacra, issued on 3 Sept.1958 by
the Sacred Congregation of Rites. This ruling authorized the faithful to say
the Our Father with the celebrant (in Latin, of course: the Pater Noster), but
only at a Low, i.e., spoken Mass. Since Vatican II, in the 1960s, even that
restriction was lifted. But it was not so prior. From antiquity the Church has
sung aloud only its response to the Our Father, saying “For Thine is the
kingdom,” etc.
By this rubric a reminder of
the connection between the Our Father and the Words of Institution made: the
Our Father always belongs with the Words of Institution, and, together with
them, effects the very consecration of the elements. Moreover, in this we also
have a hint of respect toward the old discipline arcanum. That is to
say, while it is important that these words be heard clearly and distinctly;
yet their removal from the lips of the people at this point is a subtle
reminder of their profound sacredness. All of these words are therefore most
fittingly uttered by the celebrant alone, and thus the holiness of the moment
is accentuated.
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