We will regard these externals as we do a christening robe or swaddling clothes in which a child is clad for baptism. The child is not baptized or sanctified either by the christening robe or by the swaddling clothes, but only by the baptism. And yet reason dictates that a child be thus clothed. If this garment is soiled or torn, it is replaced by another, and the child grows up without any help from swaddling clothes or christening robe. Here too one must exercise moderation and not use too many of these garments, lest the child be smothered. Similarly, moderation should also be observed in the use of ceremonies, lest they become a burden and a chore. They must remain so light that they are not felt, just as at a wedding no one thinks it a chore or a burden to conform his actions to those of the other people present. I shall write on the special fasts when I write about the plague of the Germans, gluttony and drunkenness, for that properly belongs in the sphere of temporal government. (Luther’s Works, v.41, p.175)
Picture: The chalice from historic Trinity Lutheran Church in Soulard Market, St. Louis, MO: It “was made in Austria for a monastery in Spain. During the Napoleonic Wars it somehow came into the possession of a Saxon prince, who gave it to the group when they left Germany for America in 1838” (from A Pictorial Souvenir).