Throwback Thursday: Pre-Lent is for Partying!
Note: This was originally published February 17, 2023. ~ Ed.
It is always amusing when people assume the editors of Gottesdienst agree on every single issue. We don’t. And thanks be to God! We learn from one another, we have fun, and we can handle discussion. I prefer to celebrate ad orientem, where as for Petersen, he’s a versus populum kind of guy (which sounds like a great title for a country song). Stuckwisch is our heroic defender of the three-year lectionary. Eckardt and I both have tabernacles, but we disagree on how to make use of them. The list goes on.
We all laugh at those silly questions on the PIF (or is it the SET?) where you rate your liturgical practice, and one of the options is “rigid.” Yeah, no bias in that question! But some people seem to think that we are collectively rigid in matters of liturgy. Well, we have a great deal of overlap, and we all agree to a man that the historic liturgy is not negotiable. And no matter what, liturgy should be conducted with reverence, whether in a cathedral or on the hood of a jeep in a combat zone. But that said, we do all understand that there is room for different levels of ceremony, as well as regional differences in custom.
A great example is Pre-Lent.