CONVERTS: Do you miss the old protestant hymns?

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Why would I miss the protestant hymns? I hear them at mass all the time. They sing praise and worship songs. Most of which are protestants. Most of which I remember hearing at the United Methodist Church. I think it is extremely inappropriate to sing protestant hymns during mass. However, I do like them outside of mass. I like listening to Gospel Bluegrass Music.
 
Yes, I miss the organ and those old hymns very much. I’ll always have a very special place in my heart for it all :heaven: ❤️
 
I’m a 46 year old Grandfather, and I work in the music industry.
I design musical instruments and I also plays drums and guitar.

However, when it comes to Church music, I want tradition! I do miss the older Traditional Protestant hymns like “How great thou art”, but I’d even settle for Evangelical hymns compared to the banal musical slop being sung in most Catholic parishes.
I can’t believe that Catholics put up with that nonsense that passes for music! Oregon Catholic Press and there ilk make me sick.

If some musical director tried to foist OCP style music upon a Protestant or Evangelical Church, they’d run him or her out of town!

Bring back Gregorian Chant and forget the rest! 🙂
 
I especially miss the Protestant singing this time of year – when we would pull out all stoppers with CHRISTMAS songs. I know, I know, it ISN’T Christmas. It is Advent. Penetential season. Season of waiting. Theologically, I am in line. But I sure liked singing We Three Kings, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, and all the others all December long.
 
I attend a campus parish and the music is more on the contemporary side of Catholic music (yes, we use that wretched *Gather *hymnal), but we’ve got a wonderful music director, so it’s honestly a very eclectic mix. We did “How Great Thou Art” as well as “Shout to the Lord” and “Confitemini Domino” last month. The very first time I visited this parish they were singing :eek: “Blessed Assurance” :eek: as the processional. I much prefer that type of music to the “God is my boyfriend” songs I’ve heard recently at various Protestant churches.

The last Baptist church I attended used either “Just As I Am” or “I Surrender All” for durn near every. altar. call. I dearly love the lyrics to “Just As I Am” but after three years of singing it at least once a week (all 25 verses ;)) it will be a long time before I’ll be truly happy to hear/sing it again.
 
IrishAm said:
I especially miss the Protestant singing this time of year – when we would pull out all stoppers with CHRISTMAS songs. I know, I know, it ISN’T Christmas. It is Advent. Penetential season. Season of waiting. Theologically, I am in line. But I sure liked singing We Three Kings, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, and all the others all December long.
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The problem with singing these hymns ahead of their time is that when the appropriate and real time to sing them comes, we are so burnt out because we heard them all month long. That is the problem that we have when celebrating Christmas during Advent.

I don’t want to make a blanket statement for fear of getting shot, but, I do not think that many Protestant ecclesial communities have the sense of liturgical seasons that we do, particularly where Advent is concerned. From what I understand, many of them think that it’s all over come Christmas Day. For us, the Christmas Season begins at the first vigil of Christmas Eve and lasts up through the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (although, traditionally speaking, the manger comes down after February 2nd).
 
Like many of the other converts and even cradle Catholics. I DO NOT like many of the modern hymns that are sung during Mass. I have to say “City of God” is the one I dislike the most. So to answer the OP, yes, I do miss the old Protestant hymns. “How Great Thou Art”, “In the Garden”, and yes, even though it doesn’t fit Catholic theology, “Amazing Grace” are some of my favorites. For the more upbeat protestant hymns, I like “I’ll Fly Away”, “I Wouldn’t Take Nothing for my Journey Now”, and probably a lot more that I can’t think of right now!
 
Actually, no. I’ve found the Catholic hymns I hear at mass to be much more reverent, much more traditional, and less…well, corny than what I used to hear.
 
pjn6444 said:
Why would I miss the protestant hymns? I hear them at mass all the time. They sing praise and worship songs. Most of which are protestants. Most of which I remember hearing at the United Methodist Church. I think it is extremely inappropriate to sing protestant hymns during mass. However, I do like them outside of mass. I like listening to Gospel Bluegrass Music.
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Those AREN’T the old classic Protestant hymns. Those are the hymns of liberal mainline Protestantism AND some of those churches actually held out longer than the Catholic Church in using them for worship, ie, the Episcopalians were still using a very fine book of hymns for about a decade after we Catholics started strumming guitars and holding hands.
 
It is a shame really. I didn’t like most of this new stuff when I was a protestant. One of my favorites though was “Onward Christian Soldiers”
 
I don’t miss the hymns so much as I miss the singing. I attended a funeral at my childhood Protestant church a few weeks ago, and I didn’t cry until they sang “It Is Well With my Soul.” It was so full and rich and full of life and hope. It’s really sad that Protestants sing better at a funeral than Catholics sing at a Mass.

When we all get to to heaven, I think that most of the “select” celestial choir will be Protestant and former-Protestants-turned Catholic, because Protestants and former-Protestants-turned Catholic spend their earthly lives practicing hard at singing praises to the Lord, while the Catholics stand in silence during the liturgical congregational singing. :harp:
 
I love music and would love to sing at Mass. However, the words are so dorky, and the tunes so hard to sing that I mostly don’t. Besides that, I want to spend the time before receiving Communion contemplating our Lord, not singing a song. I don’t know why one is inserted there.
 
I grew up a southern baptist and was raised on the good old hymns. I honestly don’t miss them. I love the music of the catholic church. The music is amazing. I cried last week when the organ played Ode to Joy. The music I have experienced in the Catholic church has so much more depth and emotion than anything I heard in my short little lifespan of 36 years. What I really don’t miss is the songs to be sung projected on a screen. Worship choruses are just over the top to me. I don’t understand them. Its like listening to pop music. 😦
 
Which thread was it on hymns that I posted a couple that I do miss?

“Take My Life and Let It Be” (written by an Anglican, but I learned it while I was a non-denominational Christian and never heard it during my time as an Episcopalian)

“I Sing a Song of the Saints of God” (also written by an Anglican as a children’s hymn, and during my years as an Episcopalian it was an All Saints’ Day staple)

I still think that both hymns would not be out of place at a Catholic Mass.
 
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