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St. Michael's Conference 2010

St. Michael's Liturgical Conference 2010

The 2010 St. Michael Liturgical Conference was held on Monday, September 27, at Zion Detroit. The theme of this year's conference was taken from the Augusburg Confession, Article XXIV: “Falsely are our churches accused of abolishing the Mass; for the Mass is retained among us, and celebrated with the highest reverence.”

The conference examined the Mass in the Lutheran Confessions and the writings of Luther, and stressed the practical contemporary application of our Confession “The Mass is celebrated among us with the highest reverence.”

The keynote presenter, the Reverend Professor Roland Ziegler of Concordia Theological Seminary Fort Wayne, addressed the question “What does it mean when the Augsburg Confession claims that the subscribing churches retained the Mass?” This requires a historical investigation of the form of worship used among Lutherans around 1530 and the decade to follow, and what dogmatic relevance the form of the Mass had among Lutherans in the time of the reformation. Only then can we discern what this statement means for contemporary practice.

Sectional presenters were Fr. Burnell Eckardt, Pastor of St. Paul, Kewanee, and editor ofGottesdienst magazine; the Reverend Dr. Daniel Reuning, Kantor and church musician of Redeemer Lutheran Church of Fort Wayne, and Dean of Chapel at CTS for 31 years; Deacon David Muehlenbruch of Bethany Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, and of the Lex Orandi web site; and Fr. Mark Braden, Pastor of Zion Detroit.

Sectional presentations treated of both the ceremony and the rite of the Lutheran high Mass, with special attention paid to the rubrics for the Celebrant, Deacon and Subdeacon, and the chanting of the Gospel.

At the Mass, Fr. David Petersen of Redeemer, Fort Wayne preached, the Rt. Rev. David Stechholz, Bishop of the English District, presided, and Fr. Braden served as Celebrant. Zion Detroit sponsored the St. Michael Liturgical Conference from 1998 until 2005. From 2006-2008 the St Michael Liturgical Conferences were held at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana.