500th Anniversary of the Reformation - Ecumenical Service of Common Prayer

​​Father Steve has written articles in recent bulletins to address the following questions regarding the Service of Common Prayer in recognition of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation. Please check back as more information becomes available.

• What?
• Why?
• When?
• Where?
• Now what?
  

​Click on the image to the left for the event poster. 

• What

​         In recognition of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the Catholic Churches of St. Mary in Willmar and Our Lady of the Lakes in Spicer invite members of the Catholic, Lutheran, and other Protestant faiths to a Service of Common Prayer. 
          Our upcoming Service of Common Prayer will look and sound a lot like the typical evening prayer celebrations we have in our area faith community. The prayer service will include sung hymns and psalms as well as spoken litanies and prayers. There is going to be a joint ecumenical choir leading the singing along with instrumentalists who will be playing handbells, brass, etc. from the various churches. The Service of Common Prayer is structured around the themes of thanksgiving, repentance and commitment to common witness. It will be an opportunity for us to confess our brokenness, renew our commitments to reconciling the body of  Christ, and celebrating the ecumenical developments between Catholics and Lutherans over 50 plus years of dialogue. Lastly, this Service of Common Prayer will enable us to celebrate the gifts that have been given and received during our journey together on the way to unity as Catholics and Lutherans. Following the service there will be refreshments served in our parish center for everyone in attendance.  It is our hope that you will plan to join us for this historic and faith-filled time of prayer and fellowship.  

• Why

​        In recognition of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the Catholic Churches of St. Mary in Willmar and Our Lady of the Lakes in Spicer invite members of the Catholic, Lutheran, and other Protestant faiths to a Service of Common Prayer. 
       On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther, a Catholic monk, sent his ninety-five Theses, as an appendix to a letter to Archbishop of Mainz. In this letter, Luther expressed serious concerns about preaching and the practice of indulgences occurring under the responsibility of the Archbishop and urged him to make changes. On the same day, he wrote another letter to his Diocesan Bishop of Brandenburg. When Luther sent his theses to a few colleagues and most likely posted them on the door of the castle church in Wittenburg, he wished to inaugurate an academic disputation on open and unresolved questions regarding the theory and practice of indulgences.
        Indulgences played an important role in the piety of the time. An indulgence was understood as a remission of temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt had already been forgiven. Christians could receive an indulgence under certain prescribed conditions—such as prayer, acts of charity, and almsgiving.
In Luther’s opinion, the practice of indulgences damaged Christian spirituality. He questioned whether indulgences could free the penitents from penalties imposed by God; whether any penalties imposed by priests would be transferred into purgatory; whether the medicinal and purifying purpose of penalties meant that a sincere penitent would prefer to suffer the penalties instead of being liberated from them; and whether the money given for indulgences should instead be given to the poor. He also wondered about the nature of the treasury of the church out of which the pope offered indulgences.

• When/Where?

​        Sunday, October 29, 4:00 pm with refreshments to follow at The Church of St. Mary, at the corner of SW 11th Street and Kandiyohi Avenue in Willmar. 

• Now What?

What does the Reformation event mean for Catholics and Lutherans today?
 
Catholics and Lutherans realize that they and the communities in which they live out their faith belong to the one body of Christ. The awareness is dawning on Lutherans and Catholics that the struggle of the sixteenth century is over. The reasons for mutually condemning each other’s faith have fallen by the wayside. Thus, Lutherans and Catholics are called to identify and live out five imperatives as they commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation together.

1. Catholics and Lutherans should always begin from the perspective of unity and not from the point of view of division in order to strengthen what is held in common even though the differences are more easily seen and experienced.
2. Lutherans and Catholics must let themselves continuously be transformed by the encounter with the other and by the mutual witness of faith.
3. Catholics and Lutherans should again commit themselves to seek visible unity, to elaborate together what this means in concrete steps, and to strive repeatedly toward this goal.
4. Lutherans and Catholics should jointly rediscover the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ for our time.
5. Catholics and Lutherans should witness together to the mercy of God in proclamation and service to the world.

​If you have questions, please contact us at 320-235-0118.