DETRITUS
EXCURSUS
As I mentioned yesterday, LCMS parishioners
will never call their pastors “Father”
for any number of (bad and specious) reasons.
But what is interesting is that they have no problem calling them “Pastor.” They will refer to their minister (a term that everyone in America likes because it also
denotes, “servanthood” which everyone
likes so long as the servant is the other guy) as Shepherd, which by implication makes them sheep (one of the
dumbest, most inept of animals), but not by “Father”
which makes them beloved children: go figure.
But as I was re-reading Chemnitz’s Enchiridion recently I noted something
that had escaped me in the past. In the
prefaces both Chemnitz and Polycarp Leyser are referred to as “Dom”
Chemnitz and “Dom” Leyser.
I had encountered this title before with
Roman Catholic monks and clergy—e.g. Dom
Gueranger (he of the famed The Liturgical
Year volumes) but found it fascinating to be applied to our confessional
forebears. The end notes correctly cited
the word as an abbreviation for Dominus
(Lord). This is not Lord as in Adonai but as in “Lords & Ladies of England.”
Still, if it was good enough for the Second
Martin, maybe our people will start to use it with us where they would be
burned at the stake in Smithfield before calling us “Father.”
Lord Watson or Dom Watson…does have a
ring to it. J
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