Blessings And Thanksgivings

The origin of the Common Table Prayer Come Lord Jesus can be found here on the LCMS website. It states that the earliest known printing of Come Lord Jesus was in a Moravian hymnal. What I can't figure out is how come we all use it instead of the prayer listed in the Small Catechism.

My family always used these:

(Before) Come Lord Jesus, be our guest and let Thy gifts to us be blessed. Amen.
(After) We thank Thee Lord for all our food, for life and health and every good. Amen.

The second prayer apparently comes from a 1741 hymn Be Present at Our Table, Lord written by an Anglican-turned-Methodist-turned Moravian Brethren named John Cennick. What is the connection between the Saxon Lutherans and the Moravians? I guess Martin Stephan used to hang out with them.

Be present at our table, Lord;
Be here and everywhere adored;
Thy creatures bless, and grant that we
May feast in paradise with Thee.

We thank Thee, Lord, for this our food,
For life and health and every good;
By Thine own hand may we be fed;
Give us each day our daily bread.

We thank Thee, Lord, for this our good,
But more because of Jesus’ blood;
Let manna to our souls be giv’n,
The Bread of Life sent down from Heav’n.

Old CPH Logos

I really like the old CPH logo on the left. It can be found in a lot of LCMS (or I should say Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States) books from the first quarter of the twentieth century.

The Old Home Place

My family used to have a farm south of Altenburg, MO. It doesn't exist anymore -- it's now a tree harvesting farm owned by the local lumber company -- but I can remember going hunting there as a kid with my Grandpa and his brothers.

My Aunt Emilie (my Grandpa's aunt, actually) wrote a poem about the farm during the Depression era (hers was the musical branch of the family).

She married Charles Moeslein ("Uncle Charlie") who was a printer at Concordia Publishing House in St. Louis. They retired to Altenburg, MO when they got old and Uncle Charlie took us fishing every time we visited my Great Grandma Scholl up there (Emilie's sister). We went all over the place: Apple Creek, Brazeau Creek, the Mississippi River at Wittenberg, Kasten's Pond, Gerler's Lake, Stueve's Lake. It was a lot of fun.

The farm itself had been long sold off and planted with rows of trees before I was born. Every year we'd go squirrel hunting there and see how much more the farm house had collapsed upon itself. The house has vanished by now.

This poem was written in the early-Thirties in St. Louis. Our Brother Curt [Hoehne] came home from the War and settled down there in 1946 and lived there quite a few years. Then his wife died, and he sold the place to the East Perry Lumber Company. They have planted the whole place in Trees.

The Old Home Place

by Emilie Hoehne-Moeslein

I love the old Homeplace.
Away back in the River Hills
Among the rocks and rills.

I spent a happy childhood there'
Twas not so long ago
With Mom and Dad, and all the kids
And how we all did grow.

We had an old spring box there
Where the coolest water flows
How many a pail I carried
Goodness only knows.

I loved the smell of the Pine Trees
When they were covered with dew.
And the sound of the whispering breeze
Such secrets the Pine Trees knew.

The old Homeplace is still the same
It's just that we have gone
We roam the wide world over
Until our work is done.

It's peaceful here and quiet
No noise can follow there
The peaceful sounds of nature
Hush every worldly care.

We would sit on the porch in the Twilight
And hear the Whipporwill call
The fireflies dancing about in the night
Wove a magic spell over all.

It's waiting there for someone
With a strong and patient will
To carry on the work and chores
Its promise to fullfill.

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wittenberg, Missouri

Here's a picture of the second St. Paul's as of 1939 (100th Year Anniversary of the Saxon Immigration). Both churches are gone, as is the rest of Wittenberg, MO because of excessive flooding. I've been told that it was because of the damming up of the Mississippi for river locks by the Corps of Engineers.

My Great-Great Grandpa Joseph Hoehne was listed as the elder's representative on the church council picture at the time. Eventually he moved back to Trinity Lutheran, Altenburg some time before St. Paul was shut down. I'm not exactly sure when that happened. My Grandparents and Mom can remember attending worship services there.

 

 

 

My pastor in Poplar Bluff told me he attended some kind of ceremony there in the '90s and has a couple of bricks from the decommissioning (or whatever it's called).

You can see the original white wooden church to the left side of the small picture below. I think that one was used for the Sunday School when the newer brick one was built.

I Was A Confessional Pre-Schooler

Mom kept this from my old Sunday School stuff.

Trinity Lutheran Church, Cape Girardeau, Missouri

I was baptized at the old Trinity Lutheran Church in Cape, which was the one my Mom, Grandparents and Great-Grandparents attended before I was born. Due to structure defects they had to tear it down and rebuild.

This is the congregation my Mom would have known as a small child (age 2) at the original church. My Grandma said they are probably sitting somewhere near the back.

Zion Lutheran Church, Poplar Bluff, Missouri

Zion was begun under the direction of the then "Western District Mission Board" in September 1896 when Candidate H.C. Frese began regular services. He also started a school, which, at that time, was a requirement for synodical membership. Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church U.A.C. was formally organized February 18, 1897, with 30 baptized members and 18 communicants. Worship services were held in various church buildings in the community, until the first white framed chapel was build at Ninth and Cedar around 1899. This building served the congregation for the next 46 years. The school, however, was discontinued in 1899 due to the pastor's poor health.

Over the next 40 years the congregation had her ups and downs. At times Zion was served by her own pastor and at times being by vacancy pastors. Between 1920 and 1963 Zion was part of a dual parish arrangement with St. Matthews Lutheran Church of Corning, Arkansas.

In 1943, Zion purchased property at the current location on Main and Relief. The present structure was completed and dedicated in 1947, when Zion had 130 communicants.

Zion Lutheran School was started in the basement fellowship hall in 1952, and the school building was completed in 1954. Classes, however, were discontinued in 2004.

Zion currently has 364 baptized souls, of which 306 are communicant members. Weekly attendance averages approximately 100 people (sharing two Sunday morning services).