# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1862_S226
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

226 Report on the True Mean of the Lutheran Liturgy.

interpretation among the people,**) and the Lord would be remembered, as he commanded at the Supper." (E. A. 22, 240.)

e) Psalmody and the Love-Offering: "Of this custom (namely, that in the Old Testament the food was 'waved') there remain to us still three memorial signs. The first, that the first and last prayer of the Mass is called the Collects, that is, the Gathering; by which it is testified that these prayers are spoken as a Benedicite and Grace over the food that has been brought together, to bless it and to thank God, and according to the teaching of St. Paul (1 Cor. 10:30-31). The second, that after the Gospel the people still go up to make an offering, from which the singing that is sung there is called the Offertorium, that is, an offering. The third, that the priest lifts up the unconsecrated host on the paten and offers it to God, at the very same time that the Offertorium is sung and the people make their offering; by which it is signified that it is not the Sacrament that is offered to God by us, but only these same Collects and the offering of the gathered (collected) food and goods, so that God is thanked for them and they are blessed, to be distributed to all the needy." (Sermon on the New Testament, that is, on the Holy Mass, 1520. E. A. 27, 157-158.)

f) On the Sanctus: The seal or memorial sign is the sacrament of bread and wine, under which is his true body and blood. For everything that is in this testament must live; therefore he has set it down not in dead writing and seal, but in living word and sign, which one continually handles anew each day. And this is what the priest signifies when he lifts up the host: that he is thereby not so much addressing God as us, as if he should say to us: Behold, this is the seal and sign of the testament, in which Christ has granted us remission of all sin and eternal life. To this the singing in the choir also corresponds: "Blessed is he who comes to us in the name of God," so that we may testify how we receive gifts therein, and do not offer or give anything to him. (Ibid., p. 149.)

g) Consecration: "Now see, what have they made of the Mass for us? In the first place, they have hidden from us the words of the testament, and taught: one must not tell them to the laity, that they are secret words,

Almighty God, confess your sins and failings, and say with the public sinner: 'God, be merciful to me, a poor sinner!' with heartfelt love and longing for his divine grace and help, with firm faith and trust in his gracious promise, and forgive from your hearts, each one his neighbor, so that your heavenly Father may also forgive you your sins and misdeeds. If you do this, I absolve you once more, in the place of the holy Christian church and by the command and promise of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he said: "Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them" — from all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen." — (Was this, perhaps, the form of the general confession over which the well-known Nuremberg absolution controversy arose?)

**) As it is contained in the communion-exhortation in our Agenda, for the early [morning] communion, p. 65.