University Lutheran ChurchGuest Book for Henry E. Horn
Page 3
These reflections on the life of Rev. Dr. Henry E. Horn were posted by visitors to the University Lutheran Church website after Pastor Horn's death in January 2007. To add to the collection, please email our webmaster.
Name: Rev. Carl A. Werner
City: Bethlehem, PA. U.S.A.
Relationship to Pastor Horn: Friend & admirer
Sent: 31-Jan-2007 10:14 PM
I first met Pr. Horn at the LSAA Ashram at The Inn @ Buck Hill Falls in February '53 & immediately was enamored of his charisma & his theology. His brother E.T. Horn was a close friend. When Henry lectured at LTSP I made every effort to visit the campus to hear him. He was the epitome of good solid Lutheran theology & worship. May he rest in peace. I look forward to hopefully meeting him in the fellowship of the Saints Victorious.
Name: Mary Trelease-Beaudet
City: Portland, Maine
Relationship to Pastor Horn: Our family pastor
Sent: 31-Jan-2007 07:18 PM
My family and I were saddened by the news of Pastor Horn's death. He was such a presence in our lives when I was a youngster and young adult. I remember my mother had difficulties getting my brothers and me to behave quietly in church when we were young. The difficulties came to an abrupt end when she started having us sit up front, under Pastor Horn's watchful eye. I'll never forget the bear hug he gave me the last time I saw him, but more importantly, how he gave me my foundation. Oh, and pussy willows on Palm Sunday!
Name: Rachel Horn
City: Fogelsville, PA
Relationship to Pastor Horn: Grandaughter
Sent: 31-Jan-2007 05:02 PM
I have recently begun my student teaching with kindergarten students. Just last week we were learning nursery rhymes, jingles and poems. The song, "The Owl and the Pussycat" was one of the features. I told my students that my Grandpa used to sing that to us while we sat around him or on his lap. We loved it! My brother, sister and I are fond of those memories and that song will always have a special place in our hearts. I'll sing it to every little kid I teach and always think of Grandpa Horn!
Name: Alice Argon
Relationship to Pastor Horn: confirmed by Henry in the early 70's
Sent: 31-Jan-2007 01:23 PM
Henry said "hello" every time he saw me...and asked about my mother. Very simple, isn't it?
Name: Michael and Susan Thomas
City: Lebanon, NH
Relationship to Pastor Horn: Friends
Sent: 31-Jan-2007 12:57 PM
We first met Henry in Cambridge sometime after Susan began serving as pastor at UniLu, sometime around 1983. He and Catherine, perhaps on a brief visit from Philadelphia, were gracious and encouraging at a time when both Susan and I especially welcomed words of grace and encouragement.
We last saw Henry at the 2006 Synod Assembly. In my mind's eye he is carried into the midst of the assembly, as one would bear on one's shoulders a wise community elder. I have no real recollection of him being wheeled in as a frail old man, though he was certainly old and frail. He begins, as the liturgist he always was, with these familiar words, "Bless we the Lord," chanted to the assembly. And we respond. "Thanks be to God."
He then began a recitation of his campus ministry biography focused on "the Eastern type of Lutheran Campus Ministry" identified of course with UniLu. I remember an almost leisurely pace to his remarks, though in truth they were not long. But he spoke as long as needed. He was in no hurry. He had things for us to hear; and he was Henry Horn, after all. His time was his to take. But later we realized it was NOT so much because he was important that he could command this public space. No, rather it was because we were important, and even more so because what we represented and did was of deep importance. He was saying to us what he had himself experienced "over and over again." He was speaking on God's behalf an invitation, voiced in the imperative, through and to the Church: "We want YOU, NOW!" That's an invitation that we need to hear over and over again.
Bless we the Lord! Thanks be to God for the life and witness of our brother Henry.
Name: Bill Voss
City: Alton, NH, USA
Relationship to Pastor Horn: A student for 52 years.
Sent: 31-Jan-2007 11:58 AM
With gratitude for Henry's life:
His reservoir of Unlimited Love;
His ever present Joy and Humor;
His Service to All he encountered;
His Challenge to Always Explore
The Limits of Human Knowledge;
His Invitation to Share in the Journey
And Tensions of a Life of Faith:
His Model of Ministry -
A Life lived to the Fullest; and
His Hearty Voice lifted in Praise
With Countless Songs of Joy.
Thanks be to God!
Name: Anna McLoon
City: Cambridge, MA USA
Relationship to Pastor Horn: fellow parishioner
Sent: 30-Jan-2007 10:59 PM
I was born after Henry retired, so my memory is a recent one. 4 or 5 years ago, a small group was gathered at Unilu for a midday Maundy Thursday service, maybe six people, and Henry was there. We were singing a few hymns, and as the piano was starting the first, Henry started singing the first verse of the second song, loudly and confidently (and I am sure you all know what I mean, knowing Henry). So, needless to say, the rest of us paged forwards to that other hymn and joined in. Perhaps that song order made more sense, anyway!
While I am sure Henry would have been laughing too at his mistake, I remember this incident not just with humor, but also with respect. Perhaps someday I will have that confidence and zeal; hopefully before I turn 93!
Thank you Henry, until we meet again,
Anna
Name: Paul Hanson
City: Cambridge, MA
Relationship to Pastor Horn: Our beloved pastor and friend
Sent: 30-Jan-2007 10:43 PM
Henry Horn was a gift of God in our midst. The resurrection comes to life for us as we find it impossible to imagine Henry as anything other than continuing to be with us. Henry will be there every time we gather around Christ's gifts in the bread and wine, every time we sing hymns of praise in the way he taught us, every time we recall his stepping down from the pulpit to preach on our level (literally and metaphorically). When I called Cynthia in Amherst this evening to inform her of this bittersweet news, she responded in sorrow, "But I'm sure the funeral will be this weekend, and I'll be in Florida with my Dad." To which I responded, "Cynthia, that's where Henry would want you to be."
Name: Dr. H. Frederick Reisz, Jr.
City: Bluffton, SC
Relationship to Pastor Horn: I succeeded Dr. Horn as Senior Pastor at UniLu
Sent: 30-Jan-2007 05:17 PM
I am in Gatlinburg, TN lecturing for a four night adult VBS. Last night, I told the assembled Lutherans of Dr. Horn's death and we prayed for the Horn family, commending Henry to Christ's sure care. A pastor said to me, "He was amazing. He seemed to read everything!" That is so. For many pastors and laity, Henry interpreted for them the theological significance of the varied knowledge which he collected from what surely was the center of the universe for him, Harvard-Cambridge. Henry ministered to "the" community and an extensive community. He believed in well-wrought words and writing. He sought to be "the" historian for eastern Lutheranism that much of that treasure not be lost. It was a history filtered through his family and his formidable mind. Dr. Horn was a man of Christ. In many ways, he as a type-of-Paul for our time standing in public, proclaiming the Gospel, and then interpreting the public back to the Church. We speak of "giants of the faith," we have lost one in Henry's death. There will be more intense discussions now in whatever lies beyond us in God's Kindom. Go into Christ, dear Brother in the faith, you have been a most faithful servant leaving many students in your wake. You have enriched Christ's Church, made living in Cambridge better for many of the poor and neglected, and been an advisor and teacher to leaders and the Church universal.
With admiration and gratitude to God in Christ . . . and with prayers for the Horn family and our beloved University Lutheran Church. Peace .... Fred Reisz
Name: Judy P Welke
City: Newtonville, MA, USA
Relationship to Pastor Horn: He was my Pastor from 1961
Sent: 30-Jan-2007 03:21 PM
Henry came to visit me in the hospital right after Kent State, May 1970. He told me his daughter, Eleanor, had gone to bat for a friend who had been fired for wearing a black armband. The friend got her job back. I told Henry that I wished he'd speak out more about current events in his sermons. He did so the next two Sundays I was in church. I felt heard and respected and much closer to him after that.
My best to his family at this time.
Judy Welke