Ship of Fools: Grace Evangelical Lutheran, Glendale, Arizona, USA


imageShip of Fools: Grace Evangelical Lutheran, Glendale, Arizona, USA

Heavenly confirmation, dour everything else, on Palm Sunday

Read the full Mystery Worshipper report here


Comments

  • I’m curious as to why they held a Confirmation service on Palm Sunday and not Pentecost.
  • I'm not surprised, though. Another Lutheran church of my acquaintance held a baptism on Laetare Sunday.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited April 2022
    FWIW, people here would rhyme Hosanna and Roseanna, with a long "o" and a short "a".
  • My understanding is that it is a traditional time for Lutherans in Germany for Confirmation.
    The newly confirmed could then take part in Easter Communion.
    Of course this tradition is niot sklavishly followed everywhere.
  • Here in Oz adults are confirmed during the Easter Vigil: some post baptism and some ( from other Christian traditions) immediately post the ( adult) baptisms.
  • Reformed churches in The Netherlands (and elsewhere, I expect) hold their equivalent of confirmation services round about now as well.

    As in some Lutheran churches, the pastor (or Dominie) does the blessing, and presumably the candidates are then admitted to Communion at the next opportunity, which may well be Easter Sunday or even Good Friday.

    In case anyone wonders, I've been watching online services from one or two Dutch churches recently...

    This has nothing much to do with Grace Evangelical, but it's interesting to see how practices differ from one denomination to another, even if the aim of the service is the same. It's just a shame that the rest of the service there was so uninspiring.

    (FWIW, Our Place had a wonderful Confirmation one Palm Sunday a few years ago, but this was because the Bishop concerned had been snowed off the previous month, and Palm Sunday was the earliest subsequent date he could manage! He kindly allowed the candidates - all adults - to receive the Sacrament during the intervening weeks, if they wished, as he knew they were *ready and desirous* to be confirmed).
  • Just as Palm Sunday is the traditional time for Confirmation in German Lutheran churches,the First Sunday after Easter/aka Second Sunday of Easter /aka White Sunday in German is the traditional time for First Communions in the German Catholic Church.
    As with Confirmation these traditions are not always followed,but I digress.......
  • I did not know that our Lutheran brethren, bless them, administer the Rite of Confirmation (it’s not a Sacrament in their church) around Palm Sunday and not during Eastertide. Lutherans, except for a few a Swedes in Maine’s potato country and Finns in Worcester (MA) never made large inroads into New England. Back to the report. How did Miss Amanda ever survive a triple visual assault of a pastor in a black Geneva Gown, w legs crossed, and brown shoes? The horror!
  • How did Miss Amanda ever survive a triple visual assault of a pastor in a black Geneva Gown, w legs crossed, and brown shoes? The horror!
    She had her smelling salts handy.
  • At least the pastors wore the correct red stoles...
    :sweat_smile:

    IMHO the Geneva gown is actually quite a dignified vestment, if worn (as it is in many Dutch churches) with preaching bands. However, I thought that most Lutherans these days wore albs, with stoles, and (in many cases) the traditional (!) chasuble - but I know that customs vary widely. Is Grace Evangelical perhaps a sort of low-church Lutheran place?

    The brown shoes are, of course, An Abomination Before The Lord.
  • At least the pastors wore the correct red stoles :sweat_smile: . . . I thought that most Lutherans these days wore albs, with stoles, and (in many cases) the traditional (!) chasuble

    Yes, I noted the correctness of the red. Many places choose purple. The alb/stole/chasuble in Lutheran churches has been my observation too. Perhaps because it was not a communion service, they forewent the eucharistic vestments.
    Gee D wrote: »
    FWIW, people here would rhyme Hosanna and Roseanna, with a long "o" and a short "a".

    The Baby Jesus and his Blessed Mother pronounce it hose-AH-nuh. It's the first word she taught him.
  • Ah - I'd forgotten that it was a non-eucharistic service. I hope the pastors sport at least alb (not necessarily the now almost universal cassock-alb) and stole (a most seemly combination) when it is a Eucharist.

    Odd about the hymns, though, too. I thought Lutherans liked to sing - certainly all the Lutheran services I've been to in England have featured enthusiastic singing by choir and congregation!
  • The non-singing surprised me too. I did look around carefully, and I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of mouths I saw moving. And they were all fine old traditional hymns, too. Perhaps it was a congregation of skilled ventriloquists.
  • I’m curious as to why they held a Confirmation service on Palm Sunday and not Pentecost.
    Forthview wrote: »
    My understanding is that it is a traditional time for Lutherans in Germany for Confirmation.
    The newly confirmed could then take part in Easter Communion.
    Of course this tradition is niot sklavishly followed everywhere.
    Confirmation on Palm Sunday was once very common in Lutheran and other churches in these parts. I was confirmed in 1971 on Palm Sunday in a Presbyterian church.

    In the days when confirmation was necessary before admission to Communion, confirmation on Palm Sunday allowed the confirmand to receive Communion on Maundy Thursday.

    IMHO the Geneva gown is actually quite a dignified vestment, if worn (as it is in many Dutch churches) with preaching bands.
    Sadly—I say this as one in a denomination where Geneva gowns are still common—the American Geneva gown, like the typical American academic, gown differs from its British/European counterpart. The American version is worn closed rather than open, is worn without a cassock (though bands are sometimes seen), and has bell sleeves rather than open sleeves. It’s not as attractive IMHO.

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    FWIW, people here would rhyme Hosanna and Roseanna, with a long "o" and a short "a".

    The Baby Jesus and his Blessed Mother pronounce it hose-AH-nuh. It's the first word she taught him.

    May we one day be able to resolve this difference.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited April 2022
    The Baby Jesus and his Blessed Mother pronounce it hose-AH-nuh.
    No, I’m pretty confident they both pronounce it ho-SHAH-nah or o-SHAH-nah, English not being their first (or second or third) language. (Pace all the KJV-only folks.)

  • SpikeSpike Ecclesiantics & MW Host, Admin Emeritus
    Here in the UK Hosanna is pronounced with a short a, and as we all know that God is English, that is obviously the correct pronunciation
  • ThuriferThurifer Shipmate Posts: 1
    Sad to see the “one true faith,” (WELS), in which I was raised hasn’t changed. I’ve happily been Episcopalian since 1971….still recovering from some of that old Lutheran School stuff though.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited April 2022
    Gee D wrote: »
    FWIW, people here would rhyme Hosanna and Roseanna, with a long "o" and a short "a".

    I can't imagine it being pronounced any other way. Hosahna sounds really wrong. Like the weird people who call Mass Mahss

    I have to say I prefer the modern version of the Lord's Prayer. I don't think there's any justification for dropping into 16th century English for this one item.
  • Weird people and “Mahss”?

    Think Irish, Karl
  • FWIW, the pronunciation I generally hear in my corner of the US isn’t with a broad “ah,” but is more like this, so not a full ah sound, but closer than a short a. The pronunciation most folks in this this thread seem to find familiar can also be heard here, but rarely when the word is sung. When sung, the vowel definitely tilts toward ah.

    As Miss Amanda noted, that second pronunciation is common in Midwestern accents, and in some Midwestern accents, the a in the middle syllable can fall somewhere between a short a and an ee sound, with a slightly nasal tone. (Sorry, I can’t find an example.) Perhaps that is what Miss Amanda heard on Sunday—this was, after all, a congregation of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.

    I’ll see myself out, thank you.

  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    Here in England Mahss is a clahss thing.
  • Used to be here, too. In the very early 60s we lived in Singapore and were taught by (mainly Irish) nuns from whom we picked up the long-a pronunciation. We were mercilessly ragged by our confreres when we returned to Oz a couple of years later so that was ironed out pretty smartly.

    Now back to the OP ( from a Hostly wobbly, dear Lord deliver us)
  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    edited April 2022
    Looking at the rogues' gallery - sorry, portraits of former pastors - during the change-over period between the Lutherans and us in the building we use, I would say a nasty polyester cassock-alb pushed out cassock, surplice and stole around here in the late 1970s. That was also the period in which they seemed to drop the clerical collar. One quirk locally seems to be that cassock and surplice alternated with the Pulpit robe depending on whether the Pastor had a German or Scandinavian surname!
  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    edited April 2022
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    IMHO the Geneva gown is actually quite a dignified vestment, if worn (as it is in many Dutch churches) with preaching bands.
    Sadly—I say this as one in a denomination where Geneva gowns are still common—the American Geneva gown, like the typical American academic, gown differs from its British/European counterpart. The American version is worn closed rather than open, is worn without a cassock (though bands are sometimes seen), and has bell sleeves rather than open sleeves. It’s not as attractive IMHO.

    I tend to find that, in a warm church, the usual American pulpit robe also tends to be hotter than the non-air-conditioned section of Hades - like the similarly shaped American doctoral gown; however, the doctoral gown can be worn open according to the ICC. I occasionally wear one when 'moonlighting' and it has always struck me as being just the ticket for an unheated church in February, but not really helpful on a warm spring morning when some maroon (to quote Mr. B. Bunny) has turned the heat on.
  • [stamping her foot]

    What the clergy wore at the service in question is a given. If you wish to comment on it, fine. What clergy wear in other churches at other services has no bearing on this discussion. Don't make Miss Amanda lose her temper!

    [stamping her foot again, more forcefully this time]

    @Amanda B Reckondwyth
    Lead Editor, Mystery Worshipper
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