"Here I am, waiting like a lover"

[benedictgal]

This is true. “Making love” for instance, up till the early 20th century, did not mean having sex. It just meant being innocently amorous with your sweetheart. I know a man in his early 60s who was a sensitive, innocent, old-fashioned kind of guy when he was a young man. He read a lot of old poetry and novels and innocently said to a girl he was dating, “I love making love to you.” Well, that ended the courtship right then and there. He got smacked in the face and didn’t know why until he asked his friends and was brought to the realization that the “modern” (this was back in the early 60s) term of “making love” meant having sex. He never used that again when dating.

But besides the fact that the writer probably should have thought about the modern connotation of the word, “lover”, it’s more of the issue that the song is ambiguous with no mention on God, thus leaving it open to lots of interpretation of whether or not it is a secular song or a religious one.

That is an excellent point, Sarabande. When composers are writing songs “in the voice of God”, but, not being explicit about just Who is speaking, it leaves the composition rather ambiguous. That is the big problem with a lot of these songs. We really don’t know who is addressing whom. The older songs had no ambiguity to them.

Someone brought up the fact that OCP is now including “Lean on Me” as part of their arsenal. That is sad. Every time I hear that song, I keep remembering the late 80s remix with “we be jammin, we be jammin” and the reggae beat to it. Next thing you know, they’ll include “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and “Gloria (a very old U2 song that has Latin in the refrain, which I love, but, not for the Mass)”.

 

[mlchance]

I think the problem is the modern “meaning of love and romance” which actually more often than not means sex. You could have romantic love in medievel times and the chivalrous knight, for example, would love, adore, write sonnets to, etc., his “ideal woman” without ever going beyond that.

Good point, but the idea of “love pure and chaste from afar” is more an invention of the Victorian Age than the Middle Ages. Medieval men and women were, by and large, a rather crude, lusty lot.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Beautiful]

No it should not. Christ is not our lover - he waits as a lover would - just like the many other comparisons and analogies tht scripoture uses to describe God and His many feelings toward us.

God loves me. Doesn’t that make Him my Lover?

 

[Sarabande]

Good point, but the idea of “love pure and chaste from afar” is more an invention of the Victorian Age than the Middle Ages. Medieval men and women were, by and large, a rather crude, lusty lot.

– Mark L. Chance.

I didn’t think it was important to bring up originally (and being someone who reads a lot of history on Medieval and Renaissance periods, I was afraid to go into a discertation), but since it has been opened… the idea of chivalrous “love” in the medieval ages often times had little to do with real relationships. Courtly Love was something spread throughout Europe by the troubadours singing about men, usually noble men, who proclaim their love of a fair lady from afar - an ardent love that was unconsummated. Men and women beneath the nobles were considered not so pure and elevated, and were often times excused of their debauched and liscivious behaviours. Since they were considered crude and earthy and not so close to God, their actions were more excusable. For example - a young noble woman who had relations prior to marriage would have been a ruined woman. No man would want to marry her. A servant woman, though, there would be absolutely no problem with it during that time. The wealthy loved these stories/songs and even liked to “play” at them, but it was the belief at the time that true love did not and could not co-exist with marriage. Marriage was practical, whereas love wasn’t. So sometimes, the women these men would vow their eternal love for in the chivalrous, courtly play would be married women. Outside of the realm of courtly love play, people back then were, as this poster described - rather crude and lusty. If you ever look at the lyrics to the music of that time, they talk about sex and enjoying it with their unmarried lovers a lot - along with many songs about God and the Virgin Mary. I was fortunate enough to meet a couple who specialized in medieval and renaissance music and they allowed me to look at their sheet music in between performance sessions. And it was just as “lusty” during the Elizabethan/Rennaissance times. “The Art of the Bawdy Song” is testament to that.

The Victorians picked up on the chivalry aspect of the Medieval times because it totally corresponded to their beliefs of Victorian manners and their ideas about sex. It really wasn’t until that period that women were not considered people who could and should enjoy sex. It was unbecoming and would bring a woman down from her pedestal.

Anyway, back on topic.

 

[The_Smiter]

Good point, but the idea of “love pure and chaste from afar” is more an invention of the Victorian Age than the Middle Ages. Medieval men and women were, by and large, a rather crude, lusty lot.

– Mark L. Chance.

That is all well and good but it has nothing to do with the isues regarding the inappropriateness of theis song for the liturgy.

 

[VociMike]

I have to say that some of you are either incredibly naive or are just being obtuse about this phrase.

Parents, would you say that you are your daughter’s lover? Your son’s lover?

Children, would you say that you are your mother’s lover? Your father’s lover?

Brothers, would you say that you are your sister’s lover? Would sisters say that they are their brother’s lover?

Be real. The phrase has a definite connotation. That connotation could well bring the police and/or social services people down on you in real life, if you said those things above, and every single person reading this thread knows that.

Please, don’t pretend the phrase “a lover” is innocuous in this day and age.

 

[agapewolf]

I have to say that some of you are either incredibly naive or are just being obtuse about this phrase.

Parents, would you say that you are your daughter’s lover? Your son’s lover?

Children, would you say that you are your mother’s lover? Your father’s lover?

Brothers, would you say that you are your sister’s lover? Would sisters say that they are their brother’s lover?

Be real. The phrase has a definite connotation. That connotation could well bring the police and/or social services people down on you in real life, if you said those things above, and every single person reading this thread knows that.

Please, don’t pretend the phrase “a lover” is innocuous in this day and age.

Then all the more reason to use the phrase…let’s redeem the language.

 

[JPUSC]

Then all the more reason to use the phrase…let’s redeem the language.

youtube.com/watch?v=M3wgaWAHo2Q

 

[EasterJoy]

I have to say that some of you are either incredibly naive or are just being obtuse about this phrase.

Parents, would you say that you are your daughter’s lover? Your son’s lover?

Children, would you say that you are your mother’s lover? Your father’s lover?

Brothers, would you say that you are your sister’s lover? Would sisters say that they are their brother’s lover?

Be real. The phrase has a definite connotation. That connotation could well bring the police and/or social services people down on you in real life, if you said those things above, and every single person reading this thread knows that.

Please, don’t pretend the phrase “a lover” is innocuous in this day and age.

Have we forgotten that the Catholic Church sees marital love as not only a beautiful thing, but as a symbol of Christ and the Church? In what kind of a marriage is the husband not a lover? There is a reason the Song of Songs is part of Sacred Scripture…and Hosea, too, for that matter, for Christ’s “waiting like a lover” is not always a rapturous kind of wait. Our infidelities make the Lord suffer, as surely as the infidelities of a wife wound her husband. We should not kid ourselves about that.

You’re perfectly free to not like the song, but I don’t feel like I’m being obtuse at all. I think I’m understanding the word “lover” and the connotations it carries in the way that God intended marital love to be seen. You can’t divorce sex from the way it symbolizes God’s love without injuring sexuality itself. I know the word is used to describe every kind of sexual partner, licit or not, but I’m still not ready to cede that beachhead.

The phrase does have a definite connotation. It has the connotation of total giving, of making one life together, a life in which all personal concerns become secondary to life with the beloved.

I don’t care what “day and age” it is…the phrase fits the relationship between God and His People and between Christ and His Church, as it has through thousands of years. It is time to stop letting the symbol of sexuality be co-opting into something God never intended.

If teenagers can’t have God and their sexuality in their heads at the same time without giggling, there needs to be some catechesis. They had better have God and their sexuality in their heads at the same time…every time sexuality enters their heads.

Maybe, just maybe, if we let ourselves see the nature of God’s love for us, it might help to fix the warped view of the world has about the gift of sexuality.

 

[VociMike]

Then all the more reason to use the phrase…let’s redeem the language.

Since when is “redeeming the language” a goal of liturgical music?

Not to mention that it wouldn’t redeem the language. Hearing one song once every few weeks or months is going to change exactly no one’s understanding of the phrase.

 

[agapewolf]

Since when is “redeeming the language” a goal of liturgical music?

Not to mention that it wouldn’t redeem the language. Hearing one song once every few weeks or months is going to change exactly no one’s understanding of the phrase.

Sure it could. I cant’ tell you how many times I’ve heard a word used in a song at church that I’ve not heard used in that manner before. It made me think that somewhere along the line I was missing something, and I went to find it. Behold, it made me understand, in this case what a true “lover” was. This very song did that for me.

 

[VociMike]

The phrase does have a definite connotation. It has the connotation of total giving, of making one life together, a life in which all personal concerns become secondary to life with the beloved.

Stop pretending that real life is a preschool cartoon. Just send your child to school with a note that says “My daddy is my lover” and have the child give the note to a teacher, and see if the powers that be come to the same conclusion.

Deliberately denying reality is no way to go through life.

 

[VociMike]

Sure it could. I cant’ tell you how many times I’ve heard a word used in a song at church that I’ve not heard used in that manner before. It made me think that somewhere along the line I was missing something, and I went to find it. Behold, it made me understand, in this case what a true “lover” was. This very song did that for me.

Yeah, and next we can have a song that says we want to have intercourse with Jesus. After all, “intercourse” just means communication, exchange of thoughts or feelings.

I think you folks are being preposterous.

 

[EasterJoy]

Stop pretending that real life is a preschool cartoon. Just send your child to school with a note that says “My daddy is my lover” and have the child give the note to a teacher, and see if the powers that be come to the same conclusion.

Deliberately denying reality is no way to go through life.

Stop pretending that using totally appropriate metaphors for how God loves His Church is going to get somebody arrested. Talk about preposterous.

God isn’t just Father of the Church. God is the Bridegroom of the Church. God’s imagery, not mine, and it is sexual imagery. Live with it. Learn to love it. It is meant to inform your heart.

God uses a lot of shepherding imagery in Scriptures, too, by the way. I somehow doubt that you feel a need to send your kid to school with a note that says, “My family are a bunch of sheep, because it is bad to be a goat.” Please.

 

[VociMike]

Stop pretending that using totally appropriate metaphors for how God loves His Church is going to get somebody arrested. Talk about preposterous.

God isn’t just Father of the Church. God is the Bridegroom of the Church. God’s imagery, not mine, and it is sexual imagery. Live with it. Learn to love it. It is meant to inform your heart.

God uses a lot of shepherding imagery in Scriptures, too, by the way. I somehow doubt that you feel a need to send your kid to school with a note that says, “My family are a bunch of sheep, because it is bad to be a goat.” Please.

Look, just come out and admit what every reasonable person knows, that “lover” has strong sexual connotations. Just admit that. Otherwise, as I said, you’re being either incredibly (dangerously?) naive, or you’re being deliberately (dangerously?) obtuse.

And wrapping your arguments in indignant self-righteousness won’t change that reality.

 

[JPUSC]

Stop pretending that using totally appropriate metaphors for how God loves His Church is going to get somebody arrested. Talk about preposterous.

God isn’t just Father of the Church. God is the Bridegroom of the Church. God’s imagery, not mine, and it is sexual imagery. Live with it. Learn to love it. It is meant to inform your heart.

God uses a lot of shepherding imagery in Scriptures, too, by the way. I somehow doubt that you feel a need to send your kid to school with a note that says, “My family are a bunch of sheep, because it is bad to be a goat.” Please.

When they start using the term “lover” to describe Jesus in CCD or Catholic school religion class, then you can argue that’s it’s alright to use in Mass.

 

[JPUSC]

Yeah, and next we can have a song that says we want to have intercourse with Jesus. After all, “intercourse” just means communication, exchange of thoughts or feelings.

I think you folks are being preposterous.

This reminds me of a song by a Christian cult that encourages its male and female members to fantasize about Jesus making love to them, LOL. The song sounds like a typical Christian rock song until the parts with sexual innuendo come up.

 

[VociMike]

When they start using the term “lover” to describe Jesus in CCD or Catholic school religion class, then you can argue that’s it’s alright to use in Mass.

Thank you for a serious response that actually acknowledges reality.

 

[Sarabande]

Although my problem with the song lies more with no mention of God in it, VociMike does make a point. (For instance “Here I am, LORD, waiting like a lover” would give no question at all in my mind what the hymn is about - although it still reminds me of that South Park episode.) As someone who is more sensitive about the issue of child sexual abuse for obvious reasons, if a child did come up to me and told me that her father or uncle was her “lover”, an immediate flag for me would go up and cause me to talk to someone about what to do with the situation. I realize this can be an extreme case, but working with children in the past, that is something we are taught to be aware of. Perhaps in a Catholic school that does this song, it would give an adult time to pause and ask questions what the child is actually meaning by this. But in a public school, this wouldn’t even cross a person’s mind.

It’s very sad that “lover” has only been given the connotation of a sexual partner over the past 50 years or so, but it is a reality that can’t be ignored. And if I did hear my own hypothetical children using that term to describe me or their father, I’d have to correct them. It could get them and us into a whole bit of trouble.

I’m not going to say it is naive or any other adjective for those who are very much in favor of using that particular term, but I do think one should think before they use “lover” to evoke the spiritual connotation outside of family or church - should the parish use that song regularly. They need to be ready to either explain themselves profusely or defend themselves should judgement fall upon them if their children, for instance, use it to describe them.

 

[JPUSC]

Alluding to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in a hymn is far better than using the term “lover”. It’s much more universally meaningful for all ages too.

http://www.closerwalkministries.com/_borders/Sacred Heart of Jesus.jpg

catholictradition.org/Two-Hearts/hymn29.htm