Building ecumenism…
how not to do it.
Seen on the sign of the Lutheran Church down the road from my parish:
REFORMATION SUNDAY
LOTS OF SPECIAL MUSIC!
Etc., etc. with times, and a mention of food.
OK, um, wow.
First off, why is there even Reformation Sunday? Yes, I know it’s “technically” the day their denominationw as founded. But basically it’s a slap in the face to Catholics, akin to saying, “boy are we glad we purified our church and separated from all those heretic losers!” Can you imagine if Catholics celebrated something akin to that? The uproar would be incredible. 500 years after the fact it seems like we’d be sort of past this, right?
When I went to Capital (a technically “Lutheran” school), they always celebrated Reformation Sunday, and it made me think, “how ironic, given that half your student population is Catholic.” For a religion that preaches love and brotherhood and tolerance and all that good stuff, this doesn’t seem like any of those things.
They went their way. We went ours. Can we move on?
As a side note: do any other Protestant denominations celebrate this? Or is it just the Lutherans?
Side note 2: I know it’s cliche, but seriously, my best friends are Lutheran. One of them has a brother-in-law who is a Pastor. So it’s not like I don’t know any. And I’m sure that for many of them it’s not an “in your face” kind of thing. But it still bugs me that the denomination continues to have this. If you want to celebrate Martin Luther’s birthday, or whatever, go ahead. But do we need to have “Reformation Sunday”? Please.
Side note– the Assumption (August 15) is celebrated in the Lutheran Liturgical Calendar. Rather ironically, it’s listed as a “lesser festival.” I don’t know a whole lot about Luther, but one of the things I do know is that he kept his devotion to Mary his entire life. So the idea that the Mother of God is relegated to Christmas and a “lesser festival” is ironic.
( A quick web search revealed some Protestant papers trying to debunk the idea that Luther was devoted to Mary in a Catholic sense. The one paper I actually read actually contains several confirmations of Catholic Marian doctrine. So I think that there may be some misunderstandings vis a vis Catholic Mariology here. But I digress.)
