Semester Highlights Meitzen Lecture: "Can God and Evil Coexist?"G15 Life Sciences Building was packed on February 20 for the second biennial Meitzen Outstanding Guest Theological Lecture. "Can God and Evil Coexist?", delivered by Dr. Joseph Kelly, traced the development of Theodicy over the history of the Western church. Theodicy is the theological discussion of God's justice/righteousness in relationship to the existence of evil. The following afternoon, Kelly submitted to two hours of informal Q&A with students in the Mountainlair. It was good to note the presence of students associated with the Lutheran Campus Ministry at both events. The LCM has accessioned into its chapel library a copy of Kelly's book for your edification.The Meitzen Lecture is sponsored by the Religious Studies Program. It is held in memory of Dr. Manfred Meitzen, long-time professor and chair of the Religion Department at WVU. Meitzen, a Lutheran, died tragically in a motorcycle accident a few years ago. The Meitzen Lecture is free and open to the public. |
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Winter Does Not Deter Campus MinistryMany congregations must decide for the safety of their parishioners whether or not to conduct worship services when extreme weather strikes. The Chapel of Christ the King, however, is open regardless. Life on campus is primarily pedestrian for residential students. With the Lutheran Campus Center located near the center of the downtown campus and St. Paul on the border of the Evansdale campus, students can walk a short distance and attend religious services even in the most severe weather.Digging out after this winter storm was not much fun. Students from the Lutheran Student Movement, Phi Mu Alpha, and Pi Beta Phi applied their hands to the shovel. WVU was closed Monday and Tuesday as university crews worked on campus parking lots and sidewalks. Unfortunately, the Lutheran Campus Center is church property--something for which we normally give thanks, but, when one is looking faced with more than two feet of snow, those university tractors with snow blades and brushes look awfully attractive. Any would be benefactor planning to retire to the south looking for someplace to donate their snow blower should feel free to contact us. |
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"Bible Study & Breakfast" To Study Ezekiel7:00 AM? Sounds like an unsocial hour. Yet, six undergrads and one grad student stumbled bleary-eyed into the undercroft for the first session of "Bible Study & Breakfast." While munching on breakfast, the group decided that their first topic of exploration would be the Book of Ezekiel, beginning with chapter 1. Some of the participants willingly accepted assignments to cross reference Rabbinic, Patristic, and Reformation era sources. With "housekeeping" completed, Chaplain Riegel lead the group through a study of Psalm 148, spending a great deal of time on structural analysis and cosmological content. |
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Four make trip to PittOn Invocabit Sunday (March 9), four made the now regular semester road trip to Pittsburgh in order to attend compline at Heinz Chapel. In addition to the liturgy sung by the Pittsburgh Compline Choir, the pilgrims enjoyed ice cream at Sarris' Candies and a tour of the Lutheran University Center, Pittsburgh, conducted by Chaplain Scott Keuchenmeister-Hall. |
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Wednesday, April 9, was Dietrich Bonhoeffer Day. The award winning
film, Bonhoeffer: Agent
of Grace was shown in the undercroft of the Lutheran Campus Center
at 9:00 PM on our new 36" falt screen TV. Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran
pastor and theologian, was executed by the Nazis for his involvement in
an assassination plot on Hitler. If you would like to learn more
about Bonhoeffer, a good place to start surfing is http://www.pbs.org/opb/bonhoeffer/. |
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Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue: Ecclesiology Pt. 2Lutherans and Papists sat down together on Friday, April 4, to finish this year's conversation on ecclesiology by discussing what it means for the church to be "catholic and apostolic." The conversation began late January when Fr. Paul Hudock and Chaplain Matthew Riegel invited their students to explore the credal formula, Una sancta ecclesia apostolica et catholica. They managed the first two criteria and then ran out of time. Following the program, WVU ice cream was served, and participants enjoyed each others' company around the fusbol table and PS2--where Chaplain Riegel and Sam Chamberlain soundly defeated Fr. Paul and Karen. |
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On Monday, March 31, the Lutheran Campus Ministry at WVU held a wine &
cheese in celebration of John Donne, an English divine and one of the great
metaphysical poets. Kicking the evening off, Robert Strauss, accompanied
by Andrew Banks sang two of Donne's Holy Sonnets set by Benjamin Britten.
The bulk of the evening was spent in public readings of Donne's poetry,
discussion of the works, and the contented consumption of refreshments.
In total, fifteen attended the event, including English Department faculty,
students, and others.
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Sinfonians SweatOur deeepest appreciation goes out to the men of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, a men's music fraternity. The local chapter sacrificed a Saturday to engage in dusty, back breaking work at the Lutheran Campus Center. Read all about it. |
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Fastnacht Photos
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Easter CelebrationsSecond Vespers of the Resurrection PrayedEaster can be a bombastic holy day--trumpets, rousing hymns, shouts of "Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!"--but, at the Chapel of Christ the King, a different tenor was set. Second vespers of the Resurrection, the traditional Easter evening liturgy, was prayed as dusk fell over Morgantown. The darkened sanctuary, illuminated at first by only the Paschal candle, broke silence with the solemnly chanted versiclesJesus Christ is risen from the dead.As the Phos hilaron, the most ancient of the non-biblical hymns was chanted, acolytes lit the other candles in the sanctuary. Augmenting the Phos hilaron, "Rejoice, Angelic Choirs, Rejoice," a hymn paraphrase of the Exsultet, was sung. The Lucernarium concluded with Chaplain Riegel, dressed in cassock, surplice, cope, and biretta, chanting the evening Berekah. The Domine clamavi was chanted as the first of four psalms. The censing of the Paschal candle, sanctuary, and assembly accompanied it. The Magna et mirabilia closed off the psalmody. The evenings Scripture lessons included a lengthy reading from the Gospel according to St. Luke which recounted the encounter on the road to Emmaus and the first visitation of the resurrected Christ with the Eleven. In his homily, Chaplain Riegel commented that campus ministry and locked room have much in common: "We may feel discouraged after witnessing the great crowds which gathered this morning in our various churches. This evening, we are few in number, but let us remember that they were few in number in that locked room." All the while, cars with blasting radios and "holely" exhausts could be easily heard, yet the serenity which comes by contemplation of the mystery of the resurrection remained undisturbed. Easter Vigil at St. Thomas a BecketNot every student could go home for the Easter long-weekend. Thus was presented an opportunity for an Easter Vigil, but, the more Chaplain Riegel thought about it, the less sense it made: "We were going to have a handful present for Vigil. We could have managed, but St. Thomas a Becket already had one scheduled. With Called to Common Mission, why not join them?" The students--none of whom had ever witnessed Vigil--accompanied Riegel to the Episcopal church. Pr. Dorothy Brown, Becket's rector, graciously invited Riegel to assist in the liturgy, and the congregation warmly received the students. "There are real benefits from such ecumenical outings," comments Riegel. "The students get to see similarities and differences." Among the things about which the students asked questions were Anglican chant and the function of the tabernacle. |
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Lutheran Chapel Center of Activity Final Days of TermOne would think that dead week and exam week would mean a quiet chapel, but quite the opposite is true. The last two weeks of the academic year mean an increase in chapel activities and usage. This was most dramatically witnessed in compline, the late evening prayer liturgy. Sunday night, May 4, over sixteen attended compline. This was exceeded only by the preceeding Friday when over twenty gathered in the chapel for the final prayer office of the day. Throughout exam week, the number slowly decreased, but even on the last Friday night of exams nearly ten chanted in the darkened sanctuary. "Daily prayer offices like compline seem to speak to the students at this high stress time," theorizes Chaplain Riegel. "So, we increase the number of prayer services offered at the chapel, and people take advantage of them." Another interesting feature of this years prayer services was the ecumenicity of the participants. Despite using monastic forms with their roots in 1500 year old liturgies, the typical gathering of Lutherans, Anglicans, and Romans, was joined by Baptisits and Evangelicals. Riegel speculates that "the post-modern collegian is looking for substance. What better place to look than a tradition that has stood the test of time." At the Chapel of Christ the King, that tradition took the form of nightly compline the last fortnight of the academic term and daily sext the last week.Riegel also commented on the surprizing request of students to still hold Theology on Tap and Bible Study & Breakfast the last fortnight of the term. "I was sure that the participants would want the time off to study and wrap up papers, but they didn't. They were insistent that these programs still be offered." The Lutheran Campus Center, as usual, had its fare share of studious individuals taking advantage of the study lounge, but there were also many descending upon the facilities to find a moments respite from the studies. The biggest social event of the fortnight was the LSM Farewell Cookout held on Friday, May 2. The Hough St. lawn proved a pleasant place for the early evening meal and time of fellowship. In total, nearly forty partipated. Commencement Weekend Complines & MassAt the request of one of our graduating seniors, compline (a.k.a., "prayer at the close of the day") was prayed on Saturday, May 17, 9:00 PM. A surprizingly large number of people attended the liturgy known for its contemplative and restful nature. Following the service, the chaplain, some graduating seniors and their friends adjourned to Mario's Fishbowl for conversation and refreshment.The regular Sunday night mass was held at 7:00 PM, followed, as usual, by compline at 8:45 PM. These too were well attended.
Daniel Van Vliet, Sam Chamberlain, Kevin Shon, and Chaplain Riegel set
out for Gettysburg at 6:30 AM, Wednesday, April 30. The trip proved
to be eventful. At Cooper's Rock, the tire blow out on the Chaplain's
car, forcing the expedition to return to Morgantown, after a hasty tire
change. After switching vehicles, they set out again, arriving in
time for the second of three lectures. The return trip was likewise
threatened with disaster. After cresting Sideling hill at 10:30 PM,
Van Vliet ask about the fuel status. The chaplain reported that the
gauge read "E" with a discernible note of concern in his voice. The
next two gas stations were already closed for the night. Certain
that Cumberland was impossible and equally certain that the expedition
has beyond the point of no return for Hancock, chaplain Riegel approached
a nearby residence and begged for a little gas from the lawn mower.
While gun shots (several of them from what was clearly a semi-automatic)
could be heard in the vicinity, the resident hesitantly provided the fuel--perhaps
the clerical collar was frightening. And, so, the expedition managed
the trip over Sideling hill and refueled in Hancock. Chamberlain,
assumed the wheel at this point, as the others drifted in and out of consciousness.
Without further incident, all arrived safely in Morgantown at 1:30 AM.
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With the last rail being set on the afternoon of April 24, a new split
rail fence marks the Hough St. boundary of the Lutheran Campus Center.
LSM Exec members suggested that a fence might solve parking problems on
that side of the chapel building. "For some reason, motorists got
it in their heads that our lawn was a free public parking lot," explained
Chaplain Riegel. "People would not only straddle the sidewalk with
their vehicles, they would pull completely onto the lawn." The small
patch of green, a rare sight in the neighborhood, is marred by tire ruts
and patches of torn sod, but plans to rehabilitate it are in the works.
"We'd like to set out two picnic tables," said LSM sophomore Sam Chamberlain,
supervisor of the fencing project. "We can do a lot more with this
area." LSM Exec members envision cookouts, lawn concerts, hospitality,
and fund raising uses. "String up some lights between the posts and
the Chapel eaves, and we have a 'Bier Garten,'" joked one student (whose
name has been withheld to protect his identity). To which the chaplain
queried, "Perhaps you guys enjoying this German Reformation heritage stuff
a little too much?"
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Wine
& Cheese: "An Evening with John Donne"
While the trip provided its own excitement, greater enjoyment was found
in Gettysburg. Dr. Eric Crump delivered the Hollman Lecture, expertly
explicating Melanchthon's use of jus naturalis and recte ratio
in the Apology's discussion of sacerdotal marriage. Huwiler's late
afternoon lecture was a bit of a disappointment; still, the WVU collegians
had the opportunity to hear how some handle questions of human sexuality
in the context of theological discourse.
