Glory and Praise Hymnal

[benedictgal]

Yesterday, I went to tne English-language Mass for the Feast of the Ascension. One of the songs the choir performed was “Be Not Afraid,” a throw-back to the Glory and Priase days. In fact, our whole diocese is suffering from this dreaded disease. Of all of the Easter hymns that we coudl have used, why in the name of Pope St. Pius X did the fill-in choir director have to subject us to that?

Not too many people sang. The problem, as I later learned, was the fact that she was going by the OCP music guide. For some reason the powers that be at OCP put this little song into the mix. I took a small break during the offertory (as I am barely getting over my migraine spell and needed some relief) and pondered what would have been appropriate:

Entrance
A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing (Ascension)

Offertory
We Have Been Told (this is actually one of David Haas’ least damaging songs)

Communion
Alleluia, Sing to Jesus (why they placed this at the Entrance is beyond me–this is more of a Eucharistic hymn than a processional one, just look at the lyrics)

Recessional
Go Make of All Disciples

When I looked through the United in Christ songbook, A Hymn of Glory and Go Make of All Disciples were missing. Alleluia Sing to Jesus was there, but, in a butchered format.

Alleluia, Sing to Jesus (original format), A Hymn of Glory and Go Make of All Disciples, however, were in the Worship III hymnals that our parish used to use before our pastor got bitten by the OCP bug. Be Not Afraid, however, is not in the Worship III hymnal. It is, unfortunately, in the Gather one.

 

[aloysiusg]

For the record, bg, “Be Not Afraid” is one of those songs that, while I have enjoyed playing it int he past, would just assuem retire for any normal mass setting. It could work in a smaller, more intimate gathering of a like-minded community, but it, along with much of the G&P songbook, needs to be weeded out.

 

[brotherhrolf]

Ours for Ascension

Prelude - Jubilate Deo (G. Young)

Entrance - Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise (Worship III)

Offertory - O Clap Your Hands (R. V. Williams)

Communion Peace I Leave You (R. Clausen)

Recessional: Sing With All the Saints in Glory (Worship III)

We are currently using Mass for the City (Richard Proulx)

 

[puzzleannie]

the last time I saw a really orthodox hymnal with classic hymns, the best of both English and Latin, with NONE of the modern glop was at a large Methodist church in San Antonio where I was attending a conference. I attended a service on Sunday, after Mass, just because I wanted to hear their organ–which was magnificent–I nearly wept, closer to what I remember from childhood than much of what I have heard in Catholic churches in the last 30 years. Their architecture was classic English post-Gothic as well, rich woods, marble and stained glass. I kept looking for the “bingo” sign because I was convinced it was a Catholic church. they even had a storage cupboard with richly carved wooden doors that looked like a confessional.

we hated G&P in college–dated lyrics and musical styles even back then–my kids hated G&P in high school their kids hate those songs now.

 

[benedictgal]

Unfortunately, Glory and Praise coincided with the anything goes era of the late 1960s-1970s. Everything that was sacred and beautiful was thrown out in the alleged Spirit of Vatican II. The trouble is that no one, epecially the SLJ bothered to read what the Council documents actually said.

1. The treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with great care. Choirs must be diligently promoted, especially in cathedral churches; but bishops and other pastors of souls must be at pains to ensure that, whenever the sacred action is to be celebrated with song, the whole body of the faithful may be able to contribute that active participation which is rightly theirs, as laid down in Art. 28 and 30.

1. Great importance is to be attached to the teaching and practice of music in seminaries, in the novitiates and houses of study of religious of both sexes, and also in other Catholic institutions and schools. To impart this instruction, teachers are to be carefully trained and put in charge of the teaching of sacred music.

It is desirable also to found higher institutes of sacred music whenever this can be done.

Composers and singers, especially boys, must also be given a genuine liturgical training.

1. The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman Liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.

But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action, as laid down in Art. 30.

1. The editio typica of the books of Gregorian chant is to be completed; and a more critical edition is to be prepared of those books already published since the restoration by Saint Pius X.

It is desirable also that an edition be prepared containing simpler melodies, for use in small churches

Of note, too, is the fact that the organ is still the default instrument for Sacred Music. One can’t really say with a straight face that the stuff in Glory and Praise was meant to be accompanied by an organ.

 

[ethelzguy]

I would beg to differ.

Many offerings from the Glory and Praise hymnal are done on organs in many parishes. I have heard them often with my own ears.

To be perfectly honest I personally PREFER the organ renditions of some G&P hymns that I’ve heard to the guitar versions.

I guess it’s all in your personal tastes and attitudes.

TBL

 

[Sarabande]

Civil War reenactor here

Cool!!! Then you are my reenactor brother - no wonder I totally get you on these boards. I do an impression of a camp follower for Rev War for the 2nd PA (American) and the 43rd Regiment of Foot (British). I have to admit I really like it when we do the Brits and that happens alot because everyone here wants to be American. I don’t get to shoot the brown bess or the canon, but I do get called Molly Pitcher a lot since I bring the water to them on the hot days. haha!

You have a lot of great history where you are for Civil War. Where I am, it’s mainly a lot of Colonial history, so it makes sense for us to do Rev War.

 

[benedictgal]

I would beg to differ.

Many offerings from the Glory and Praise hymnal are done on organs in many parishes. I have heard them often with my own ears.

To be perfectly honest I personally PREFER the organ renditions of G&P hymns that I’ve heard to the guitar versions.

I guess it’s all in your personal tastes and attitudes.

TBL

I have heard the organ renditions; however, these songs were meant more for the guitar than for the organ. Look at how they were originally written. Furthermore, when the SLJ went on their anniversary tour, I don’t think they were hauling an organ around to perform their pieces. They were humming and strumming with their guitars. Honestly, do you think that They’ll Know We are Christians, Lord of the Mountains and Though the Mountains May Fall were meant to be accompanied by the organ?

You can put pinky red lipstick and a Chanel scarf on a sow, but, in the final analysis, you’ll still be looking at one huge porker.

 

[ethelzguy]

You can put pinky red lipstick and a Chanel scarf on a sow, but, in the final analysis, you’ll still be looking at one huge porker.

Well, some of us enjoy pork chops…

 

[brotherhrolf]

Ahem. I believe you may be referring to what is more frequently termed “The War of Northern Aggression” in your parts, are you not?

I was trying to be “sensitive”. I have used that term elsewhere on these fora.

The same authors who gave us Glory and Praise also write orchestral versions for diocesan events. If you think G and P is bad on the organ, add tympani and brass. (My ears are cringing even as I write).

I noted with some interest that there was an article in our diocesan newspaper this week asking for volunteers to form a diocesan choir (after all these years) to sing at diocesan events - auditions required. All I can tell you is that several years ago, I refused to sing at diocesan events because of the music and because of the liturgical abuse I saw. I know I am not the only cathedral chorister who felt that way. To be fair, I know that the music selections are not coming from our organist/music director but from the diocese itself.

 

[frommi]

If I read the author correctly, then The Brady Bunch, Welcome Back, Kotter and Three’s Company would then be far superior than William Shakespeare.

The SLJ didn’t raise any bar as far as Sacred Music is concerned. In fact, they lowered it worse than the limbo. Not only did the seventies give us Disco, the Village People and bell-bottom trousers, the decade gave us the worst in liturgical music.

The theological depth of the SLJ lyrics, while taken from biblical sources, does not even reach the beauty of what St. Thomas Aquinas wrote.

Sometimes I think you would have been better off living in the middle ages.

I’m not huge fan of Glory and Praise, but it’s place as a transitory hymnal is well known.

I might add that despite a huge influx of ‘new’ music…it’s still stuff out of Glory and Praise that Catholics sing the best (Be Not Afraid, On Eagle’s Wings, etc)

 

[frommi]

Yesterday, I went to tne English-language Mass for the Feast of the Ascension. One of the songs the choir performed was “Be Not Afraid,” a throw-back to the Glory and Priase days. In fact, our whole diocese is suffering from this dreaded disease. Of all of the Easter hymns that we coudl have used, why in the name of Pope St. Pius X did the fill-in choir director have to subject us to that?

Not too many people sang. The problem, as I later learned, was the fact that she was going by the OCP music guide. For some reason the powers that be at OCP put this little song into the mix. I took a small break during the offertory (as I am barely getting over my migraine spell and needed some relief) and pondered what would have been appropriate:

Entrance
A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing (Ascension)

Offertory
We Have Been Told (this is actually one of David Haas’ least damaging songs)

Communion
Alleluia, Sing to Jesus (why they placed this at the Entrance is beyond me–this is more of a Eucharistic hymn than a processional one, just look at the lyrics)

Recessional
Go Make of All Disciples

When I looked through the United in Christ songbook, A Hymn of Glory and Go Make of All Disciples were missing. Alleluia Sing to Jesus was there, but, in a butchered format.

Alleluia, Sing to Jesus (original format), A Hymn of Glory and Go Make of All Disciples, however, were in the Worship III hymnals that our parish used to use before our pastor got bitten by the OCP bug. Be Not Afraid, however, is not in the Worship III hymnal. It is, unfortunately, in the Gather one.

Good grief…

Be Not Afraid has lyrics that make sense for ascension…“I Go Before You Always”…I personally didn’t use it for Ascension in my parish…I prefer a different style

Opening: A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing

Psalm: Shouts of Joy (Canedo)

Preparation of the gifts: Go Out To the World (DeSilva)

Communion Processional: God is Here (Haas)

Recessional: Go To The World (Dunstan)

 

[benedictgal]

Sometimes I think you would have been better off living in the middle ages.

I’m not huge fan of Glory and Praise, but it’s place as a transitory hymnal is well known.

I might add that despite a huge influx of ‘new’ music…it’s still stuff out of Glory and Praise that Catholics sing the best (Be Not Afraid, On Eagle’s Wings, etc)

First of all, Glory and Praise represents the worst in worship music. It is not at all what the documents of the Church intended for liturgical music to be. It pretty much flies in the face of these documents and it has led to the decline that we are experiencing today.

Be Not Afraid isn’t the best of songs for the Ascension. In fact, I noted that you didn’t exactly sing it in your parish. There are other hymns, more noble compositions that are betiffing such a grand and glorious feast than anything that the SLJ has in its arsenal.

As I noted in my posts, all too often, we are subjected to the Spirit of Vatican II, as opposed to what the documents actually said. Pope Benedict made that same observation some 20 years ago, and it still holds true even today:

The new phase of the will to liturgical reform no longer sees its foundation explicitly in the words of the Second Vatican Council but in its “spirit”. As a symptomatic text, I shall use here the learned and clearly drafted article on song and music in the Church in the Nouvo Dizionario di Liturgia. The high artistic rank of Gregorian Chant or of classical polyphony is in no way contested here. It is not even a question of playing off congregational activity against elitist art. Nor is the rejection of a historicist rigidification, which only copies the past and remains without a present and a future, the real point at issue. It is rather a question of a basically new understanding of liturgy which one wishes to use in order to surpass the Council whose Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy bears two souls within itself.2

Let us briefly attempt to familiarize ourselves with this conception in its fundamental characteristics. The liturgy takes its point of departure — we are told — from the gathering of two or three who have come together in the name of Christ.3 This reference to the Lord’s words of promise in Matthew 18:20 sounds harmless and traditional at first hearing. But it receives a revolutionary turn when one isolates this one biblical text and contrasts it with the whole liturgical tradition. For the two or three are now placed in opposition to an institution with its institutional roles, and to every “codified program”.

Thus this definition comes to mean: it is not the Church that precedes the group but the group that precedes the Church.*** It is not the Church as an integral entity that carries the liturgy of the individual group or community; rather the group is itself the specific place of the origin for the liturgy.*** Thus the liturgy does not grow out of a common given, a “rite” (which as a “codified program” now becomes a negative image of bondage); it arises on the spot from the creativity of those who are gathered

The Glory and Praise hymnal was written fresh out of the Council, but, did not use what the documents of Vatican II had in mind. The SLJ were so inebriated with the spirit of the Council that they probably considered what the docuements actually said an after-thought.

 

[brotherhrolf]

Sometimes I think you would have been better off living in the middle ages.

Maybe not the middle ages. Some of that early Gothic stuff is every bit as discordant and hard on the ears as some of the G & P stuff I’ve heard. But the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical and certainly some of the post-classical (Durufle, Faure, and all those wonderful English composers) periods (choral pieces and anthemns and hyms) are to be prefered to Be Not Afraid and Eagles Wings.

Hello! I grew up with this type of music not G & P. There are a whole bunch of us alive out there who didn’t like what happened in 1968. It’s May - insert “Immaculate Mary” for the Offertory and see what you get. Try “Praise to the Lord” as an Introit or “To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King”. What? They’re not in the hymnal? Fancy that. May or may not be in the back of the leaflet missalette either. But they exist and people remember them.

Ever heard the Breastplate (Lorica) of St. Patrick? You can find it in the 1940 Episcopalian hymnal - have your choir sing that and see what kind of reaction you get. Our let your choir sing any number of hymns from the St. Gregory Hymnal.

I have the “been there; done that” award. For every one of my classmates in 1968 who thought “Sons of God” was really spiffy, no, “groovy”, there were an equal and opposite number who loved “Holy God We Praise Thy Name”. Guess what, my friend, we’re not dead yet and I bet they’re not dead in your parish either.

We have had forty years in which the bulk of Catholic hymnody was jetisoned and ignored. As benedictgal has pointed out repeatedly, we are more than aware that there were saccharrine hymns before Vatican II ( e,g, On this day oh beautiful Mother). So why did we jettison those hymns which did work, which people did sing, in favor of sacro-pop and Muppet Music which are simply nothing more than the modern equivalent of the same Victorian parlor song? Have you taken a look at the congregational hymns which were sung prior to Vatican II?

 

[ethelzguy]

Slightly off topic, but as I read so many posts as to how organ music is so much more appropriate to Church and Mass…

My mind wanders back to my childhood. Back before I was born, my Father made his living tuning and repairing pipe organs in theaters and churches. He would spend a week or two at a time in some city, making the rounds of the churches and theaters, doing his thing.

When he and my Mother married and started a family, he found a more at-home career running a dairy.

Anyway, occasionally on a Sunday afternoon, he would get in “one of those moods” and we’d wander down to the chuch where he would “blow the dust” out of those organ pipes!

Most of you folks would faint dead away if you had heard him back then…He would rock the walls and shake the windows of St. Theresa’s to the sound of tunes like “South Rampart Street Parade”, “Under The Double Eagle”, and “Darktown Strutter’s Ball”.

The priests and nuns there thought it was a hoot, and Pop had a blast.

Those were the days…

 

[frommi]

First of all, Glory and Praise represents the worst in worship music. It is not at all what the documents of the Church intended for liturgical music to be. It pretty much flies in the face of these documents and it has led to the decline that we are experiencing today.

Be Not Afraid isn’t the best of songs for the Ascension. In fact, I noted that you didn’t exactly sing it in your parish. There are other hymns, more noble compositions that are betiffing such a grand and glorious feast than anything that the SLJ has in its arsenal.

As I noted in my posts, all too often, we are subjected to the Spirit of Vatican II, as opposed to what the documents actually said. Pope Benedict made that same observation some 20 years ago, and it still holds true even today:

The Glory and Praise hymnal was written fresh out of the Council, but, did not use what the documents of Vatican II had in mind. The SLJ were so inebriated with the spirit of the Council that they probably considered what the docuements actually said an after-thought.

You’re right, I didn’t use it…the song isn’t one I like to use on Sundays in general. Mostly because of a combination of overuse and I just can’t find a good song slot to put it in that works from a pastoral perspective.

I’m just pointing out that it’s not an inappropriate hymn.

And the point the writer of the article made was that it was the glory and praise hymnal that sort of got us out of the constant use of beatles songs and ‘bridge over troubled water’ during the liturgy.

When you consider that most hymnals have at least 300 songs in them, not all of them are going to ‘take hold’ in the Catholic community.

The fact that a handful of songs from the Glory and Praise hymnal have taken hold of the Catholic people says that the hymnal does have a good deal of significance in our musical heritage.

 

[Sarabande]

Slightly off topic, but as I read so many posts as to how organ music is so much more appropriate to Church and Mass…

My mind wanders back to my childhood. Back before I was born, my Father made his living tuning and repairing pipe organs in theaters and churches. He would spend a week or two at a time in some city, making the rounds of the churches and theaters, doing his thing.

When he and my Mother married and started a family, he found a more at-home career running a dairy.

Anyway, occasionally on a Sunday afternoon, he would get in “one of those moods” and we’d wander down to the chuch where he would “blow the dust” out of those organ pipes!

Most of you folks would faint dead away if you had heard him back then…He would rock the walls and shake the windows of St. Theresa’s to the sound of tunes like “South Rampart Street Parade”, “Under The Double Eagle”, and “Darktown Strutter’s Ball”.

The priests and nuns there thought it was a hoot, and Pop had a blast.

Those were the days…

What a nice story. There is nothing wrong with a fun or a serious organ recital on a week night or Sunday afternoon. Organ recitals are presented in our city at various churches and we also have a organ concert series at the concert hall which has a brand new pipe organ. There is also a famous organ at the downtown department store which has a concert series there too.

These concerts contain appropriate and inappropriate music for mass, but in a concert setting, they are totally fine.

 

[kleary]

insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3536&Itemid=48

An interesting article on this well known hymnal, and where it has found it’s place in Catholic worship.

They still haven’t created an “I am puking” smiley.

Ken

 

[brotherhrolf]

Slightly off topic, but as I read so many posts as to how organ music is so much more appropriate to Church and Mass…

My mind wanders back to my childhood. Back before I was born, my Father made his living tuning and repairing pipe organs in theaters and churches. He would spend a week or two at a time in some city, making the rounds of the churches and theaters, doing his thing.

When he and my Mother married and started a family, he found a more at-home career running a dairy.

Anyway, occasionally on a Sunday afternoon, he would get in “one of those moods” and we’d wander down to the chuch where he would “blow the dust” out of those organ pipes!

Most of you folks would faint dead away if you had heard him back then…He would rock the walls and shake the windows of St. Theresa’s to the sound of tunes like “South Rampart Street Parade”, “Under The Double Eagle”, and “Darktown Strutter’s Ball”.

The priests and nuns there thought it was a hoot, and Pop had a blast.

Those were the days…

I wouldn’t bat an eye. Our cathedral music director/organist plays for our choir during practice. He loves Scott Joplin as do I. Not only that, I attended the premier of the restoration of the Saenger Theatre’s theater organ in New Orleans, watched the organ console rise out of the orchestra pit, and watched “Birth of a Nation” with its original theatre organ sound track in 1976. And then there was a concert the following night by the New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra accompanied by the Saenger Organ. The NLOFO played at JazzFest this weekend. (You know JazzFest - that really, really huge music festival down here?) The Saenger Organ was flooded by Katrina. You ain’t lived till you’ve heard “When Rebecca Came back from Mecca” or “Old King Tut”.
Those are the days.

P.S. I also get a really big thrill when he plays “Ride of the Valkyries” as he has been known to do on occassion on a Wednesday night. Might I observe that you have a view of us which does not reflect the reality?

 

[benedictgal]

The fact that a handful of songs from the Glory and Praise hymnal have taken hold of the Catholic people says that the hymnal does have a good deal of significance in our musical heritage.

No, I would credit it the marketing gurus at OCP for continually shoving this stuff down our throats and including it in all of their song books. Notice that solid hymnals like Worship III, Adoremus and St. Michael’s don’t include this tripe in their collections. They have real, grounded Sacred Music that is not geared towards hand-clapping and crowd pleasing. Rather, it’s aim is about rendering fitting adoration to God in His Divine Majesty.

These words were spoken 20 years by the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, but, I believe that they are very fitting because they aptly describe the situation, which, sadly, has not changed since this address was first heard:

It is obvious that with the adoption of a sociological language there comes an adoption of evaluations. The value structure that the sociological language has formed constructs a new view of history and the present, the one negative, the other positive. Thus, traditional (and also conciliar!) concepts such as the “the treasury of musica sacra”, the “organ as queen of the instruments”, and the “universality of Gregorian chant” now appear as “mystifications” for the purpose of “preserving a certain form of power”.6 A certain administration of power, we are told, feels threatened by processes of cultural transformation and reacts by masking its striving for self-preservation as love for the tradition. Gregorian chant and Palestrina are tutelary gods of a mythicized, ancient repertoire,7 elements of a Catholic counterculture that is based on remythicized and supersacralized archetypes,8 just as in the historical liturgy of the Church it has been more a question of a cultic bureaucracy than of the singing activity of the people.9

The content of Pius X’s motu proprio on sacred music [Tra le sollecitudini] is finally designated as a “culturally shortsighted and theologically empty ideology of sacred music”.10 Here, of course, it is not only sociologism that is at work but a total separation of the New Testament from the history of the Church, and this in turn is linked with a theory of decline, such as is characteristic for many Enlightenment situations: purity lies only in the original beginnings with Jesus. The entire further history appears as a “musical adventure with disoriented and abortive experiences” which one “must now bring to an end” in order finally to begin again with what is right.11

But what does the new and better look like? The leading concepts have already been indicated in previous allusions. We must now pay attention to their closer concretization. Two basic values are clearly formulated. ***The “primary value” of a renewed liturgy, we are told, is “the full and authentic action of all persons”.12 Accordingly, Church music means first and foremost that the “people of God” represents its identity in song. The second value decision operative here is likewise already addressed: music shows itself as the power that effects the coherence of the group. The familiar songs are, as it were, the identifying marks of a community.13 ***From this perspective, the main categories of the musical formation of the liturgy arise: the project, the program, the animation, the direction. The how, we are told, is more important than the what.14 The ability to celebrate is above all the “ability to do”. Music must above all be “done”.15

In order to be fair, I must add that understanding for different cultural situations is shown throughout and an open space for the adoption of historical material also remains. And above all, the paschal character of the Christian liturgy is underscored. Singing is not only meant to represent the identity of the people of God, but also to give an account of our hope and to proclaim the Father of Jesus Christ to all.16

Thus, elements of continuity do exist in this wide breach. These elements enable dialogue and give hope that unity in the fundamental understanding of the liturgy can be found again, which unity, however, threatens to disappear through the derivation of the liturgy from the group instead of from the Church — and not only theoretically, but also in concrete liturgical practice.

It seems that the tone of those who defend the music of the Glory and Praise era certainly lines up with the remarks that I have highlighted in bold and italics. In fact, Pope Benedict is repeating line that I heard spoken in an old Andy Warhol movie (Blood for Dracula) wherein the handyman tells Dracula (played by Udo Kier) about the pending Communist revolution and about the destruction of the upper class. The count, although understanding of the handyman’s views, tells him emphatically, “I have heard that before.” Benedict certainly has heard those words before. After all, he lived through the Council. He was actually there. We weren’t. We don’t have the full benefit of his experience and first-hand knowledge. He speaks with an authority that none of us have (aside from his Petrine ministry).

The SLJ are very, very far from the works of St. Thomas Aquainas. They pale in comparison to such hymns as Alleluia, Sing to Jesus and Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. These particular hymns are very attuned to the fact that something out of the ordinary occurs at every Mass; the SLJ sound more like something out of the soundtrack for The Graduate.

The Glory and Praise stuff will probably just go down as a speed bump on the liturgical highway.