Comments on: Prayer beads, rosaries, etc. etc. … and the Lutherans

By: Kelly

Kelly — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:22:01 +0000

Bill: forgive me if I “double reply” to this… I think I emailed you a response, but I’m not totally sure… anyway, here’s something for public record.

Being in “communion with the saints” has nothing to do with making requests to them in heaven, after they’ve died, in order to have them intercede for us or appropriate some of their merit to our account. Neither Scripture nor the early church promoted any such practice. As Lutherans, we believe that all of our doctrine must be rooted in God’s Word, for it is the source of all certainty and the resting place for faith. Faith and the Word go hand in hand (Romans 10:17). If we try to place our faith in speculation or human reason, we can have no confidence in our beliefs; and if it is not of faith, it is sin (Romans 14:23). Even if we grant that the saints in heaven pray for us, that is no reason to try to invoke them; we have no evidence that they have special powers to hear all of our thoughts or anything of the sort. The power of prayer does not depend on some sort of “hierarchy of closeness.” We can have full confidence that our prayers are pleasing to the Father through Jesus.

Tim: Luther, and all Lutherans, do believe that they are nothing more than the holy catholic church, properly reformed from medieval errors. But Luther was firmly against many teachings and practices of the Roman church to the end of his days, and our Lutheran confessions state as much for our own belief. There are indeed many critical differences, not the least of which is justification by faith alone.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 10 May 2010 23:05:45 +0000

Good post Bill,Ive been Lutheran all my life,with some other protestant experiences,and have just recently realized the closeness of our beliefs.Luther new all to well the importance of the communion of saints and kept his catholic tradition of devotion to Mary. If Luther could have healed the Church from within we would all be Catholic. Though excommunicated from the Catholic Church, there is alot of support to the idea that Luther died believing that he was still Catholic. By the way, I cant stand being called a separated brother:)

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 19:28:48 +0000

I am Catholic and my daughter is Lutheran married to a Lutheran Minister. I just finished making her a set of prayer beads for praying The Small Catechism.
I have a question:
You and I as Catholic and Lutheran have almost identical Apostolic Creeds. When we recite this creed we are proclaiming our faith. In the last few lines of the creed we say……
I believe in………..the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. My question is this…. If we are in communion with the saints and there is life everlasting, why is it not proper to call on these saints, one of whom is ST. MARY, the Mother of God, to help us pray to God for our intentions? They are a lot closer to God than any of us on this earth.

By: Justin Stawarz

Justin Stawarz — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:49:54 +0000

I agree, there is a small place for the rosary in the Lutheran church but only as a form of worship, not as the Catholics abuse it, as a way to bestow blessings or “atone” for sins.

By: John Dornheim

John Dornheim — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:22:26 +0000

Long before I learned about the ELCA’s discussion about “Lutheran” prayerbeads, I had learned to make the ones designed by Lynn Bauman in 1985 called Anglican prayer beads. I see them as being ecumenical-or at least non-Roman- although I have made some with the Lutheran Rose cross.
Regardless, I think it is a good discipline for Lutherans.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 03:04:40 +0000

[Note: Anglican rosary was discussed in original post, near the end.]

By: Kimberly Winston

Kimberly Winston — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:48:54 +0000

HI, Kelly. I am the author of a book on prayer beads in which I discuss the Lutheran pray beads you mention in the post and I thought, wow, this is so difficult, so hard to remember, you’d have to use crib notes all the way through the recitation to remember what prayer to say on what bead. But I don’t see you mention the Anglican rosary – also called Episcopal prayer beads – in your post. I am a Methodist and this is the form I prefer most. It has 33 beads – one for each year of Christ’s life – and there are a million prayers you can say on them – scripture, hymn lyrics, common prayers or your own compositions. I write about this subject weekly on my blog, http://www.kimberlywinston.wordpress.org. I hope you will visit me there and let me know what you think.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 04:22:49 +0000

Hello and God bless you. I have a question if you still willing to talk. I know rosary in which Luther ue was not like modern marian rosary, but it was a devotional to mary nevertheless. I am ex catholic and I am Lutheran. I have still have deep piet to mary. I do not fully agree with Catholic about her, but I think protestant have forsake her too. i think Mary i blessed among all women and it possble she was sinless by the merit of Jesus Christ before his birth. I find rev 12:1-6 as poof Mary was taken up to heavan as her death. I have no problem with ave maria prayer, but hail holy Queen pray go way to far. Jesus is only one who can save me, but Blessed Mother gave us her son. we can not deniel her place in heavan. I think she clear has special place in heavan and can prayer for us, but in the end it up to God alone.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 05:54:06 +0000

The Benedictine Crucifix, that’s kind of interesting… aren’t Benedictine medals often used as a kind of “anti-Satan” device in some circles?

By: Kelly

Kelly — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 05:53:34 +0000

Nope, what I was saying in my post isn’t that the “repetitious” praise of Mary was the concern; it was the idea of including a sort of first-person, direct address “praise” amongst nothing but other prayers. That looks really potentially misleading to me.