THE LITURGY

 Anglo Lutheran Catholic Fellowship In. America                            

We Hold To The liturgy, or Divine Service, is itself a mystery. It is "God coming to His people" in Word and Sacraments. In its oldest form, the liturgy is as old as the Church Herself. It is, indeed, the Mass, which the signers of the Augsburg Confession rightly claimed that they had not abandoned. While there are other Services in use by the Church (Matins, Vespers, Compline, etc), the Mass--or the celebration of The Holy Communion--is, and should be, the primary Service of the Church. I we encourage weekly celebration of the Mass, the Holy Communion. While we do not believe that Holy Communion is necessary for salvation, we see in it a vivid reminder of the forgiveness of sins as Christ comes to us in His Body and Blood, as we commune with each other and all those who have gone before us in the True Faith. With Luther, we do not believe that Holy Communion should be celebrated in the absence of a pastor, except in those extremely rare instances when a pastor cannot be present for very long periods of time.

We believe that in the Mystery of the Sacrament, the True Body and Blood of Christ become present with the bread and wine during the Words of Institution, or the Verba. We do not claim to know at which point, as some Catholics. claim that  they know the exact  "fix the moment." Nor do we  in the Church   believe in receptionism, the belief that the bread and wine are not the Body and Blood until received by the communicant. Likewise, we do not believe that the remaining elements should be returned to their containers or destroyed. Just as we do not know the precise moment the Sacrament becomes present, neither can we "fix a moment" when the Body and Blood are no longer present. The pastor should, then, try to be aware of the number of people who will commune so that there are sufficient elements for the Communion. All remaining Elements should be reverently consumed by the pastor and those he chooses to assist him, following the end of the Service.;We believe that all attempts to make the Mass "more palatable" by changing its form are both presumptuous and misguided, and no orthodox pastor or parish would allow such changes to take place. The Church has enough forms of worship in Her various Services, that such changes need not be contemplated As we believe that only men are called to the Office of the Holy Ministry, likewise we believe that women should not take a leading role in leading the liturgy.