Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, is February 9, a bit early this year. It will coincide closely with the passage from winter to spring (Easter is March 27). Seasonally, then, it will help Lent feel like a time of moving from darkness to light, from cold to warmth, from death to life.

The Lenten season invites us into a time of renewing our spiritual lives through repentance, fasting, prayer and alms. It invites us into God's struggle with sin and evil, a struggle we wage every day even though the war was been won. It reminds us that our true enemy is not our neighbor, nor someone of different race or creed, nor our own demons. Our enemy is God.

God is our enemy because we have made God that. We have chosen other gods to worship and follow; we have chosen to do what seems good and pleasing to us; we have chosen not to struggle against sin in our lives. And we have made God the enemy.

But what an enemy to have!! Paul tells us in Romans (on the Third Sunday in Lent):
· when we were weak and ungodly, Christ died for us
· when we were sinners, Christ died for us
· while we were enemies, Christ reconciled us to God

The season of Lent begins by reminding us of our place in the universe: You are dust and to dust you shall return. And it ends in the darkness and silence of a Saturday night, our spirits waiting to hear that God did not abandon the holy One to the pit. We wait to hear that God remembers that we are but dust and does not abandon us to the pit. At the Vigil of Easter we are baptized and buried with Christ into a way of life that lives by promise, that lives by hope, that lives by the mercy of God.

How will our Lenten liturgies speak again the power and wisdom and mercy of God? Lenten liturgies that give room to repentance and prayer take seriously the might and mercy of our enemy. Lenten liturgies that fast from pomp and circumstance and alleluias take seriously our need for renewal and new life. Lenten liturgies that empower folks to offer themselves for the world are liturgies that transform us from enemies into the people of God.

You will find inside some practical helps for shaping and crafting Lenten liturgies. There is also an update on the Renewing Worship Project, a review of Dr. Max Johnson's "The Virgin of Guadalupe", and a resource for children in worship.

Worship Resources

As you plan liturgies, Sundays and Seasons, published by Augsburg Fortress (ISBN 0-8066-4674-8) is a helpful resource. There are articles about worship and the seasons; alternative liturgical texts are suggested; and hymns, anthems, and instrumental pieces are recommended. There are also suggestions concerning worship space, children in worship, and images for preaching. The book for Year A is available now.

The sixth volume in the Renewing Worship series, Holy Communion and Related Rites (Item No: 0806670061), has been out for a while and is available as a study volume and worship leader's edition. It comes with two supporting volumes, Renewing Worship Liturgies (Item No: 0806670258) and Renewing Worship Liturgies, Accompaniment Edition (Item No: 0806670266). You are encouraged to use these new materials and offer your responses to them.

The Renewing Worship Website (www.renewingworship.com) invites congregations to participate in field-testing the new Holy Communion materials. The site says:

In consultation with the ELCA's Department for Research and Evaluation, the provisional materials published in Holy Communion and Related Rites are being tested during the fall of 2004. The testing process includes the following three components:

We encourage any and all ELCA and ELCIC congregations to participate in the testing process. A downloadable testing package of materials is now available.

Renewing Worship: Volumes 7 & 8:
Daily Prayer and The Church's Year: Propers and Seasonal Rites

The seventh and eighth volumes, Daily Prayer, and The Church's Year: Propers and Seasonal Rites, have been published and are available from Augsburg Fortress.

Daily Prayer offers a "fundamental and natural pattern or shape for daily prayer" similar to the Gathering/Word/Meal/Sending shape of Holy Communion. The three offices of Evening Prayer, Night Prayer, and Morning Prayer reflect the parallel structure of Opening, Psalm and Song, Word, and Praying. Daily Prayer:

The Consultation of Common Texts is engaged in a project to offer an "alternative to a daily lectionary that involves reading the Bible in sequence." This alternative suggests readings tied to the Sunday lectionary. The Thursday through Saturday readings prepare for the Sunday readings, and the days following Sunday reflect on the readings of that Sunday. Daily Prayer provides readings from the Thursday preceding Advent I through the Wednesday following the Day of Pentecost.
(Quotes are all from the Introduction to Daily Prayer, pp vi-xii.)

The Church's Year "focuses on the means by which the church gives shape to its worship of God throughout the year." It presents a set of lectionary texts unchanged from those presented in With One Voice, Leader's Edition (except for some changes to the Vigil of Easter readings). It does, however, offer some revisions to the church year calendar:

The Church's Year provides the calendar and notes, as well as a paragraph on each of the lesser festivals and commemorations. The Propers include Initial Thanksgivings (previously called proper prefaces), the color of the day, and lectionary texts, prayer, and verse for each Sunday of the three-year cycle. The final section contains the rites for Ash Wednesday and Holy Week, plus supplemental materials for those rites. There is also a list of sources for the Prayers of the Day. Both volumes include an Evaluation, which you are encouraged to fill out after testing the materials.

OneLicense.net is a new way to get copyright permission on-line and easily. More information may be found at www.onelicense.net. A number of publishers, including Augsburg, GIA, Hope, and Oxford University Press are part of this project. It makes obtaining copyrights easier and assists us in providing user-friendly worship bulletins.

COMING IN 2005

January 18-25 is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The theme this year is "All things are yours … you belong to Christ … and Christ, the unique foundation, belongs to God" (1Corinthians3.1-23).
Check out the flyer in the ELCA's Nov-Dec Action Packet and visit www.geii.org for more information.

The Institute of Liturgical Studies will be held at Valparaiso University April 4-6. The Institute is in the middle of a three-year cycle entitled, "Saying and Doing the Gospel Today: Mass, Ministry, Mission. This year the Institute will reflect on the relationship between ministry and worship. Keynote speakers are Mark Hanson, Gordon Lathrop, Kathleen Harmon, and Timothy Wengert. Registration materials are mailed in January. To be on the list contact the Institute office at 219-464-5309, or by e-mail at ils@valpo.edu. You may visit their web site at www.valpo.edu/theology/ils.

Lenten Liturgies:
Color for Lent is Purple

+ + +

Lent may be thought of as "Long Order for Confession" with Forgiveness and Absolution coming at the Maundy Thursday Liturgy. This is the season, then, to include a weekly Order for Confession, but to omit the words of Absolution. LBW's first option in the Brief Order provide for this. Whichever order for Confession you use, simply announce that God forgives rather than pronouncing absolution.
As you plan for the order of Confession, you may consider using the Brief Order from LBW, WOV, or Sundays and Seasons. You may want to use some of the Renewing Worship Material. Holy Baptism (Volume 3) includes a Brief Order for Confession on pp 91-92, replacing the Declaration of Forgiveness with a simple announcement that God forgives. You may also consider adapting the Ash Wednesday Rite from The Church's Year, pp. 238-240 (Renewing Worship Volume 8):

GATHERING
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Gathering Hymns might be hymns of repentance. Be sure and check out the Lenten hymns in the Renewing Worship Songbook, as well as those in the "Forgiveness/Healing" section (197-200).
Processions are generally omitted during Lent, as is the "Hymn of Praise". And, of course, the Alleluia.
[Editor's Note: See the February 2004 issue of Sanctus for the "Farewell to the Alleluia" rite.]

The Prayer of the Day may be used from The Church's Year, which has a prayer for each Sunday of each year of the three-year cycle.

WORD
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The lessons for the season of Lent in The Church's Year are the RCL lessons. However, this volume in the Renewing Worship series does provide a different Verse for each Sunday. The Introduction to The Church's Year says, "The text may be sung to the simple tone provided in the Verse of the Day settings in Holy Communion and Related Rites (vol. 6) and Renewing Worship Liturgies." (See R330 on page 136 of Holy Communion for a Lenten Acclamation setting.)

Since the Gospel readings for Lent 3, 4, and 5 are more lengthy than usual, you might divide it into parts, similar to the way the Passion Narratives are structured for congregational reading. You may also consider inviting the Assembly to sit for most of the reading, standing for the final verses (Jn 4.31-42; 9.35-41; 11.38-45).

MEAL
+ + +

An introduction to the Peace might be:
P Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The peace of Christ be with you always.
You may consider only announcing the Peace and not sharing it throughout the Lenten season. This could symbolize that sin breaks our relationships with one another and would parallel the absence of the Absolution. It could then be shared at the Maundy Thursday Liturgy following the time of individual absolution. (The Maundy Thursday Rite in The Church's Year has moved the Peace from immediately following the Absolution - in the LBW rite - to its normal place after the intercessions. If the congregation does refrain from sharing the Peace during Lent, it might be best to share it following the Absolution, rather than later.)

"Create in Me" serves well as the Offertory by continuing the Ash Wednesday image from Psalm 51. Holy Communion, R334, provides a setting from Liturgy of Joy. Hymn settings that might work are R199 and R275,
WOV 732, and LBW 102.
Eucharistic Prayer III from LBW is a good Lenten prayer, as is, of course, Eucharistic Prayer D in WOV, Leader's Edition.

SENDING
+ + +

It is appropriate to omit any final hymn and the postlude during Lent.
Possible dismissals:
Lent 1-
A Happy are they whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sin is put away.
C Happy are they to whom the Lord imputes no guilt, and in whose spirit there is no guile.
A Be glad, you righteous. Go in peace, serving the Lord your God.
C Thanks be to God!

Lent 2-
A Go forth from this place in peace. In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
C Thanks be to God!

Lent 3-
A Look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.
You are sent forth now in peace to be reapers.
C Thanks be to God!

Lent 4-
A God has made you lie down in the green pastures of the Word, and spread a table before you.
Go now in peace, to do the works of God.
C Surely God's goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
Thanks be to God!

Lent 5-
A All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
C When we cry, "Abba, Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
A And if children, then heirs,
C heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,
A Go in peace to suffer with Christ so that you may also be glorfied with him.
C I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed. Thanks be to God!

Children in Worship: Growing Families of Faith during Lent
An Appeal for Cross-Generational Partnerships
by Susan McMahon

"Train up a child in the way one should go,
and when the child is old that one will not depart from it."
Proverbs 22:6

When it comes to Lent, we might well wonder how some people were brought up -- even mentioning the "L" word in many circles can empty a room! This season calls for focused discipline, to be sure -- but discipline need not be grim! The problem seems to arise from secular misunderstandings of Lent's meaning for Christians. In the rhythm of the Church's year, Lent is a season for emerging growth -- not death -- which takes its name from the lengthening days of spring in the northern hemisphere. Church tradition claims this period for separating ourselves from lingering winter lethargy and deathly orientations, and for growing in faith and knowledge of God.

Many young parents are largely unaware of the deep joy that can be discovered through the Christian disciplines practiced during Lent; they are ill prepared to teach their own children. If congregations are to faithfully "train up" the children we baptize, we owe it to the parents of young children to be more intentional about equipping them for the task.

Empowering families to dedicate their lives to God

Dedicating ourselves to the task of celebrating Lent fully is one way for a congregation to honor its baptismal promise and to empower its members to re-dedicate the temples of their lives to God and to grow in faith together.

The Hebrew verb translated in the above passage from Proverbs as "train" is hanak. In the Bible, words that come from the same root often occur in contexts suggesting the sense of "to begin, initiate, inaugurate." It is used to refer to the formal opening of a building (Solomon's Temple, I Kgs. 8:63), for an initiation gift for an altar (Num. 7:10), and for the time one begins to live in a new house (Deut. 20:5). Because prayers and rites of consecration were considered essential for the inauguration of a structure, the meaning "to dedicate" eventually became extended to hanak.

The practices of Lent "dedicate" or "train" us to re-locate the foundation we have in God's teaching, and to deepen our trust and hope in God's promises.

Encouraging and equipping families to grow in faith together

Most of us are more likely to stick to an exercise routine if we know someone else expects us to show up. The same holds true for family members trying to stick with new disciplines during Lent. But we can invite mature Christians to shepherd our young parents during the season, and encourage committed families to pair together for their Lenten walk.

The specific suggestions that follow have been tried and tested in congregations I've grown with during Lent. If you'd like more information, feel free to contact me at Lilygarden@aol.com. I'd also welcome hearing what's been particularly effective in your congregation. If you're willing to share ideas, I'll pass them along to others!

1. Celebrate Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras with the whole congregation. Have young families provide rides for elderly members . Make masks, crowns, and German Faschnuts, or indulge in a feast of pancakes and sausage. Include a rite celebrating the members who are making new commitments for Lent. A favorite activity for deepening the learning around this event can be found in the February 2002 issue of Catechist. The article, "From False Self to True Self," features mask-making with ideas appropriate for all ages.

2. Present "engraved invitations" for families to dedicate themselves to regular participation in Lenten worship. Encourage attendance by writing a letter to parents giving specific suggestions for how to prepare and include their children. Schedule evening services early enough for children to participate. Parents unfamiliar with Ash Wednesday or mid-week Lenten services may be a bit hesitant about all this themselves, and will likely wonder whether children would be welcome unless it's made clear. Remind them that even very young children know how to say "I'm sorry" and often pray "Now I lay me down to sleep" with a level of understanding surprising to some adults. If they seem reluctant to bring young children to evening services, you might tell them that because children have limited experience of being in the sanctuary at night, they are often surprisingly receptive to the awe and solemnity of these special services of evening worship.

3. Imagine worship through the eyes of a child as you plan. One way to involve families is to design a "Growing in Faith" banner and have children or family groups add to it each week during worship (for a pattern, see Catechist, Feb. 2003).

4. Break bread together and make a point of drawing sensory connections to Bible study and worship. Plan simple soup and sandwich suppers each week in Lent followed by worship. Rotate meal preparation among families. Do Bible study for ALL ages, using a multiple intelligence learning approach such as Firelight's (Augsburg) "God Feeds Us" series. Keep the lights low in worship and use lots of candles to hold the attention of children and to heighten the drama of the changing evening light during the season. Use a simple, beautiful liturgy such as Holden Evening Prayer (Augsburg Fortress). This service is engaging even for new participants, and requires minimal preparation by musicians. Although sight-impaired adults may feel challenged at first, listening to the cantor lead the repetitive Taize style tunes catches the ears, sharpens listening skills, and prompts non-readers of all ages to sing along.

5. Live wet! Plan a baptismal remembrance rite the First Sunday in Lent, and sprinkle water on everyone! On other Sundays, invite a few older youth or confirmation students to make the sign of the cross (yes, use water!) on parishioners as a reminder of their baptism as they approach the table for communion.

6. Take a plunge and experience real hunger. Schedule a 30 hour famine or other world hunger awareness learning program and integrate it with this year's lectionary texts during Lent. Provide lots of support, but encourage high school youth and confirmation students to help lead these events. Both the ELCA and Heifer Project offer a 40-day calendar of family friendly ideas for Lent. Heifer Project's video "The Promise" is excellent for all ages and short enough to show as a "Temple Talk" during worship. (Borrow it from the Congregational Resource Center at CTS, or order it from Heifer International.)

7. Dedicate families to live as families FOR others. Plan a variety of projects so that people of all ages can join in. Reach out through families to families in the community.

In short, help families experience first hand that disciplined learning need not be dreary, and that Christian faith is alive and well!

The Virgin of Guadalupe:
Theological Reflections of an Anglo-Lutheran Liturgist

by Maxwell E. Johnson ©2002
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
ISBN: 0-7425-2284-9
Reviewed by Rudy Mueller

[Editor's note: This book is part of series, Celebrating Faith: Explorations in Latino Spirituality and Theology, edited by Virgil P. Elizondo. Its purpose is to "present seminal, insightful, and inspirational works drawing on the experiences of Christians in the Latino traditions." The book may be ordered on-line at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.]

Max Johnson, an ELCA professor of liturgy at Notre Dame, invites a timely conversation for North American Christianity. As the Hispanic-Latino population grows - especially here in Indiana - we are compelled to find ways to be hospitable and welcoming to our new neighbors. One such step is to understand them, especially theologically. Johnson's book opens to us a significant image of not only religious, but also cultural expression of "Mexican and Mexican American identity and spirituality."

Johnson writes his book because "at least ELCA Lutherans and Roman Catholics are now enabled to approach issues like Marian doctrine and devotion from a common and agreed-upon starting point … justification by grace alone through faith …" Further, current "theological interpretation and liturgical celebration must take into account … the continued presence and role that the Virgin of Guadalupe plays" in the life and 'faith-memory' [Virgil Elizondo's word] of the people. Moreover, many Roman Catholic feasts and practices which carried an anti-Protestant bias (e.g., Christ the King Sunday) are today part and parcel of our Protestant liturgical life. We ELCA folk celebrate the feast of Mary on August 15. We have also added Hispanic-Latino figures in our current list of festivals and commemorations. Finally, it is our goal for US Christianity to be truly racially and ethnically diverse, and we should, therefore, pay attention to an image that "so permeates Hispanic-Latino culture in the Americas."

Chapter 1 presents the text that tells the story of the apparition of the Virgin to Juan Diego on December 12, 1531, north of Mexico City. Chapter 2 investigates the text and traditions from an historical-critical perspective and Chapter 3 offers modern Roman Catholic interpretations. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss liturgical and popular celebrations of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the place of the Virgin on ecumenical scene, respectively. Each chapter contains endnotes, there is a three-page conclusion, suggestions for further reading and an index.

I found Chapter 3 the most intriguing. Johnson presents the spirituality surrounding the Virgin in modern Roman Catholic thought. The chapter discusses Guadalupe as 'Evangelizer', 'Liberator', and 'Mother of the New Creation'. Especially helpful for our work of mission today is the discussion of Guadalupe as 'Evangelizer'. It is called "evangelization through incarnation." Using Ad gentes, Vatican II's decree on the missionary work of the Church, Johnson describes an evangelization that reflects Christ's own incarnational activity. The Church that wishes to be open to all must show love and respect for all, including their culture.

I encourage the reading of this book (and Johnson's article in the November '04 issue of Worship, "The Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Season of Advent") for two reasons. First, it is indeed helpful to understand our neighbors and their culture. But further, to be an inclusive church, we must find ways that welcome our neighbors and show our respect for their devotion and spirituality. Indeed, we can learn from them as much as (we think) they can learn from us.

December 12 is the third Sunday in Advent this year. It might be a good time to kick off a year of exploring the Hispanic-Latino culture, beginning conversations with our neighbors, and finding ways to celebrate our common Lord and Savior together. Sanctus will also provide suggestions and helps through the coming year.

Questions? Contact: