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Inculturation Of Worship: Forty Years Of Progress And Tradition, Anscar J. Chupungco

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(from Introduction) For four years last century I had the rare privilege of taking part in a series of liturgical consultations organized by the Lutheran World Federation. I say "rare", because it is not often that a Roman Catholic becomes member of an international study group of Lutherans and, to my gratification, declared by the group an honorary Lutheran! By coincidence or perhaps providence Martin Luther and I were born on the same day. During those memorable years I made lasting friendship with Lutheran scholars like Gordon Lathrop and Anita S. Stauffer. Friendship meant dialogue, and dialogue with them richly …

Liturgical Inculturation: The Future That Awaits Us, Anscar J. Chupungco

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(from Introduction)

Among Lutherans liturgical inculturation is not a novelty. When Martin Luther translated the Latin liturgy into German and adopted popular songs for church services, he embarked on liturgical inculturation. The vernacular, unlike Latin, is a living language and is thus a sure vehicle of culture. It expresses the people’s thought and behavioral patterns and is an established bearer of their values and institutions. In short, the use of the vernacular in the liturgy is in itself a sign that inculturation has taken place. On the other hand, the type of the vernacular defines the quality of inculturation. There …

“We Are Satisfied!” - A Sermon For The Commemoration Of St Philip, Craig Satterlee

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(excerpt) Each time that I gather around this table in preparation to leave this Liturgical Institute, I feel the way I imagine Philip felt at that other table, when Jesus prepared to leave the disciples to return to God. After these days of inspiring addresses, stimulating conversations, cherished comradery, and glorious worship, like Philip, I want to squeeze out just a little more before everything comes to an end. Give me just one more conversation with someone who understands what paschal mystery means. Just once more let me join my voice with people unafraid to sing a new hymn. Just …

The Message Is From God, Frederick A. Niedner Jr.

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

I never settled on an opening line for this presentation, so I'll simply tell you that it's a humbling thing to stand here today charged with giving the keynote address for a gathering of the Institute for Liturgical Studies. I have attended this conference for many years-not for as long as many of you, but in twenty-six years at Valparaiso University I recall only one institute I missed completely. That means I've heard at least a hundred institute talks from this podium, and the excellence of the speakers here has consistently enriched and encouraged, sometimes entertained, and often awed …

A Brook Runs Through It: Fresh Water From The Bach For Today's Thirsty Church, Mark P. Bangert

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

"Not Bach [brook], but Meer [sea] should be his name," Beethoven once said of Johann Sebastian Bach. 1 In this anniversary year marking the two-hundred and fiftieth year of his death on July 28, Bach is receiving extraordinary attention, which includes a significant biography by Christoph Wolff,2 yet another series of recordings of all the cantatas (that makes five3), and soul-searching among various scholars in an attempt to grasp the essence of this person's life and work.

A Word Fitly Spoken, Michael Cobbler

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

Let the people say "Amen!" Amen. I can't hear you. AMEN! Thank you, Jesus. Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed. Alleluia, alleluia! I like to say, when I gather with folk who care about what we do after we say "I believe," when it comes down to ultimate things, I'm just a nobody trying to tell everybody about somebody who can save anybody. Let me run that by again, so everybody can give a rousing "Amen" I'm just a nobody trying to tell everybody about somebody who can save anybody. Amen. And the task I have today is …

"The Whole Bible Painted In Our Houses": Visual Narrative And Religious Polemic In Early Lutheran Art, Samuel Torvend

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

In his discussion of the psychodynamics of orality, the Jesuit linguist and philosopher Walter Ong writes that ''the interiorizing force of the oral word relates in a special way to the sacral, to the ultimate concerns of existence. In most religions the spoken word functions integrally in ceremonial and devotional life ... In Christianity, for example, the Bible is read aloud at liturgical services. For God is thought of always as 'speaking' to human beings, not writing to them ... [Indeed] the Hebrew word dabar, which means word, means also event and thus refers directly to the spoken word …

The Bible As One Story: Images As The Holy Spirit's Device For Making Scripture God's Word Written, Robert Farrar Capon

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

My approach to scripture, you probably have guessed, is not that of someone trained by the biblical scholarship critical fellowship. I studied under them as you all did, too. I managed not to think too much about them, because I didn't think much of them. When I was in seminary a number of us got together and wrote a series of four-line doggerel verses on the result of biblical criticism as we were receiving it when applied to the scriptures. I can only remember one of those stanzas: Of wilderness wanderings, there'd not be so many; of Abraham's stories, …

"Let Us Pray With Confidence": Leaders Of The Assembly Prepare, Gordon W. Lathrop

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

"Let us pray with confidence in the words our Savior gave us," calls out the presider to the assembly. Or, perhaps, another introduction is used: "As our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to say," for example. Or, perhaps, the presider simply begins-enacting the confidence that the introductory texts call for-the assembly easily catching on that this is a communal act and joining in: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name ... " In any case, here is an archetypal act of presiding: the leader proposing an important, beloved and known-by-heart act of prayer and drawing …

The Bible And The Liturgical Movement: Scripture As A Voice In The Church, Not A Book Faxed To It, Robert Farrar Capon

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

I want to begin by telling you my own personal connection with the liturgical movement. It happened way back when I was twenty-one years old and entered seminary in 1946. Those were the bad old days when you went through high school, college, seminary, ordination, and under after that. Actually, we are recognizing they were in some ways the good old days, too, because we got a lot of service out of some of those types who started early and who maybe even learned something along the way.

Leading The Assembly Is Pastoral, Virgil C. Funk

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

I should begin, I think, by explaining a bit about what I mean by "pastoral" when we speak about leading the assembly. We got a phone call once at the National Association of Pastoral Musicians from a scholar who was researching the folk music of Greek shepherds, and he thought that we might be of some help, since we are also interested in things "pastoral." That isn't the "pastoral" that I have in mind! Instead, my vision of pastoral leadership is rooted in the story at the end of John's gospel where Jesus asks Peter three times, "Simon, son …

Leaders Pray With The Assembly, E Louise Williams

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

I wonder what it was that prompted the disciples' request. Had they watched Jesus praying, as was his custom, in a place apart and then seen him come back somehow changed-more refreshed, more serene, more focused, more disturbed? Had they overheard Jesus praying-the intimate conversation, the wrestling and struggle, the thanksgiving and praise, the intercessions? Had they remembered some admonition or invitation to pray? Did their own spirits feel dry and empty? Did they know some longing deep inside for a closer communion with the one Jesus called Abba? Was there in them some joy or anguish that needed …

"But We Had Hoped ... ": The Road We've Traveled; The Road That Lies Ahead, Eleanor Bernstein

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

It is a privilege to be here with you at this annual gathering to explore matters of consequence affecting our churches at the beginning of this new millennium. I feel honored to be invited into the ongoing conversation of the Institute of Liturgical Studies. I've had opportunities to cross paths with many in this Lutheran family through associations at the Liturgical Conference, the North American Academy of Liturgy, and Notre Dame, and all have been positive and enriching experiences. My contacts have served to deepen my appreciation of the strong commitment of the Lutheran churches to promoting life-giving worship …

Salis Est: Ecumenical Catalyst Or Narrow Reductionism?, Maxwell E. Johnson

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

It is also taught among us that one holy Christian church will be and remain focever. This is the assembly of all believers [or "saints"] among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel. For it is sufficient [satis est] for the true unity of the Christian church that the Gospel be preached in conformity with a pure understanding of it and that the sacraments be administered in accordance with the divine Word [or, "are administered rightly"]. It is not necessary for the true unity of the Christian church …

The Constitution On The Sacred Liturgy And Lutheran Book Of Worship: What Was Renewed?, Frank C. Senn

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt) Missing first four pages

of the 1970s there were those who objected to the idea of liturgy as "action" because they thought it placed an undue emphasis on human activity instead of on God's work through the means of grace.4 Obviously, liturgy is a work performed by a person or a community, so human action is unavoidable. It is a human act to read scriptures, preach sermons, baptize, or proclaim the words of institution, even though we confess that the Holy Spirit works through these means of grace to create or awaken faith. One may also say that liturgy, …

Enough, Already-But Perhaps Not Yet: Liturgy, Church Unity, And Eschatology, David G. Truemper

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

Enough, as we have been saying, ought to be enough. We've heard the crucial sentence from Article VII of the Augsburg Confession over and over these days, about what's enough for the true unity of the church, namely the one and only gospel proclaimed and enacted in the assembly of believers. We have to suppose that the confessors that sunner day in 1530 meant precisely what they said about preserving and maintaining the genuine unity of the church-enough to have some prima facie acknowledgment that it is indeed the Christian gospel being said and done in this and that …

Inculturation Of Worship: Forty Years Of Progress And Tradition, Anscar J. Chupungco

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

For four years last century I had the rare privilege of taking part in a series of liturgical consultations organized by the Lutheran World Federation. I say "rare," because it is not often that a Roman Catholic becomes a member of an international study group of Lutherans and, to my gratification, declared by the group an honorary Lutheran! (By coincidence-or perhaps providence-Martin Luther and I were born on the same day.) During those memorable years I made lasting friendship with Lutheran scholars such as Gordon Lathrop and S. Anita Stauffer. Friendship means dialogue, and dialogue with them richly endowed …

Liturgical Inculturation: The Future That Awaits Us, Anscar J. Chupungco

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

Among Lutherans liturgical inculturation is not a novelty. When Martin Luther translated the Latin liturgy into German and adopted popular songs for church services, he embarked on liturgical inculturation. The vernacular, unlike Latin, is a living language and is thus a sure vehicle of culture. It expresses the people's thought and behavioral patterns and is an established bearer of their values and institutions. In short, the use of the vernacular in the liturgy is in itself a sign that inculturation has taken place.

Whose Context Is It Anyway?, Lorraine S. Brugh

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

Music shapes the worshiping assembly week by week The liturgy we sing becomes both praise and proclamation in the mouths of the gathered congregation. So how are we to know what it is we should sing? Our worship books are now filled with music from around the globe, from perspectives not even known to most of us just a generation ago. Is that music part of our local expression, and if not, how are we to make it so? This address will outline a process, responsive contextualization, which invites a local assembly to enter into the process of engagement …

The Grace Of Leading The Assembly, Gabe Huck

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

It is good in nearly every Christian liturgy there comes a moment when all present pray to be forgiven just as they are themselves now offering forgiveness. Thus do assemblies and presiders provide a ground for meeting again next Sunday and giving it another go.