Necessary Roughness

In the last post we covered the Introit, a couple of verses from Psalms or Proverbs that tell us about God. The Gloria Patri sings praise to our triune God, unchanging in his love for us. Finally the Kyrie is asks God for his mercy upon us.

We draw again from Divine Service III in the new Lutheran Service Book.

Gloria in Excelsis

The Gloria in Excelsis was first ordered into the Christmas Mass in the early second century and began to be sung on Sundays by the sixth century. It is taken directly from the angels’ proclamation of the birth to shepherds in Luke 2:14 and from John the Baptist’s identification of Christ’s function in John 1:29. We give God our highest thanks for sending his Son who takes away the sin of the world, while still asking for his mercy again. Only the mercy of the Most High God—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—will do.

The Gloria in Excelsis isn’t sung during Advent or Lent. Advent is the time of preparation before we celebrate our Lord’s coming at Christmas. Lent is the time of preparation where we focus on the magnitude of what Christ has done for us. We hold back a little in worship so that when Christ comes, by womb at Christmas or by tomb at Easter, we sing out that Gloria with the angels.

Salutation

“The Lord be with you.”
“And with thy spirit.”

The “with thy/your spirit” isn’t just found in 2 Timothy 4:22 but also in Philemon 1:25, Phillippians 4:23, and Galatians 6:18. New Advent doesn’t seem to have any special reason for it other than it’s a Hebrew way of saying “with you.” The salutation is here as punctuation between part of the service, according to the LCMS Christian Cyclopedia. We go from asking for mercy to asking God about the needs of the church.

Collect of the Day

A collect (pronounced with the first syllable stressed and the “o” making an “ah” sound, kä’-lekt) is a general prayer for the church. If sung it’s always chanted without accompaniment. Wikipedia notes that often collects have a particular format.

The collect for this week, according to sanctus.org:

Almighty and everlasting God, give us an increase of faith, hope, and charity; and that we may obtain what You have promised, make us love what You have commanded; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

We’ve hit three more scriptural references in praising God, telling us what he has done, and a blessing to each of us, that the Lord be with us. In the next post we’ll cover the actual scriptural lessons, with some interesting trivia about the Gospel if I remember to write it.