Tag: Liturgy

Quasimodogeniti

Did anybody read the Hunchback of Notre Dame? See the cartoon?  Does anybody remember what his name was?  Hint: It wasn’t “Hey, hunchback.”  Insert Jeopardy theme….

Ok, we are back.  What was your answer? The right answer is Quasimodo. Which is a strange name.  Anybody care to hazard a guess where that came from?

Every Sunday of the church year has what are called propers.  They include the introit which is the entrance hymn/chant, the prayer of the day, the appointed readings and a few other things.  If you were doing a choir led mass, the propers are all the parts that the choir and minister would probably chant.  The congregation itself would probably be relatively non-participatory, the high church version of the worship band.  The Lutheran Reformation gave to the congregation the role of the choir. With angels, and archangels and all the host of heaven, we laud and magnify the name. But the important proper of the day for this pastor’s corner is the introit.

The same way that people used to sign letters “On the Feast Day of St. X” or something like that to date correspondence, the weeks were actually known by their introits.  Specifically the first word of the introit, in Latin because that is what the church used and many propers even after the reformation would remain in Latin for a long time.  If you have an old copy of The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH) published in 1941 lying around, you can see that those old names are still on the church calendar for many weeks – the weeks after Transfiguration, the weeks of Lent, the weeks of Easter.  Easter 2 was known as Quasimodogeniti. Quasimodo the hunchback was born on this Sunday and given the name from the Introit.

When the propers went to a three year cycle many of those old names were broken.  They had already been strained when everything went into the vernacular as long time ago.  But the Introits are meant to carry a theme for the service and the week, which they do very well in the Sundays after Easter. Quasimodogeniti is Latin for “as newborn infants.”  As newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

 Easter 2 in the church year is a day of infancy on the faith. Thomas hasn’t seen, so he won’t believe, until he places his fingers in the holes in the hands.  We start reading from the Epistle of First Peter which tells us that we have come into our inheritance in the resurrection.  “He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”  And as such infants, “long for the pure spiritual milk.”

What is that pure Spiritual Milk?  The Introit’s answers are: “Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make know his deeds among the peoples, sing praises to him.”  Thanksgiving, prayer, proclamation and adoration. What are the things that allow us to grow up into that full inheritance of the resurrection?  Hearing the word proclaimed and believing it. Returning in proper thanks for all the Christ has done for us. Trusting in the Lord in prayer. “Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his presence continually.” Never forgetting the proper adoration due to God Almighty.   “Glory in His Holy Name!” These are the things of pure spiritual milk that you might grow up to salvation.

And unlike our physical selves who outgrow milk, the Kingdom of God is a land flowing with milk and honey. Every Sunday one can return to that pure spiritual milk: the word, thanksgiving, prayer, and adoration. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Link to the Propers for Easter 2

Thanksgiving Rituals

Think for a second about the rituals of Thanksgiving.  Most of them are food: Turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie with some region and family variation. The further south you go the more pecan pie and mac-n-cheese show up.  In the Midwest the “green stuff” – you know the pistachio pudding and dream whip salad – and French’s Onion green beans are staples. But there are more.  Families still gather, many over great distances.  The annual report of the misery of being stuck in the airport on the “largest travel day of the year” is a ritual. The President pardoning the Turkeys which unfortunately seems to have erased the much deeper ritual of a written Thanksgiving proclamation which has roots in George Washington and before.  And we shouldn’t forget the football games.  And if you skipped any of these things, especially if someone thought you skipped them intentionally, it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving.  You can try and add stuff.  Maybe over time new things replace old, but probably not.

That is the American Thanksgiving liturgy.  And this is probably my most controversial claim, the rituals come first. It is through the liturgies that we learn the meanings and become part of something larger than ourselves. How do you know that you are at “the big game?” The really big game gets a Stealth Bomber flyover, although the Blue Angles also count. Having the Goodyear Blimp present is the entry stakes on a big game.  But the invocation of “the game” always starts with the presentation of the colors – the flags and the teams – and the playing of the national anthem.   That is the liturgy of the game and the creation of the congregation of the game.  Mess with the liturgies or rituals and people know that you are messing with the real meanings.  They might not be able to express in words what those meanings are, but they know them from repeated invocation.

We are all creatures of habit.  The real question is not if we are going to have habits – rituals, liturgies.  The question is if we are going to develop good ones, or poor ones.  As Ben Franklin/Poor Richard would say, “early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”  Few do it, but doing your homework immediately at the end of the school day is a liturgy of success. Not to mention that you get to spend your evening having fun without worry.  This is all in the realm of what the Bible would call wisdom literature.  Does it work this way for everyone? Absolutely not. But this is the thing about wisdom literature as Joshua Gibbs wittily put it, “Ways a man can live by, if he is not so foolish as to think himself special.”

This power and necessity of ritual, of liturgy, is something that the church knew for millennia but seems to have forgotten in some mad push for originality.  But even originality turns into ritual.  The demand for “prayers from the heart” turns into “Lord Jesus, we just wanna ask…”.  The third time through a chorus comes with the demand to “raise those hands in worship.”  Even supposedly non-liturgical traditions have a liturgy.  The question really is what does it teach, what meaning does it encapsulate.  This insight is old enough to have a latin phrase, “lex orandi, lex credendi” – the law of worship is the law of belief. How you worship says what you believe better than what you would say.  Is the man who does not fall asleep watching football on thanksgiving really giving thanks?

The Christian Liturgy I think tells us two key things.  The God who has made himself known is The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit. This God makes His grace present for His people here. He has promised to be here in Word and Sacrament which are the means of that grace.  We don’t show up to give God anything.  We show up to receive his grace.  Wherever two or three are gathered in His name. For which Thanksgiving is a proper liturgical response.