Nurturing the Evangelical Catholic Tradition:Liturgical Prayer

Maxwell E. Johnson

Presented to the Seminar on

Lutheran Liturgy, August 13, 2025

At the beginning of his pioneering work on Comparative Liturgy, the great Anton Baumstark provides the key to my comments today.  Baumstark wrote:

In Liturgy we become aware of the living heart of the Church.  In the prayer which ascends to the Throne of God, in the fullness of Sacramental Grace which descends on the common life of the faithful, we are made conscious of the powerful stream of life which pulsates through the Mystical Body of Christ, of the Christ, who, as the Apostle said, ‘died once for all,’ so that ‘death shall no longer have dominion over Him.’  Never can such living activity be paralysed into the rigour of an immobile and dead formalism.[1]

And, in the introduction to my book, Praying and Believing in Early Christianity,  I tell the following anecdote: I remember hearing part of a conversation between two of my seminary professors, one, a professor of New Testament at the Lutheran seminary where I was enrolled and the other, a professor of Liturgy at the neighboring Roman Catholic seminary, where in the spring semester of 1975 I was taking my first serious course in liturgical history, over the proper place of liturgy in the seminary curriculum.  For the Lutheran professor, the place of liturgy was to be included naturally in the "Practical Area" of seminary education along with parish administration, homiletics, parish education, and pastoral care and counseling, since, in his opinion, the study of liturgy had more to do with the practicalities of presiding at worship than with theology and/or history.  For the Roman Catholic faculty member, however, liturgy naturally was to be included in the "History and Theology Area" of the curriculum both because liturgy constituted an academic discipline in its own right and because he saw Liturgy having an historic and foundational relationship to theology and doctrine in general.  To my knowledge, this discussion never reached a resolution with courses in liturgy at the Lutheran seminary remaining in the "Practical Area" and those at the Roman Catholic seminary in the "History and Theology Area," although courses in presiding at the rites themselves were taught there within the practical area as well. 

This discussion has implications for the question of liturgy, faith, and doctrine, often summarized by the abbreviated Latin phrase of Prosper of Acquitaine (c. 390 – c. 455): "Lex orandi, lex credendi," i.e., the “law of praying (is, constitutes, or establishes) the law of believing.”  For the Lutheran faculty member referred to above, although these words would not have used, the lex credendi (especially Lutheran confessional and sacramental theology) was to be learned independently of the Church's liturgy and then, perhaps, applied to what one did in liturgy.  Hence, to put words in this professor's mouth, the relationship was that the lex credendi always established the lex orandi and, of course, the lex credendi was always, therefore, primary.  For the Roman Catholic professor, it was the exact opposite with the lex orandi itself establishing or constituting the Church's lex credendi in the first place, a position argued strongly in recent years by Aidan Kavanagh in his insistence on the need for the use of the verb statuo in Prosper's actual phrase, i.e., ut legem credendi lex 'statuat' supplicandi, “that the law of supplicating may constitute the law of believing."[2] If, for the Lutheran professor, liturgy was rather superfluous to the overall theological process and, hence, could be easily relegated out of the realm of "real" theology, for the Roman Catholic professor, liturgy was quite central in and for all areas of seminary formation and pastoral-ecclesial life.  It was thus too important to be so easily separated from theology and history and subsumed under practical matters alone.  I have always tended to side with this Roman Catholic faculty member regarding the formative role of liturgy, the role of the lex orandi in the Church’s theological and doctrinal self-expression, and where the study of liturgy belongs in the academic curriculum.  To borrow from the title of the now classic 1985 book by Leonel L. Mitchell, I firmly hold that “praying shapes believing.”[3]  That is, while not the only criterion for doing so, one can – or should be able to - read the theology, belief, and doctrines of any given church by means of what its liturgies pray, say, sing, and direct.  So, my first point in what follows ia: “praying shapes believing shapes praying.” And by this, I mean liturgical prayer, that is, the public, ordered, and communal prayer of the Church’s assemblies.

For these next three days we will unpack this ancient adage.  We might say that I will look at the lex orandi directly, Lizette at the lex credendi, and Ed at the lex beni operandi, both of which flow from the lex orandi.  And, as this event is focused around the August 15 feast of the Theotokos, under the rather Nestorian title of Mary, Mother of our Lord, rather than Mother of God, our three-fold approach certainly mirrors her fiat, her prayerful response to the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation and her liturgical hymn of praise in the Magnificat, which reveals not only the knowledge of how God works, but invites us to a life of peace, righteousness, and joy in response to the God, who casts down the mighty and lifts up the lowly.  No wonder that the Cistercian monastic tradition refers to Mary as our tympanistra, who, like Miriam of old, leads the heavenly and earthly church in its hymn of praise.  And, together with this August 15 feast, corresponding to the Assumption and Dormition of Mary elsewhere, I have been strongly advocating for us to add to our calendars the Sept 8 feast of her Nativity,[4] and like many of our Latiné, Latinx, or Latino/a Lutheran colleagues already, her December 12 feast as the Virgin of Guadalupe.[5] 

I.          Praying shapes believing shapes praying

As classically understood, the Liturgy is the Church's great "School for Prayer," that is, the great gift of the Church's liturgical tradition is that it provides both a language and structure for prayer in general.  As Philip Pfatteicher put it in his study, Liturgical Spirituality, “the church exists to worship God,”[6] and, further:

…the liturgy of the church provides a framework within which the deepest mysteries of Christianity await discovery.  With the Holy Communion and the Daily Prayer of the church, one has all one needs to know about Christianity.  All the essentials are there to be pondered, explored, and acted upon.[7] 

Here, in particular, I want to draw attention to liturgical elements such as the Prayer of the Day, the Great Thanksgiving or eucharistic prayer, and the Prayer of Thanksgiving over the baptismal waters in the Rite of Baptism.  It is the very structure and contents of these great prayers of the Church, after all, which provide a model for all of Christian prayer, namely, that Christian prayer is "trinitarian" in structure and focus.  That is, Christian prayer is addressed to God, "our Abba, Father," through Jesus Christ the Son, our great high priest and mediator, in the Holy Spirit, who leads us by Word and Sacrament to confess that Jesus is Lord (see 1 Corinthians 12:3).  Note, similarly, the concluding trinitarian formula for the Prayer of the Day:  "...through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, both now and forever."  Or, note the concluding doxology at the end of the Great Thanksgiving: "Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory is yours, almighty Father, now and forever.  Amen." Indeed, lex orandi, lex credenda, the "rule of praying establishes the rule of believing."  The "faith" of the Church is both constituted and expressed by the "prayer" of the Church.  As such, the liturgy is not only the "school for prayer" but also the "school for faith.” Long before there was an Apostles' or Nicene Creed, or an explicit "doctrine" of the Trinity, it was through a Prayer of Thanksgiving over the baptismal waters, through the candidate's three-fold confession of faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the context of Baptism itself, and through the Great Thanksgiving prayer over the bread and cup of the Lord's Supper, consisting of praise to God for the work of creation and redemption, thanksgiving for the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and invocation  of the Holy Spirit, that the Church professed its faith in the Trinity by means of doxology and praise.  Historically, as well, it is crucial to remember that worship was not only formed by but also helped in forming orthodox Christian teaching.[8]  Orthodox trinitarian and christological doctrine developed, in part, at least, from the Church at prayer, as the baptismal-credal profession of faith gave rise to the 'official' creeds themselves, as prayer to Christ contributed to understanding his 'homoousios' with the Father, as the Holy Spirit's “divine” role in baptism shaped the theology of the Spirit's divinity, and, most appropriate to our gathering here, as early devotion to Mary as Theotokos, including the great third-century (probably Egyptian) hymn,  Sub tuum praesidium, gave rise to the decree of Ephesus. While “orthodoxy” means “right thinking,” not giving “right glory’ to God, such “right thinking” often developed from the doxology of the Church, where several of these doctrines were prayed liturgically long before they were formalized dogmatically. So, it has been ever since. The practice of Christian worship forms the belief of the Church (ut legem credendi statuat lex supplicandi.” In turn, worship itself is formed further by that belief, and, further still, continues to form people into believers and disciples of the crucified and risen Lord.

What we do or don’t do, say or do not say in our liturgies forms us as communities. Our liturgical words and our actions matter!  Hence, a community which celebrates and receives the Eucharist every Sunday, attends to the rubrical options and varieties already present in our liturgical book(s), faithfully proclaims the lectionary readings, and tenaciously keeps the feasts and seasons of the liturgical year week after week, year after year, will be a different sort of community than one which is continually experimenting with “worship alternatives” and searching for something “better” to meet the so-called “needs” of worshippers and potential seekers alike. And I dare say that the first type of community will, undoubtedly, be more “orthodox,” more “Lutheran,” in its doctrinal-theological outlook. Why? Because the issue is not about liturgical “style,” which is what some think we liturgists are talking about.  No, the liturgy can and does incorporate different styles from Gregorian chant to Mariachi.   As the very corporate expression of the self-identity and world-view of the worshiping community, the Body of Christ in this time and place, expressed concretely in its liturgical texts and liturgical actions, the purpose of liturgy is not to permeate our lives with ritual but to permeate them with Christ for the very building up of His Body, the Church, and for the salvation and life of the world.[9]  That’s what it means to nurture the evangelical catholic tradition!!!  And just what is that evangelical catholic tradition?  Perhaps we still do not get it and I sometimes think that LBW gave us an opportunity that we failed to embrace, embody, and grasp, but given the commonality in texts, rites, and rubrics in the worship books of Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Roman Catholics today, Lutheran worship should look very much like post-Vatican II Roman Catholic and Episcopal worship is also supposed to look: i.e., where the Word of God is proclaimed clearly, audibly, intelligibly, and with dignity by carefully prepared readers (being able to read does not always mean being able to read in public); where the other sacraments or "sacramental rites" are seen as corporate and communal events with the rich and abundant use of the sacramental signs of water and oil and the healing and benedictory gestures of hand laying and touch; where the Liturgy of the Hours is the Church being itself in its constant, prayerful, eschatological, intercessory, and expectant vigil; where the Paschal Triduum, especially the Great Vigil of Easter, prepared for by a renewing, baptismal in orientation, forty-day Lent and an ensuing fifty-day period of Paschal joy, are seen as the pulsating center and heart beat not only of the liturgical year but of life in Christ; and where the community itself, both in assembling to do leitourgia and in scattering for its missions of martyria and diakonia knows itself -- "fully, actively, and consciously" -- as that Body of Christ it receives and celebrates so that it may itself be broken for the life of the world.

First, as the overall intent of the 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW) made clear and the 2006 Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW) continues to make clear, the place, dignity, and full celebration of Baptism, including infant Baptism, within the public liturgical assembly of the Church is emphasized, as is the use of full immersion as the preferred mode of baptism, as well as the use of postbaptismal hand laying and anointing to signify the baptismal gift of the "seal" of the Holy Spirit.    Similarly, the renewing and formative power of the Rites of Christian Initiation of Adults within Roman Catholic circles has led to new and recent adaptations of the catechumenal process in Lutheran circles -- including Missouri-Synod and Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCiC) cooperation -- with the development of several catechumenal and liturgical resources under the general title of Welcome to Christ, part of which, such as the “Welcome to Baptism,” appears now in ELW.[10] 

Second, thanks, at least, in part, to the influence of Gordon Lathrop's book, Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology,[11] Lutherans are increasingly coming to understand that the very ordo or overall pattern of Christian liturgy is constituted by the Sunday assembly of the baptized, who Gather, hear the Word, share the Meal, and are Sent on mission in the world.  And in his more recent book, The Assembly: A Spirituality,[12] Lathrop has emphasized that it is the assembly itself which is the most important symbol in the room since it is precisely in and by the assembly of the gathered church where the holy things are done that make the church visible.

Ecumenically, I often challenge my Notre Dame Roman Catholic undergraduate students to experience liturgy at some of the local Lutheran and Episcopalian parishes in the South Bend - Mishawaka area and tell me what they perceive that the real differences are in relationship to the experience of their own parishes (with the general exception that people might regularly sing better in these other places).  And, the late Professor James White liked to say of his own United Methodist parish, Broadway United Methodist Church in South Bend, that the primary difference, compared with Roman Catholic practice, is that Broadway used real bread while Roman Catholics used real wine.[13]  (Another major difference, of course, is that one might actually encounter an ordained woman presider, vested in alb, stole, and/or chasuble, in these churches).   Lectors, communion ministers, and lay assistant ministers, together with ordained deacons, are frequently employed in contemporary Lutheran practice.  Because of Evangelical Lutheran Worship, ELCA Lutherans now have at least eleven full Eucharistic Prayers available for their use, a highly significant development when one considers that the use of any Eucharistic Prayer -- beyond Preface, Sanctus, and Institution Narrative -- has been an issue of some argument and debate within Lutheran circles in the past forty years or so.

Third, with regard to the reading and proclamation of the Word of God itself, ELCA Lutherans have not only recently adopted and adapted Revised Common Lectionary but now use regularly the New Revised Standard Version, soon the updated version (NRSVue) of the Bible as that translation has come to be offered, finally, in actual, large, and dignified Lectionary and Gospel books designed for Lutheran liturgical use. 

Fourth, other liturgical sacramental practices recovered among contemporary ELCA Lutherans in the years since Vatican II should at least be briefly noted.  ELCA Lutherans have for their use a style of the Liturgy of the Hours clearly rooted in the ancient "cathedral' rather than "monastic" tradition, at least with regard to Evening Prayer and its Lucernarium (Light service) and Psalm 141, though some Lutherans forget that Psalm 141 in the evening and Pslam 95 in the morning are but introductions to Psalmody both in Matins and Evening Prayer, not the total content of the psalms.  Regular provisions for private confession and absolution as well as corporate confession and absolution have been made in the current worship books, and long overdue, the recovery of the practice of the laying on of hands and "anointing of the sick," with forms provided for individual use in ministering to the sick and for public celebrations within the context of the Liturgy,[14] a practice that several congregations employ on a fairly regular basis, especially on the October 18 Feast of St. Luke.  The liturgical practice and theology of the ELCA, at least according to its liturgical books and statements, has been one of recovering its classic liturgical-sacramental heritage within a contemporary ecumenical context.  No one looking carefully at our Lutheran liturgical rites today could conclude anything other than that we are dealing with a Western catholic church.  But if visitors do not leave Lutheran liturgical assemblies wondering if they have just left a “Catholic Mass” then something, I would submit, is wrong. But can we actually count on this in American Lutheran worship today?  

II.         A Rite, not a Shape or an Ordo

It is here where I want to return to Lathrop’s articulation of an ordo or pattern for liturgical worship and its implications.  It has not been received without critique.  James White was one of its foremost critics.  While expressing admiration for Lathrop's attempt as achieving "the finest available description of classical Christian worship,"[15] White asked: “Do we want to say that what happens in most churches in the United States on a Sunday morning is 'baby worship,' since it does not match some ecumenical or historical standard?  Do we want to say that a preaching service each week and Thirteenth Sabbath Lord's Supper (as among Seventh Day Adventists) is not authentic Christian worship?  Do we disqualify those for whom the major events in the liturgical year are Children's Sunday, Homecoming, Revival, and Rally Day (none of which, as yet, has been commercialized)?....We face a basic problem in ignoring the worship of most North American Christians....Any scheme that totally ignores the worship life of about sixty percent of American Christianity is highly questionable.  To imply that the ordo of Christian worship is missed by all those for whom the Eucharist is an occasional service, for whom the pragmatic Christian year makes more sense than the traditional Christian year, is indeed risky business.”[16]  Nevertheless, while what happens in most churches in the United States on a Sunday morning should not condescendingly be called 'baby worship,” it is certainly not the Eucharistic Liturgy of the Western Church which Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Roman Catholics claim as their center and norm.

It is for this reason that I have come to prefer the use of Rite rather than ordo for the criteriological principle, and by Rite I mean the Western Mass or Eucharistic liturgy, since the ordo is not really known apart from such a concrete Rite, and can be used – and, unfortunately, is – to justify almost any worship event.  Let me illustrate this by the following examples, some of which some of you may have heard from me before.  

Not too long ago I experienced a Lutheran Eucharistic Liturgy that used the following in place of the Nicene Creed: “We believe in you, O God, who spoke all life into being, author of heaven and earth, architect of time, quilter of the cosmos.”[17]  Whatever this might be, called “a fitting statement of faith,” it is not in this 1700^th anniversary year, the Nicene Creed by any stretch of the imagination.  And, for that matter, personal or even congregational statements of faith do not have any claim to authority as the Faith of the Church as does the Creed itself.  Do you want to change the Creed, or come up with a new Creed?  Then call an ecumenical council.  Or have a good Eucharistic Prayer and omit the Creed.  Nevertheless, the service in which this statement of faith was included is described as reflecting the four-fold ordo or pattern, which I imagine was invoked to guarantee its legitimacy.   Further, in one of our mid-western cities there are two large churches across from each other separated by a busy road, a large Mega-Lutheran Church, let’s call it Joy (or Let’s Be Happy) Lutheran, and a more recently built Roman Catholic Church called St Clare of Assisi.  Both are impressive structures though one of them could easily be an office building, while the other looks like it was flown in from a village in Umbria, Italy.  Joy has a chapel in it for the small number of members who want a more traditional service at 8:00 on Sunday morning.  But the real worship event takes place later, there is an evening service as well, in the “worship center,” a large auditorium with stadium seating, including coffee holders (and coffee can be purchased in the book store/coffee shop in the lobby) and looking down on a large stage.  Unlike some other Mega churches there is actually a large cross in the worship center (though not in the center), with a large water fall on one side of the stage (presumably for baptisms), and, while not exactly an altar in the center, a small table (resembling a food cart with wheels) does sit in the center, though of course it is easily movable.  And, there are large screens upon which to project words to songs or for multi-media presentations.  The worship, of course, is dominated by the praise band.  There may be one or more scripture readings, though not necessarily from the Church’s lectionary, and, of course, the pastors of this church are neither vested, other than at the 8:00, nor even in clerics.  The sermon may well be a series focused on contemporary events or popular movies.  Both The Davinci Code and the ever-popular Notre Dame movie Rudy, complete with film clips have been sermon series subjects.  Across the busy road at St Clare of Assisi, one cannot even enter the nave without walking around the huge, suitable for immersion, cruciform baptismal font in the floor, next to which, of course the large Paschal Candle is set outside of Easter.  Hanging over the central and beautiful free-standing altar is a large replica of the San Damiano Crucifix, from which, tradition says, St Francis heard the voice of Christ calling him to rebuild his Church.   Together with the prominent Ambo, on which the Lectionary sits, the sides of the nave in various niches contain beautifully painted images the Virgin Mary, Joseph, and various Franciscan saints (Francis, Clare, and Anthony, if my memory is correct).  There is also, of course, a lovely Eucharistic Reservation chapel to one side, where daily Mass is celebrated.  There is no mistaking at St Clare, what is primary: Word and Sacrament, rooted in baptism unmistakably as entrance into Christ and the Church and focused on the Altar with the crucified Christ.  It is not so clear at Joy what is central.  Now which one of these churches seems more Lutheran to you?

Other worship experiences in different ELCA Lutheran settings raise the question of Lutheran liturgical identity and practice for me in rather disturbing ways.  The first experience was a festival Sunday worship at one of our ELCA schools in which bot1h a choir and orchestra were employed to provide musical leadership for a gathering that included several alumni and current students.  But apart from glorious music, though even here it was not clear what the relationship of the particular sacred music was to the liturgy being celebrated, the only reference to the Holy Trinity was the opening greeting, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  There was no Creed professed, nor a thanksgiving for or affirmation of baptism done.  The so-called “Great Thanksgiving” consisted of the introductory dialogue (The Lord be with you...Lift up your hearts...Let us give thanks), followed by some kind of make shift (spontaneous?) Words of Institution “prayer” directed to Jesus (called a “Eucharistic prayer” in the bulletin) and followed by the Lord’s Prayer.  The Elements to be distributed at Holy Communion were not even on the altar during the “prayer” (only the presider’s host bowl and chalice were there) but on tables at some distance from the altar.  There was no Proper Preface, no Sanctus (“Holy, holy, holy”), no Agnus Dei (“Lamb of God”), just as there had been no Kyrie, Gloria in Excelsis or Worthy is Christ earlier in the Liturgy and, for that matter, no Old Testament reading, though the choir did sing an unrelated choral psalm at the place where that reading may have been expected, and, for that matter, the readings were not those assigned to that Sunday in the liturgical year but had been chosen for this particular event.  And there was no final Trinitarian (or even Aaronic) blessing.   And I most recently read of a “worship experience,” also at one of our ELCA colleges, where the two Campus Pastors laced up their skates and took to the ice to lead worship in the hockey Arena! Worship included a “Zamboni Procession,” “Sin Bin Confession,” and “Chuck-a-Puck Prayers,” as well as figure skating from the college’s Figure Skating Team.  At another large Lutheran church, the “Eucharistic” Liturgy followed Evangelical Lutheran Worship rather closely up to and including the Offertory Hymn, “Let the Vineyards Be Fruitful.”  But the offertory prayer was not used and the pastor immediately began reciting the Words of Institution followed by the Lord’s Prayer leading directly into the distribution of Communion.  In these occasions not only was there not a Great Thanksgiving, properly speaking, but “thanks” were not ever really given!  Hence, no Preface, no Sanctus, no Agnus Dei.  But could one not argue that the ordo was still being followed?

I begin to wonder, however, if our Lutheran confessional statement from The Augsburg Confession XXIV holds true any longer, that is, “our churches are falsely accused of abolishing the Mass.  Actually, the Mass is retained among us and is celebrated with the greatest reverence.  Almost all the customary ceremonies are also retained.”[18]  Indeed, would anyone even think to evaluate the liturgical assemblies in my examples of retaining and celebrating the Mass of Western Christianity?  I think not.  At the very least, not that long ago, even if a full Eucharistic Prayer was not prayed regularly by all as part of the Great Thanksgiving, the Proper Preface, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei were regular parts of the Lutheran Mass, as were the Kyrie, Gloria, and either the Apostles or Nicene Creeds.  Even this, however, cannot obviously be counted on anymore and I wonder if our churches are no longer “falsely accused of abolishing the Mass,” since abolishing the Mass is precisely what we seem to have done, in spite of what our worship books and official statements say to the contrary!

III.        On Nurturing the Evangelical Catholic Tradition

To nurture the Evangelical Catholic Tradition in reference to Liturgy, the first point, as I have been hinting at, in this talk is that we must dare to do the liturgy in its fullness.  A wise former teacher of mine – Gabriele Winkler - used to say something like: "We must not only study Liturgy; we must become fully permeated with Liturgy in the very depths of our beings," to become liturgical beings, filled, guided, formed, and reformed with what we constantly remember (anamnesis), celebrate (in koinonia), and taste (in prolepsis) in and from the Liturgy with its cycles of times and seasons, feasts and fasts, and its sacramentalizing of the various moments, the deepest currents, of human life (birth, initiation, vocation, illness, death, etc.) as we move from leitourgia and didaskalia to diakonia.  And we are to become this because the goal of Liturgy, as the sanctification of people which, simultaneously, is the glorification of God, is to permeate our lives with Jesus Christ and the One unitary Mystery of God's redemption of us in Him, a reality which is effectively and "really" present through the activity of the Holy Spirit in the Church through Word and Sacrament.  As Pope St Leo the Great, the world’s last and greatest liturgical theologian said: “Quod itaque Redemptoris Nostri conspicuum fuit, in sacramenta transivit” (“what was visible in our Redeemer has passed into sacraments”).  Liturgy, then, both through study and active participation, is integral not only as the "integrative center of theology," (which it most certainly is!), and which should constitute it as the center of the theological and pastoral curriculum, but as the very integrative center of life in Christ!   Why?  Simply because, as another former (and equally wise) teacher of mine has put it, Robert Taft, S.J., "we don't plan the Liturgy, the Liturgy plans us," or, "the real liturgy planning committee is the Holy Spirit."  As he notes further:

Christian liturgy is a given, an object, an already existing reality like English literature.  One discovers what English literature is only by reading Chaucer and Shakespeare and Eliot and Shaw and the contemporaries.  So too with liturgy.  If we want to know what Christmas and Chrismation, Eucharist and Easter mean…., we must plunge into the enormous stream of liturgical and patristic evidence and wade through it piece by piece, age by age, ever alert to pick up shifts in the current as each generation reaches for its own understanding of what it is we are about.[19] 

In other words, our task is not to create new liturgies as though our worship books are but “resources” from which me might pick and choose in order to compose worship services, but our task, rather, is to do the liturgies which have been given to us.

So, the first step is to celebrate our rites in their fullness.  Hence, let us commit ourselves to use the baptismal rites of the Church in their fullness.  Why would we want to create local adaptations of baptism and not want to use the Flood Prayer, the chrism, the garment, and the baptismal candle lighted from the Easter candle with their rich symbolism?  How could Lutherans possibly not use the baptismal garment, when it was so near and dear to Luther’s own heart as the sign of being clothed in Christ’s own righteousness in baptism?  

Nevertheless, unless we attend to the rites of the Church and their rubrics all kinds of strange things can happen, e.g., Baptism administered by using a rose to sprinkle the candidate; Baptism administered by the use of a single finger dipped into the font and onto the forehead of the candidate three times (a kind of what S Anita Stauffer once called a “dry cleaning,” without a danger of anyone actually getting wet.  Even the trinitarian formula of baptism has become a subject for debate or local revision in the name of Unitarian inclusivity (e.g., "I baptize you in the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier," or "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the God who is Mother of us all"), both of which challenge the Trinitarian focus of baptism, the latter of which is actually a quaternity.  As it says on a mug once given me by the late Sister Eleanor Bernstein of the Center for Pastoral Liturgy at Notre Dame, “Stand up for your Rites (R I T E S).”  Indeed, we must stand up for the baptismal rites in their fullness and not tinker with their theology in the name of some ideology of inclusivity rather than catholicity.  The same, of course, is true with regard to the Eucharist. 

So, let us also attend to celebrating the Mass, the Eucharistic Liturgy, the Holy Communion in its fullness.  As you well know, for example, in spite of frequent attempts and some notable examples to the contrary, the Eucharist itself remains in far too many places but an "occasional service," either still monthly, bi-monthly, or, even in those places having at least one Eucharist each Sunday, only "after" others have been dismissed from the principal Sunday assembly.  Further,  in spite of a clear preference for the use of full sacramental signs in the celebration of Liturgy,[20] minimalistic use of water in baptism, mass produced communion wafers instead of real bread, as the great Godfrey Diekmann put it once, “it takes more faith to believe that wafers are bread than it does to believe they are the Body of Christ,”  and what I refer to as (often even pre-filled), individualized, "shot glasses" for the reception of the precious blood, has continued in far too many places.  But the concern of the Lutheran Reformers for communion under both Elements was also the sacramental significance of sharing the Cup, not merely the reception of Wine.  And, further still, in spite of several Lutheran Eucharistic Prayers currently available for use, a bare-bones Verba (Institution Narrative) alone often does constitute the normative pattern of Eucharistic "consecration" -- occasionally without even dialogue, Preface and Sanctus -- in still far too many places on "Communion" Sundays. 

Hence, closely related here is the importance of using and, more importantly, praying the full Eucharistic Prayer as part of the Great Thanksgiving as the central prayer of the Liturgy.   The best advice I ever received about being a faithful pastor was given to me by the late Paul Hasvold, a Lutheran pastor in Decorah, Iowa, where I was doing my seminary internship in 1976.  He said to me: “Always study the Sunday New Testament readings in Greek, always say something nice about the deceased at their funeral, and always, always, pray the full Eucharistic Prayer.”  Although I may not have always studied the lectionary readings in Greek when I was in full-time parish ministry (though I often did and still do), I have always managed to say something nice about the deceased at their funerals (sometimes more easily than at others), and since my ordination in 1978, I have never presided at the Lord’s Supper without using either the Strodach-Reed prayer provided in the 1958 Service Book and Hymnal, or one of the several provided in LBW and/or ELW, or others in other contexts, including those of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, especially EP D, from the Egyptian version of St Basil, which we will be using tonight.   But why is this important?  Again, in the Eucharistic Prayer, consisting of praise to God for the work of creation and redemption, thanksgiving for the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and invocation of the Holy Spirit, the Church professes its faith in the Trinity by means of doxology and praise... What is done, sung, or said liturgically and what is held, thought, or confessed doctrinally are inseparable.  How and what the Church prays shapes and is, in a real sense, how and what the Church believes.   This is hardly adiaphora.  What we say and do liturgically matters!  The alternative to baptism by a finger is the presider touching a host and then shot-glass as he/she says the barebones institution narrative. We pray the Eucharistic Prayer, then, for the very simple reason that this central prayer of the Mass bears and professes the classic Trinitarian faith of the Church in the very context of the proclamation and/or consecration of Christ’s Real Presence.  Our Trinitarian faith is prayed, not only professed!  In fact, I would be so bold as to say that the renewal and vision of Christian worship expressed in our worship books will never come to fruition until Lutheran clergy begin to see as part of their public pastoral role that they are called to be prayers of the Great Eucharistia and that this prayer is to shape their identity, spirituality, and pastoral ministry in the Church.  To give but one example, I want to focus on the Strodach-Reed Prayer, which is the first EP in ELW and the third in LBW.

You are indeed holy, almighty and merciful God; you are most holy, and great is the majesty of your glory.  [Liturgy of St. James and Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom]

You so loved the world that you gave your only Son, that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.  [John 3:16 and Liturgies of Twelve Apostles (Syriac) and St. John Chrysostom]

[SBH – Who] Having come into the world, he fulfilled for us your holy will and accomplished our salvation.   [Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom] – ELW: “We give you thanks for his coming into the word to fulfill for us your holy will and to accomplish all things for our salvation”

[Institution Narrative: In the night in which he was betrayed....Do this for the remembrance of me] 

Remembering, therefore, his salutary command, his life-giving Passion and death, his glorious resurrection and ascension, and his promise to come again, [Liturgy of St. James as amplified by the Scottish Presbyterian Book of Common Order, 1940]

we give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, not as we ought, but as we are able;  [Apostolic Constitutions VIII; the heart of the ancient Antiochene anamnesis]

and we implore you mercifully to accept our praise and thanksgiving, and, with your Word and Holy Spirit, to bless us, your servants, and these your own gifts of bread and wine; [Book of Common Prayer, 1549]

that we and all who share in the body and blood of your Son may be filled with heavenly peace and joy, [Roman Canon missae]

and, receiving the forgiveness of sin, may be sanctified in soul and body, [Liturgy of St. James] - changed in ELW to read, “may be formed to live as your holy people’]

And have our portion with all your saints.  [Liturgy of St. Basil] - changed in ELW to read, “and be given our inheritance with all your saints.”

All honor and glory are yours, O God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in your holy Church, now and forever.  Amen.” [so-called Apostolic Tradition]

I suppose that “may be formed to live as your holy people and be given our inheritance with all your saints” is dynamically equivalent to “may be sanctified in soul and body and have our portion with all your saints.”  But in such changes not only are the sources of this prayer, namely the great anaphoras of St James of Jerusalem and St Basil, less clear but one wonders whether the decision not to use “be sanctified in soul and body,” represents a kind of dumbing down of liturgical language at this point.  Perhaps the point being made is that no one understands “sanctified,” which would come as a great surprise to several Pentecostal Christians and even to the late Soul Singer Marvin Gaye, who in his hit song, “Let’s Get It On,” can say at one point, “I’ve been sanctified,” though, trust me, it is not the Eucharist he is talking about.  Of this prayer, which was the only full Eucharistic Prayer in the 1958 Service Book and Hymnal, an optional third prayer in Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), and now again holds first place among several options in Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), Roman Catholic liturgical scholar Louis Bouyer once wrote of the 1958 text: 

It would be hard to be more ecumenical!  But all of these elements, chosen with great discernment, have been molded into a composition that is as moderate as it is natural.  In its brief simplicity this prayer has a concise fullness that we are not accustomed to seeing except in Christian antiquity.  Here…its eschatological orientation gives it a very primitive sound…. [T]his liturgy must be judged Catholic and orthodox to the extent that the traditional formulas it uses, with hardly an echo of the polemics of the Reformation, are in fact taken in their full and primary sense by the Church that uses them.[21] 

Let me suggest that at the very least you ordained presiders make this classic Lutheran prayer your own, memorizing and interiorizing it, according to the LBW translation.   

Closely related to whether or not the Eucharist is central in the life of Lutheranism, or whether we are any longer “falsely accused of abandoning the Mass,” is the question of the Lectionary employed in worship.    There is, of course, no standard or common Lectionary used in Lutheranism world wide, but the “official” lectionaries used by, at least, ELCA and Missouri Synod Lutherans in the United States, either the one provided in LBW, LW, LSB, or more regularly now since ELW, the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), are derived and adapted from the Roman Catholic Ordo Lectionum Missae (OLM) of 1969, and are shared with much of English-speaking Protestantism in the United States and elsewhere.  Like the Roman Catholic OLM itself, the hermeneutical principle governing both the LBW lectionary and RCL, as adapted by Lutherans and Episcopalians, is what Fritz West has called a “Catholic liturgical paradigm,” that is, a “Eucharistic hermeneutic,” which assumes that the Eucharist is regularly celebrated as the culmination of the Liturgy of the Word, including the homily.  Others using this lectionary or a version thereof, following what West calls a “Protestant Hermeneutic,” may or may not chose a single reading from the list for a given Sunday as a sermon text.  Gordon Lathrop underscored the Catholic or eucharistic hermeneutical approach over thirty years ago, writing:

We read a text from the gospel, not in order to recapture the time when independent tradition units circulated in the Christian communities, but in order to set the pericope we read next to the passion and resurrection of Christ held forth now in the Supper…. The Sunday texts are not then understood aright unless they are understood as leading to that Supper.[22]

In light of recent lectionary proposals for Lutheran use, the challenge, again, is whether Lutherans are decidedly Eucharistic in their Sunday worship or not.  If we are Eucharistic in our approach to reading and preaching the Scriptures at Sunday worship then we cannot take lightly – nor so easily abandon - the ecumenical gift that the Roman Catholic Church has given to us all in the three-year lectionary.  Presbyterian liturgist, the late Horace Allen said it this way:  The RCL “marks the first time since the Reformation that Catholics and Protestants find themselves reading the scriptures together Sunday by Sunday…. Who would have thought that 450 years after the Reformation, Catholics would be teaching Protestants how to read scripture in worship?”[23]  

Third, let us attend to the role and study of Liturgy in our ELCA seminaries today.

I have been privileged in my academic career at both Saint John’s, Collegeville, and at Notre Dame, to be able to teach not just at the doctoral level but in seminary programs that place at a high value on the liturgical formation of its lay and ordination track students.  In those schools, Full three-credit Courses including Rites of Christian Initiation, Eucharistic Liturgy and Theology, Liturgical Year, Sacramental and Liturgical Theology, Liturgy of the hours, and even others are regularly offered with at least Initiation, Eucharist, and liturgical/sacramental theology required. And they do not cut down on theology, Scripture, or homiletic courses to accomplish this. Not, however, is this the case in our seminaries.  A rather general survey of required liturgy courses in Episcopal seminaries revealed that, in the words of Lizette Larson-Miller, “it’s a bit all over the map,” but with the exception of Nashotah House, usually no more than two courses and, perhaps, a practicum here and there.   But, and I may be missing some here, Lutherans come out on the bottom of this with generally only one required course, which is supposed to cover everything, although with an occasional practica added, though Wartburg seminary, I am happy to say, has regular electives in areas such as Church Year, Music for Worship, Liturgical Theology, and with two required courses for all MDiv students.     

The last thing I wish to do is cast aspersions on the many fine liturgical studies faculties in our seminaries, who are doing what they can within the limits of the curriculum. Bu as is clear from these two seminary approaches there is a great deal of work left to do in making liturgical studies foundational and formational among us.  One course designed to cover everything simply does not cut it for those who are called to preside over baptisms, Eucharistic Liturgies in the context of the Feasts and Seasons of the Liturgical year, and other events in the life of the Church. Even courses in homiletics cannot be separated from liturgical context.    

Fourth, and finally, together with seminary formation, let us attend, especially for us pastors, to presiding effectively, to what Roman Catholics like to call the “ars celebrandi,” the “art of celebrating.”  In his 2022 encyclical, Desiderio Desideravi (With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you) Pope Francis drew attention to the ars celebrandi by saying:

The true artist does not possess an art but rather is possessed by it. One does not learn the art of celebrating by frequenting a course in public speaking or in persuasive techniques of communication. …A diligent dedication to the celebration is required, allowing the celebration itself to convey to us its art. [Romano] Guardini writes: “We must understand how deeply we remain entrenched in individualism and subjectivism, how unaccustomed we have become to the demands of the ‘great’, and how small the parameters of our religious living are. We must regain the sense for the ‘great’ style of praying, the will towards the existential in prayer too. The way to achieve this, though, is through discipline, through giving up weak sentimentality; through serious work, carried out in obedience to the Church, on our religious being and acting.” [15] This is how the art of celebrating is learned.[24]

And further:

If it is true that the ars celebrandi is required of the entire assembly that celebrates, it is likewise true that ordained ministers must have a very particular concern for it. In visiting Christian communities, I have noticed that their way of living the liturgical celebration is conditioned — for better or, unfortunately, for worse — by the way in which their pastor presides in the assembly. We could say that there are different “models” of presiding. Here is a possible list of approaches, which even though opposed to each other, characterize a way of presiding that is certainly inadequate: rigid austerity or an exasperating creativity, a spiritualizing mysticism or a practical functionalism, a rushed briskness or an overemphasized slowness, a sloppy carelessness or an excessive finickiness, a superabundant friendliness or priestly impassibility. Granted the wide range of these examples, I think that the inadequacy of these models of presiding have a common root: a heightened personalism of the celebrating style which at times expresses a poorly concealed mania to be the centre of attention.[25]

With regard to this, I am reminded of the words, again, of Godfrey Diekmann, who once said, “the Donatists may have been wrong theologically, but they were pastorally, oh, so right.”[26]  And, Robert Hovde in what remains the best manual on presiding available, Strong, Loving, and Wise, refers to the presider as the orchestra conductor, directing the assembly in its leitourgia.  He writes:

If the presider is looking at and listening to a reader, everyone knows that that is the thing to do. If the presider is sitting in quiet meditation, that is a signal for us all.  If the presider is addressing the assembly, we get ourselves together to listen and perhaps respond.  If the presider raises a hand, we know we stand, or lowers a hand we know we sit.  An orchestra may know the music very well, but it still needs a conductor.  The presider is the conductor of this orchestrated liturgy, this rite whose flow and parts can easily be shattered by the bark of needless orders and instructions: ‘Now stand!’ ‘Now sit!’  ‘Now turn to page 13!’[27]

So, how do we learn the ars celebrandi, or, in Guardini’s words, “regain the sense for the ‘great’ style of praying” in our own day?  Apart from courses at the seminary level, I have to say that probably the best way to learn it is by the experience of good presiders.  Catholic seminarians will often ask one of their “how to celebrate Mass” practicum teachers to check out their way of presiding before they are ordained.  I am convinced that workshops on presiding is a worthy goal for synods and perhaps even the Lutheran Liturgy seminar in the future.  And at the same time workshops on distinct feasts and seasons like the Easter Triduum would be valuable.  Twice I have been invited to lead a workshop on the Triduum for ELCA clergy in Western North Dakota at Assumption Abbey, where I gave presentations during the day and we would enact the Three Days in the evening.  We had at least one Roman Catholic priest with us, who was there because he wanted a refresher.  But if you cannot do such things, let me suggest that at the very least you get yourself to a monastery for some period of time in which you can experience a community grounded in the cycle of the daily prayer of the Hours and the daily Eucharist.  How fortunate you Minnesotans are to have Saint John’s Abbey in relative proximity to wherever you live in the state.  And I have to say that I learned everything I know about celebrating liturgy not from any classes I ever had but from experiencing the ars celebrandi with good presiders and good liturgy there at Saint John’s, the unfortunately now closed-down Blue Cloud Abbey in Marvin, South Dakota, Our Lady of the Angels outside Cuernavaca, Mexico, New Melleray Abbey, near Dubuque, IA, and elsewhere in the Benedictine family.  Spend time in the Benedictine liturgical world (of course I am biased). Let me conclude.

Conclusion

            So, how do we best nurture the evangelical catholic tradition as it concerns the prayer of the liturgy?  My former student, Tim O’Malley, in his recent book, Divine Blessing: Liturgical Formation in the RCIA, has said on this issue: “If we want evangelizing liturgies, the ones that will attract seekers off the street, celebrating good, ‘provocative’ liturgies are key – liturgies that place at the center God’s salvific activity rather than the priest, the choir, or the assembly.  It is precisely this kind of liturgy that will lead seekers to take a second look at the church.”[28]  But, let’s be careful about becoming too concerned about this.  In their book, Chasing Down a Rumor: The Death of Mainline Denominations,[29] Robert Bacher and Kenneth Inskeep argue that we should not compare church today with the 1960s because the post-WWII period was abnormal. Soldiers coming home went to school on the GI bill, got jobs… bought homes they could afford because of low interest rates, raised families in a moral modern (not post-modern) universe. The society boomed with church-going… Things were settling down after the turmoil of war. Further, Mainstream churches were strongest from 1920 through the 1950s. Then much social upheaval affected church membership. They concluded that rather than mainline Protestant churches dying, they are simply returning now to normal numbers. 

Nevertheless, we, of course, always need to be concerned with evangelism.  But, as the great British Methodist liturgical theologian Geoffrey Wainwright has said, “without the heartbeat of the sacraments at its center, a church will lack confidence about the gospel message and about its own ability to proclaim that message in evangelism, to live it out in its own internal fellowship, and to embody it in service to the needy."[30] And, elsewhere he writes that: "[a] deeper replunging into its own tradition will...be necessary if the church is to survive in recognizable form, particularly in our western culture."[31]  Several years before he became pope, Leo XIV said:

the Church should resist the temptation to believe that it can compete with modern mass media by turning the sacred liturgy into spectacle. Here again, Church Fathers such as Tertullian remind us today that visual spectacle is the domain of the “saeculum,” and that our proper mission is to introduce people to the nature of Mystery, as an antidote to spectacle.

How do we do that, how do we introduce people to the nature of mystery?  By attending to our evangelical catholic heritage, to the very centrality of baptism in our theology to the centrality of the Eucharist in the ongoing life of the Church, to the Feasts and seasons of the year, and the daily prayer of the Church.  And in relationship to the Eucharist we need renewed emphasis: (1) as the next conference on Corpus Christi will remind us, on our confessional theology of the Real Presence, that in the Lord’s supper the body and blood of Christ are truly and substantially present and are truly offered with those things that are seen,” and further “that in the sacrament…, Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is present wholly and entirely, in his body and blood, under the signs of bread and wine;”[32] (2) that this theology cannot be separated from what we actually do, say, and pray in our liturgical assemblies, including, I have argued, the trinitarian fullness of the Eucharistic Prayer; and (3) attention to the “Eucharistic hermeneutic” of the three-year lectionary.  I offer these simply as a way forward, as a way of setting the agenda for the ongoing nurture of our evangelical-catholic liturgical life as Lutherans today, and perhaps as a way of recapturing our confessional statement that our churches have not abolished the Mass, but “actually, the Mass is retained among us and is celebrated with the greatest reverence.  Almost all the customary ceremonies are also retained.”[33]  Let’s make sure that this remains true among us!

And so, in the words of Baumstark again:

In Liturgy we become aware of the living heart of the Church.  In the prayer which ascends to the Throne of God, in the fullness of Sacramental Grace which descends on the common life of the faithful, we are made conscious of the powerful stream of life which pulsates through the Mystical Body of Christ, of the Christ, who, as the Apostle said, ‘died once for all,’ so that ‘death shall no longer have dominion over Him.’  Never can such living activity be paralysed into the rigour of an immobile and dead formalism.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Endnotes:

[1]        Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy (London: A.R. Mowbray & Co., Limited, 1958), 1.

[2]        A. Kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology (Collegeville: Pueblo, 1984).  I have critiqued Kavanagh's position elsewhere.  See my essay, "Liturgy and Theology," in P. Bradshaw and B. Spinks (eds.), Liturgy in Dialogue (London: SPCK, 1993), 202-25.

[3]        Leonel L. Mitchell, Praying Shapes Believing: A Theological Commentary on The Book of Common Prayer (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1985).

[4]        This feast did not only continue on various Lutheran calendars at the time of the Reformation but was included also in calendars among some American Lutheran groups even in the United States through the nineteenth century.  See Philip Pfatteicher, who argues for its ecumenical inclusion today in his New Book of Festivals and Commemorations: A Proposed Common Calendar of Saints (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), 435-6.

[5]        See M.E. Johnson, The Virgin of Guadalupe: Theological Reflections of an Anglo-Lutheran Liturgist (Celebrating Faith: Explorations in Latino Spirituality and Theology Series (Landham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield), 2002; and Idem, American Magnificat: Protestants on Mary of Guadalupe (Collegeville: Michael Glazier, 2010.

[6]        Phillip Pfatteicher, Liturgical Spirituality (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International,1997), 12.

[7]    Ibid, 22.

[8]        See Maxwell E. Johnson, Praying and Believing in Early Christianity: The Interplay between Christian Worship and Doctrine (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, Michael Glazier, 2013).

[9]        See Robert Taft, "What Does Liturgy Do? Toward a Soteriology of Liturgical Celebration: Some Theses," Worship 66, 3 (1992): 194-211.

[10]      Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Evangelical Lutheran Worship: Leader’s Desk Edition (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2006), 592-5; Welcome to Christ: A Lutheran Catechetical Guide (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress 1997); Welcome to Christ: A Lutheran Introduction to the Catechumenate (Minneapolis 1997); and Welcome to Christ: Lutheran Rites for the Catechumenate (Minneapolis 1997).  See the recent study of the catechumenal process in Kent Burreson and Rhoda Schuler, Journey to Jesus: Faith Formation into Christ and Community (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2025).

[11]      (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993).

[12]      The Assembly: A Spirituality (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2022).

[13]      J.F. White, "Roman Catholic and Protestant Worship in Relationship," in Idem., Christian Worship in North America: A Retrospective: 1955-1995 (Collegeville 1997), 3.

[14]  See Evangelical Lutheran Worship: Leader’s Desk Edition (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress,

   2006), 660-65; and Evangelical Lutheran Worship; Pastoral Care, 163-68.

[15]      “How Do We Know it is Us?” in E. Anderson and B. Morrill (eds.), Liturgy and the Moral Self: Humanity at Full Stretch Before God (Collegeville: Pueblo, 1998), 57.

[16]      Ibid., pp. 57-8.

[17]      “From Sighs Too Deep for Words: A Liturgy in Response to Faith, Sexism, and Justice,” (Minneapolis: Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 2023), 15.

[18]      Ibid, 56.

[19]      R. Taft, Beyond East and West: Problems in Liturgical Understanding  (The Pastoral Press: Washington D.C. 1984), x.

[20]      See The Use of the Means of Grace, 25 and 26, pp. 31-32; and 44A, 48.

[21]      Louis Bouyer, Eucharist: The Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharistic Prayer (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), 441-2.  See also Frank Senn, Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 627-8.

[22]      Gordon Lathrop, "A Rebirth of Images: On the use of the Bible in Liturgy", Worship 58, 4, (1984), 296.

[23]      Horace Allen, as quoted by John Allen, Jr., “Liturgist Says Ecumenical Dialogue is ‘Dead,’” National Catholic Reporter (May 24, 2002), http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-87210384.html

[24]      Desiderio desideravi, 50.

[25]      Ibid, 54.

[26]      Godfrey Diekmann, quoted in Robert Hovde, Strong, Loving, and Wise (Washington, D.D.: The Liturgical Conference, 1976), vi.

[27]      Ibid, 36.

[28]      Timothy O’Malley, Divine Blessing: Liturgical Formation in the RCIA (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2019), 24.

[29]      Robert Bacher and Kenneth Inskeep, Chasing Down a Rumor: The Death of Mainline Denominations (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005).  My thanks to Melinda Quivik for this reference.

[30]      G. Wainwright, "The Sacraments in Wesleyan Perspective," in Idem, Worship with One Accord: Where Liturgy & Ecumenism Embrace (New York: Oxford, 1998), 106.

[31]      G. Wainwright, "Renewing Worship: The Recovery of Classical Patterns," in Idem, Worship with One Accord: Where Liturgy & Ecumenism Embrace, (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 138.

[32]      The Eucharist as Sacrifice, in Paul Empie and T. Austin Murphy (eds.), Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue, III (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1967), 192.

[33] Ibid, 56.