“All my hope I place in thee, O Mother of God.”
Wow! What were the options again? 1.) We miss the point because of our Lutheran (i.e. restricted) view of the Gospel; 2.)Rank heresy.
Yeah. I’m going to go with option 2.
We might not want to throw out all that the “orthodox” can teach us, but this bit here smells something terrible.

Well, it’s pretty easy to throw around accusations of heresy without even attempting to understand what the alleged “heretical” party my be trying to say. Isn’t it? Have you asked an Orthodox clergyman the reason behind these prayers? I doubt it.
BTW, there are some things in our own Lutheran liturgy which at first sight may sound heretical. For instance we confess (in at least one of our now 5 “official” liturgies) that “we are by nature sinful and unclean.” Sounds pretty Flacian to me. But, of course, I know that isn’t what is meant by those words.
My point in all of this is: let’s be a little more careful in hurling accusations of heresy at others.

Chris, thanks for your comment. Would you care to explain in detail how it is you consider it appropriate to pray to Mary and say, “All my hope is in thee, O Mother of God”? Thanks.

In case you didn’t notice what you wrote in your post, a few lines after “All my hope I place in thee, O Mother of God” is “My hope is the Father, my refuge is the Son, my protection is the Holy Spirit: O Holy Trinity, glory to Thee.” It seems strange that if all my hope is in the Mother of God, my hope could also be the Father. May I suggest that you are misunderstanding the meaning of the prayer in question?

If I am married and I say, “I love you, my wife, my hope is you.”
…but moments before, I was looking at my wife’s sister saying “I love you, my sister-in-law, all my hope I place in you.” am I really giving my wife her proper honor? No, in my heart and by my words I have committed adultery.
Lifting up something in addition to God is the same as lifting something in place of God. This is why the Old Testament refers to idolatry as adultery against God.
So, since the defenders of this prayer are concerned about context, lets look at the full passage about the Blessed Virgin Mary:
“Most glorious, Ever-Virgin, Mother of Christ God, present our prayer to thy Son and our God, that through thee He may save our souls. All my hope I place in thee, O Mother of God: keep me under thy protection. O Virgin Theotokos, disdain not me a sinner, needing thy help and thy protection, and have mercy on me, for my soul hath hoped in thee.”
There is no misunderstanding the intent. Here is what they are saying:
1. Mary, it is neccessary that you are my mediator between Christ and man (“present our prayer to thy son and our God”)
2. Have mercy on me because I have faith in you, Mary. (“Keep me under thy protection”)
3. Mary, I need your help! Extend your grace to me so that I may be saved… oh yeah, through Christ. (“disdain me not a sinner… for my soul hath hoped in thee”)
“For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.”
1 Timothy 2:5-6
What other word describes this prayer if not heresy? All of these statements are not only false and have no Scriptural support… they diminish the work of Christ! Christ saves us. No one else. No one also.
Not Christ and ourselves,
Not Christ and the false gods,
Not Christ and our works,
Not Christ and the Pope,
And not Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary (or the other saints).
The only defense for this prayer is: “I don’t mean what you think I am saying. You are taking it wrong and misunderstand the subtle subtext. It’s a different kind of love.. a lesser form of ‘all my hope’.”
Which wouldn’t work on my wife for a second if she overheard me wooing her sister.

I apologize, but in the majority of the above prayers I find very little heresy in them. As a Lutheran, I pray to the Blessed Virgin, just as Martin Luther did centuries ago. I also pray to the other saints asking for their protection and intercession as Martin Luther did.I am too young to be confirmed in my church, so correct me if I’m wrong, but when Mike used the example of a sister-in-law, I do not believe that is a good example, as the Blessed Virgin Mary is our Heavenly Mother, and so she should be very close to us.
That is my view.
McCain: Christian, this is not what the Bible teaches us. Martin Luther did not pray to the Virgin Mary or the saints once he came to realize how wrong this is. Please talk to your pastor about these things.

Hi there. I’m a garden variety born-again protestant who sort of accidentally ended up going to a Lutheran church. I met this girl on the internet who had a similar non-denominational-mutt background to mine and began following her blog. When we met, she was Presbyterian and Calvinist. Talking to her about God’s sovereignty and predestination and such really got my grey matter in knots. I read a boatload of books about Calvinism and arrived at such a state of confusion that I stopped reading my bible. Many months have passed and now this friend is converting to Eastern Orthodox. I’m reading like a mad-woman trying to make sense of her decision. I just don’t see what she sees. She loves liturgy and I think it’s boring. I’ve been reading about the history of liturgy and the church for the past week or so trying to see if there’s any basis for her conclusions about the church.
All of this reading has me stressing again. It looks like Liturgy is the way of the early church. Why do I always feel like I’m just going through the motions? Liturgy feels dead to me unlike charistmatic church. I don’t buy into the word of faith type of junk. The more I study theology, the more I’m convinced that Lutherans are the closest to what is right… but Sunday morning leaves me empty. What’s my problem? I’m not sure if I’m making any sense. I’m tired and my head hurts and I’m weary from trying to find my way closer to God.

Jennifer,
Relax. It gets easier.
Having recently gone through a similar period, I will be the first to admit how nerve-wracking and exhausting the search is. People, despite their good intentions, get in the way alot. Thankfully, we have a God of infinite peace and love. He is also a God of perfect truth. Turn to Him in times like this. Allow our loving Father to draw you to Himself with His Holy Spirit. Evaluate all things that you hear against what is clearly taught in Holy Scripture. Now is the time to return to daily study in your Bible. Remain in constant prayer for heavenly help and support. I will pray for you as well.
I recommend speaking to a pastor about this. My email conversations with Rev Mayes helped sort out alot of the spinning stuff in my head. I have yet to meet an LCMS pastor who was not up to this kind of task. Pastoral care offers alot more than a blog can.
It has been just over a year since my conversion and it has been such a relief to allow Christ to do all the heavy lifting. The fountain of living faith is a limitless supply of life that quenches all thirst, drives away all fear, and renders powerless all doubt. It is the happy home of weary sinners.
As to your comments on the liturgy: I was a member of a praise band for almost a decade. It was exciting and fun… but I made it all about me and how I felt and what I wanted to express. The liturgy of the Divine Service is not going to compete with the excitement of a charismatic service. The focus of the two is often very different.
The vertical flow of the liturgy is, for the most part, a downward one. God flows down on us and covers us with forgivness and faith. God speaks forgiveness to His people. God reveales Himself to us in the reading and preaching of His Word. We gather around His altar and receive His life-giving body and blood.
The key to the Divine Service is not what we do for God, but what God does for us. It is not a work that we perform, but a gift that we receive (and have not earned). Look for Christ and His work in the Divine Service. Look for the peace that God offers you. Seek out the good news of the cross and eagerly approach each moment like one who is desperately starving. Christ is what is important.
There is an abundance of peace and forgiveness to those who hear it.

Thanks for answering Mike.
I’m not sure talking to my pastor would help, in this instance. My husband and I are members at an LCMS in Troy, MI. We’ve been unable to attend for many months due to our daughters health issues (every time we put her in the nursery she ends up needing to be hospitalized). It’s a complicated story. Aside from that, ours has gone the way of the mega church. There is no liturgy there. There is seldom a hymn sung. I really want to find somewhere else to go. 4000+ members… I feel lost there.
I agree that charismatic church has a different focus. I’m at a place where I’m realizing it’s quite possible that I have wrong expectations for what a church service should be based on my experience with non-liturgical churches. When looking into what the early church did (when not hiding from persecution) I see the vast differences. Part of me wants to embrace liturgy against everything I’ve ever known “worship” to be, but part of me wants to run screaming “legalistic”. It seems like vain repetition saying the same words and singing the same songs. Perhaps I’ve never even been to a Divine Service. I don’t even know for sure. I’ve bee to Baptist churches, Methodist, United Church of Christ, Church of Christ, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Apostolic, Church of God, Assemblies of God, Non-denominational, Apostolic, Lutheran and Catholic. At my grandma’s UCC church, among all the hymns they sing, they sing the same three EVERY week. I can only think of two of them; Gloria Patri and Doxology. It seems pointlessly repetitious to me. I guess I don’t really understand how that is supposed to edify me.
I don’t miss the exaggerated emotionalism of the charismatic church, or the poor/lacking doctrine. I do miss feeling as though I’ve been “touched by the Holy Spirit” so to speak. (gawd, those words sound so cheesy to me) Is it wrong to want to feel something when I go to church? I haven’t felt emotionally charged or refreshed by church in a very very long time and I miss it. There is something to be said for “feeling” inspired at church. I don’t think it’s wrong to want or expect to feel something when you worship God. I want to know that I drank living waters. I want to know that something spiritual happened and I want to feel it. I don’t need to be slain in the spirit or whatever, and I don’t need to wave my arms and cry. But I want to feel something. For whatever reason, I don’t feel anything at communion. The Lord’s Supper has always felt like an external act to me. I know your hair is probably standing on end, but that’s just the truth of how I feel. I’m not denying that anything spiritual is happening. I’m honestly not sure what I think happens at Eucharist. Is it just merely a remembrance, or is something supernatural happening and I’m eating His body and drinking His blood? Is it actually imparting grace, or have I already received all the grace I need? I’d like to think I’d feel some sort of confirmation of what has happened in communion.
I’m in a valley right now, and I want to get out.

Jennifer,
\\Part of me wants to embrace liturgy against everything I’ve ever known “worship” to be, but part of me wants to run screaming “legalistic”.\\
Everyone get out your legalistic tendency membership card. We all have to ask God for forgiveness on that one fairly regularly. A much wiser man than I once said, “The sinful nature of man stands in opposition to God. It’s no surprise then that we have so many problems on our end when it comes to prayer and worship.”
Having feelings is not automatically a bad thing, but never underestimate the power of sin. Sin takes good things and attempts to corrupt them. It takes what is beautiful and drives us to lust after it and exalt its importance over God.
But rejoice. Sin has no real power because our Faith is rooted in something outside of ourselves. It is not based on our condition. Our Faith is in things not seen and not evident. What we believe is not made up of human realizations that are observed and felt, but rather divine truths that are proclaimed and believed. Feelings are important and I do not think that they should be totally discounted, but they are fickle and they will fail you. If not disciplined and tempered by the Fruit of the Spirit, they will rule over you and hand you over to the Devil.
I thank Almighty God that Christ – who does not play with words to mislead us and does not ever lie – said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” With the cup He then said, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
With a child-like faith that takes the Lord at His word, we can grasp the promise that is clearly stated in this passage. By faith, we do not listen to the Serpent who tries to trick us into making Eve’s mistake by asking, “Did God really say…?”
My Savior says that the bread is His body and that the cup is His blood of the covenant. I take Him at His word and require no further explanation or instruction. That same body and blood of the crucified and now resurrected Christ is poured out for each of us in the Supper. To those who believe, it offers exactly what Christ has promised: “the forgiveness of sins.” This Means of Grace (ooh, I just threw down a confirmation phrase) offers us forgiveness and life by the power of the actual and real presence of Christ in the Supper. It is impossible to deny this without twisting Christ’s words and explaining away this miracle by human attempts to reconcile a wonderous mystery with the rational mind.
Faithful children of God have the credible words of Christ. His promise is how you know something spiritual has happened. The evidence of the efficacy of the event lies not in your ephemeral feelings which are here today and gone the next. It is built on the foundation of the Covenant that Christ instituted, the Baptism that He commanded, and the Keys that He delegated to those who have been placed on Earth in His stead.
In times of true crisis, we can no longer rely on our own strength. Beleaguered sinners must run to Christ. Christ can be found in those places where He has promised to be. We all choke on how easy it is. It is too good to be true.
Go pick up a copy of “Sacred Meditations” by Johann Gerhard. This is some of the most powerful devotional writing I have ever read. If necessary, I’ll send you a copy. Gerhard’s prayers are deep and honest. Gerhard sets the example for other Lutherans of what a vibrant faith sounds like. Those who say that our liturgy is dead; that Lutheranism is weak in the area of feeling; that dusty theology has smothered intimacy with the Savior… have never studied this book:
“The flesh of Christ is the fountain of life.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives eternally,” says Christ (John 6:54). Great in every way are the benefits of our Savior who not only assumed our flesh and carried it with him to his throne of heavenly glory, but also still feeds us with his body and blood for eternal life. O salutary food of our soul! O long awaited feast! O heavenly and angelic meal! Although angels desired to look into that great mystery (1 Peter 1:12), nevertheless he did not assume the seed of angels, but of Abraham (Hebrews 2:16). The Savior is closer kin to us than to the angels, for we have learned of that love that he gave to us by his Spirit, not only by his Spirit, but also by his body and blood. He thus indeed speaks the truth about the eucharistic bread and wine, “This is my body. This is my blood” (Matthew 26:26). How can the Lord forget those whom he has redeemed with his own body and blood, whom he has nourished with his own body and blood? “Whoever eats the flesh and drinks the blood of Christ remains in Christ, and Christ remains in him” (John 6:56).”
–Johann Gerhard, Sacred Meditation XVIII

Well, I’m certainly not lusting for an emotional high in the name of spirituality, but it would be nice to feel something once in a while. Nothing big and showy-supernatural, just a little of “my spirit bearing witness” (if I’m not miss-using the phrase). My faith isn’t based on feelings, but I also don’t want feelings to be the result of faith (power of thinking so to speak). I want them to be the result of God working in/on me.
I’m not saying “did God really say?”, but rather “did God literally mean?”. http://blog.higherthings.org/wcwirla/comment.html (I’m making the rounds it seems)
I found the book you recommended on the Concordia publishing page. It looks good, like a big steak. I hope I don’t have trouble chewing on it.

Sorry, that link doesn’t work.
http://blog.higherthings.org/wcwirla/article/906.html#comment7091

Jennifer,
Based on my personal experience, I believe that we often put the cart before the horse on the emotion/faith thing without realizing it. Is positive emotion a proof of faith? Do good feelings strengthen faith? Can faith exist without emotion or does one have to feel good in order to sustain faith?
In my own life, I have identified the need to emotionally validate my faith as an idol on numerous occasions. It can become a love of self that puts too much trust in feelings. When that trust is stronger than trust in God and what He promises, the need for emotional proof becomes the god in itself. I also believe that God mercifully removes these feelings to temper those who put all of their trust in the emotional proof of their faith. Suddenly, the wonderful emotional high that we ride on crashes and our faith shatters because it was actually supported by how we feel. That was what all our trust was in.
In the end, it is really an attempt to justify ourselves by our works… in this case: how we feel in church. I personally believe that this has happened to me before, and I thank God that He recognized it as sin and removed what I was unable and unwilling to turn away from on my own. Faith is the horse. It creates feelings (both positive and negative). The cart can never–and will never–drive the horse.
It is actually kind of neat that this conversation showed up on this thread topic. We started talking about prayer to the saints and now we’re into feelings at worship. We went from one idol to another. The two points are linked in a very subtle way. When you get down to it, both issues place a little something extra between the individual and God. Any something extra violates the First Commandment. It is just one more thing to stand in the way of this most intimate relationship.
I don’t need a saint to deliver my payers for me. I don’t need to rely on them as an assurance that I am in God’s good grace. I can trust Christ. Christ alone. He is certainly powerful enough and merciful enough to do the job all by Himself… not to mention that He instructed us to call upon Him directly.
In the same way, I don’t need to rely on my feelings as an assurance that I am in God’s good grace. I can trust Christ and what He promises. Christ alone. That rules me and my feelings out. We should be joyful because we are Christians. We should have strong emotional feelings that well up from the truth that has been given to us. Just like the gratitude that springs forth automatically when we get the most simple gift from another person, we should rejoice when we acknowledge the greatest gifts from our Creator. Just like any good work that we do, those things are a natural response to true faith, but they do not justify.
BTW, your earnest concern over this issue, as horrible as it feels, is “your spirit bearing witness to your faith“. If you didn’t have faith, you wouldn’t care this much. If you didn’t have faith, you would respond with disinterest instead of panic and worry. The reason why you feel as bad as you do about not feeling good is that you recognize this as important.
The Lord’s Supper is the key issue that woke me up to the errors in my pervious way of thinking. How a church treats the Sacrament sheds alot of light on what it believes. During one of our memorial meals, the associate pastor warned us to prepare ourselves lest we drink judgment. He read that passage out of the 1 Corinthians. I had never heard it before and it opened my eyes as if I had been a blind man my whole life.
I read the following passages side by side:
John 6:35-59
Luke 22:14-23
1 Cor 11:17-34
Suddenly, what I was reading in Scripture seemed to fly in the face of what was being taught. It spawned two questions that I did not get good answers for back then. I have yet to get good answers from those who deny Real Presence in the Sacrament.
1. If the Lord’s Supper passages are figurative and we are drinking and eating a normal meal that just reminds us of what Christ did, how can it be physically dangerous? [1 Cor 11:26-30]
2. Why do all the writings of the early church promote the view of a literal understanding of the Lord’s Supper in language that is so clearly specific that it removes all wiggle room for memorial meals and representation?
Those are usually conversation stoppers.

Mike,
I will have to think about what you have said here and consider if this is possible. Initially, I’d say that my desire for a little nudge from the Holy Spirit is in no way an idol. I no longer seek the charismatic experience like I did about 10 years ago. I believe that a lot of charismatic church praise & worship is carefully constructed to yield an emotional response. They start with middle of the road stuff, then go upbeat, then bring you back down and then go into slow repetitious stuff (where you’re basically expected to close your eyes). It’s like mass hypnosis. I think some televangelists use this to gain a small level of mind control. It’s easier to do to a crowd than an individual due to the power of group suggestion. There’s a proper term for it, but I forget what it is. I reject this type of Sunday worship. But, I digress. Perhaps there is a level of truth to this that I’m not aware of, so I’ll have to ponder this for a while.
Wow. I don’t think I ever realized that passage in Luke didn’t take place over a meal. (Sometimes when I read my brain glazes over). How come nobody ever reads THAT passage during communion? We always hear the other two.
I’ve not read much of early church writings, but I’d like to. My husband has a Book of Concord and a set of 4 Pieper books but I’ve never looked at those either. I learn better when I interact with others (like now) (and no, my husband never wants to talk about doctrine, go figure). I could have read that verse in Luke hundreds of times, but in never occurred to me that it wasn’t in the context of a meal. How odd to be talking about bread in the streets. It took a person with another perspective to help me see something I’ve always missed. So thanks for all of your time.
BTW, I ordered that book yesterday.