No less an authority than the pope is on record as favoring kneeling. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI last year, wrote in “The Spirit of the Liturgy,” published in 2000, that the gesture, “comes from the Bible and the knowledge of God.” He has not addressed the issue as pope.American Catholic bishops have taken the opposite position. “Standing can be just as much an expression of respect for the coming of Christ,” said Msgr. Anthony F. Sherman, a spokesman for the liturgy secretariat of the U.S. Bishops Committee on the Liturgy based in Washington.That hasn’t quieted critics.”It’s hard to understand why any bishop would prohibit his people from expressing reverence in the way they have done for centuries,” said Helen Hull Hitchcock, a founder of the conservative Adoremus Society for the Renewal of Sacred Liturgy in St. Louis.
There you go… Rome is having an adiaphora problem too! And you thought we Lutherans were the only ones that fight over liturgical elements…
I have found kneeling in Chapel to be conducive to the elements its applied to. As well, it feels a bit odd now to either sit (fieldwork) or stand (during Easter in chapel) for the prayers. Kneelers are not a bad thing and not Rome-ish. They work (at least for me.)
Another Perspective from GetReligion: A Band on Kneeling?
Followup: Pastor Stiegemeyer posted a followup to his original post which is apropo.
The Burr in the Burgh: Avoiding Romo-phobia in the Lutheran Church
Lutherans who object to paintings, mosaics, murals, icons, statues, or crucifixes in their churches simply do not know or understand their own heritage. The Lutheran Reformers NEVER objected to these things. In fact, Martin Luther came out of hiding, risking his own life, to put a stop to the radical destruction of churches that was taking place in his name during his absence.On making the sign of the cross. It is precisely because some Lutherans frown on this practice that I will do it all the more. How dare anyone try to restrict my freedom to remind myself of my baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, as a pastor, I make the sign of the cross at numerous points throughout the liturgy, both upon myself and upon my congregation to mark us all as those redeemed by Christ, the crucified.
In 1529, Martin Luther wrote a morning and evening prayer in his Small Catechism, a booklet that every Lutheran should be instructed from. And Luther says: “In the morning when you get up, make the sign of the holy cross and say, In the Name of the Father…. Then, kneeling or standing, repeat the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer.” And he gives the same instructions for in the evening when going to bed.On private confession, Luther said in his Large Catechism, a book our church pledges to follow: “When I urge you to go to confession, I am simply urging you to be a Christian.”
On Mary and the Saints, the Augsburg Confession (another text our church pledges to follow) says, “It is also taught among us that saints should be kept in remembrance so that our faith may be strengthened when we see what grace they received and how they were sustained in faith. Moreover, their good works are to be an example for us….” And of course, as Melanchthon was quick to add, “However, it cannot be proved from the Scriptures that we are to invoke saints or seek help from them.”
Certainly there are real and substantive differences between the Church of Rome and the Lutheran Reformation. But it is counter-productive when the ill-informed try to create differences where they don’t exist, all because of some irrational aversion to things that look Catholic. Many such Lutherans are really closet Baptists. (No offense intended to my very fine Baptist Christian friends. I’m just struggling for a renewal of Lutheran identity.).
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No fair — you tied together two things that *I* was going to blog about! ;^)
This anti-Rome streak that is encountered so often is, I think, part and parcel with the overexposure that Confessional Lutheranism has had to “Reformed” American Evangelicalism/Pietism. Granted, it certainly goes back to the very start of the Reformation (we must remember to send Karlstadt a nice thank-you card for being just about the first “lutheran” to start getting that wrong, don’tcha think?
I grew up, and was confirmed, in a church with kneelers, but I haven’t belonged to a congregation that had them in nigh on 20 years — and I miss them. I also find it very meaningful to cross myself, although that is something I didn’t learn to do until about 4 years ago…
Nice post (among the flurry you just sent out into the blogosphere, my good seminarian!). ;^)
Oh, we can send letters to a lot of folks. There is an anti-historical sentiment within the protestantism that also drives me nuts. For some reason, tradition is bad and reform is good. They say, “All bets are off and nothing which has been done before is worth saving.”
On the other hand, I can’t remember who I read but they referred to the anti-rite sentiment as liturgical minimalism. We eschew all that is useful in the name of bare-bones. We missed the point that Luther (and others) thought those rites useful even if unnecessary. I found this to be true with studying the baptism rites. Luther kept them the same, then reformed them to make them clearer for his time and place. I didn’t cover later Luther but he actually returned to favor some of the more medieval inventions like the blowing in the ears and multiple exorcisms. Regardless, he was a high liturgical guy and the not the minimalist he is played out to be.
Indeed as I think Pr. Stiegemeyer points out, Luther came out of hiding in part to stop the destruction of the statues, crosses, and the like.
Thanks!