Music: "I, myself, am the bread of life"?

[Walking_Home]

Not necessarily so. Nobody here questions if Faith of our Fathers is appropriate. Yet in some churches they have modified the words to include “our mothers too”. Should we throw out Faith of our Fathers to get rid of that version too?

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As you said one was modified to include the other. Here we are speaking of 2 hymns. One heretical and the other could be use to back the the heretical one. While the one alone may not be a problem–the 2 in combination --yes it it is.

 

[paramedicgirl]

Here’s Father Paul Scalia says about the song in the OP:

Bread of Life" by Rory Cooney, provides a splendid example of this self-centered conversation. The theme of the song lends itself to the Communion rite. But unfortunately, the words distort the meaning of Communion and the dialogue that should be taking place:

I myself am the bread of life
you and I are the bread of life
taken and blessed, broken and shared
by Christ
that the world may live.

Aside from the fact that this song radically distorts Our Lord 's “Bread of Life” discourse, it also leaves God out of the conversation: we talk to ourselves. As the communicants come forward to receive the living God, they are singing about themselves.

 

[peary]

“I Myself Am the Bread of LIfe” is one of those songs that belongs on the Peary Index of Forbidden Songs LOL! The song itself is lame, and the words are theologically atrocious. I would bet you ten-to-one that nobody contacted the diocese about using this travesty. It’s obvious the music minister wants to do what he or she wants according to his/her own tastes and likes.

 

[Manfred]

Here’s Father Paul Scalia says about the song in the OP:

Bread of Life" by Rory Cooney, provides a splendid example of this self-centered conversation. The theme of the song lends itself to the Communion rite. But unfortunately, the words distort the meaning of Communion and the dialogue that should be taking place:

I myself am the bread of life
you and I are the bread of life
taken and blessed, broken and shared
by Christ
that the world may live.

Aside from the fact that this song radically distorts Our Lord 's “Bread of Life” discourse, it also leaves God out of the conversation: we talk to ourselves. As the communicants come forward to receive the living God, they are singing about themselves.

Father Scalia has hit the nail right on the head; his comments reflect sound, solid, orthodox Catholic theology. God bless him.

Now - if we could only hit on the head those music directors, etc. who push this pap on us!

 

[benedictgal]

Father Scalia has hit the nail right on the head; his comments reflect sound, solid, orthodox Catholic theology. God bless him.

Now - if we could only hit on the head those music directors, etc. who push this pap on us!

Manfred, I think we also have to sock it to the publishing houses who continually plug this nonsense.

I have read through 10 pages of this thread. I am rather appalled at those who support this hymn. About 15 years ago, a friend of mine was ordained to the transitional diaconate and chose this particfular hymn for his ordination Mass. Having been a newbie to liturgical planning, I thought that it was okay (melody was nice). However, having carefully studied the lyrics, there was something about the hymn that gave me the equivalent of a liturgical migraine.

It went against everything that I had been taught. Later on, I discovered the writings of a renowned theologian named Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. I then started comparing recent hymns to his famous comments about our “cobbling up the liturgy for ourselves” and having music that “celebrates the community over Christ.” What had interiorly bothered me about this particular hymn suddenly shown very bright under the Ratzinger microscope.

The other troubling aspect of the song is its lack of recognition of the Father in all of this. “This bread is spirit; gift of the Maker’s love” totally takes God, the Father, out of the picture.

PaixGoiaAmor, I am not a musician; however, I have selected music for many liturgies (my Cathedral and my Diocese). I am not some Jane-come-lately nor do I fit the profile you mentioned in your posts. I have read the Church documents as well as the writings of now-Pope Benedict XVI.

This particular hymn, no matter how much you passionately try to justify it, clearly goes against Catholic doctrine and dogma about the Eucharist. Perhaps your love for the piece has blinded you to the glaring reality that this hymn places a grossly undue emphasis on us rather than on Christ. You are also misreading the Mystical Body of Christ and St. Augustine’s writings regarding same in your line of thought. The Mystical Body of Christ is not the same as the Body of Christ that we receive in Holy Communion. We are not the Eucharistic Sacrifice. We do not receive ourselves. We receive Jesus, plain and simple. Furthermore, during the Last Supper, Jesus did not take, break, blessed and gave “us”, as this song implies; He took, broke, blessed and gave His Body and Blood to us.

Jim OCDS, you, too, are also misreading both the sixth Chapter of St. John’s Gospel and the concept of the Mystical Body of Christ. While “I am the Bread of Life” is taken from the Gospel, throughout the Church’s 2000+ years of Sacred Music, the development of speaking in the “voice of God (first person)” did not happen until after the Second Vatican Council.

Take a look at the words to I Received the Living God:

I received the living God, and my heart is full of joy. I received the living God and my heart is full of joy.

Jesus said, “I am the Way and my Father longs for you, so I come to bring you home, to be one with Him anew.”

Jesus said, “I am the Bread, kneaded long to give you life. You who will partake of me need not ever fear to die.”

Jesus said, “I am the Truth, if you follow close to me, you will know me in your heart and my word shall make you free.”

Jesus said, "I am the Life, far from whom nothing can grow, but receive this living bread and my Spirit you shall know.

Each verse is always prefaced by “Jesus said.” The song does not take it upon itself to speak in the first person. Furthermore, unlike I am the Bread of Life, it does not remove the references to “Father.”

The bottom line is that the hymn cited by the OP makes for pure theology and is doctrinally deficient.

 

[benedictgal]

Manfred, I think we also have to sock it to the publishing houses who continually plug this nonsense.

I have read through 10 pages of this thread. I am rather appalled at those who support this hymn. About 15 years ago, a friend of mine was ordained to the transitional diaconate and chose this particfular hymn for his ordination Mass. Having been a newbie to liturgical planning, I thought that it was okay (melody was nice). However, having carefully studied the lyrics, there was something about the hymn that gave me the equivalent of a liturgical migraine.

It went against everything that I had been taught. Later on, I discovered the writings of a renowned theologian named Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. I then started comparing recent hymns to his famous comments about our “cobbling up the liturgy for ourselves” and having music that “celebrates the community over Christ.” What had interiorly bothered me about this particular hymn suddenly shown very bright under the Ratzinger microscope.

The other troubling aspect of the song is its lack of recognition of the Father in all of this. “This bread is spirit; gift of the Maker’s love” totally takes God, the Father, out of the picture.

PaixGoiaAmor, I am not a musician; however, I have selected music for many liturgies (my Cathedral and my Diocese). I am not some Jane-come-lately nor do I fit the profile you mentioned in your posts. I have read the Church documents as well as the writings of now-Pope Benedict XVI.

This particular hymn, no matter how much you passionately try to justify it, clearly goes against Catholic doctrine and dogma about the Eucharist. Perhaps your love for the piece has blinded you to the glaring reality that this hymn places a grossly undue emphasis on us rather than on Christ. You are also misreading the Mystical Body of Christ and St. Augustine’s writings regarding same in your line of thought. The Mystical Body of Christ is not the same as the Body of Christ that we receive in Holy Communion. We are not the Eucharistic Sacrifice. We do not receive ourselves. We receive Jesus, plain and simple. Furthermore, during the Last Supper, Jesus did not take, break, blessed and gave “us”, as this song implies; He took, broke, blessed and gave His Body and Blood to us.

Jim OCDS, you, too, are also misreading both the sixth Chapter of St. John’s Gospel and the concept of the Mystical Body of Christ. While “I am the Bread of Life” is taken from the Gospel, throughout the Church’s 2000+ years of Sacred Music, the development of speaking in the “voice of God (first person)” did not happen until after the Second Vatican Council.

Take a look at the words to I Received the Living God:

Each verse is always prefaced by “Jesus said.” The song does not take it upon itself to speak in the first person. Furthermore, unlike I am the Bread of Life, it does not remove the references to “Father.”

The bottom line is that the hymn cited by the OP makes for pure theology and is doctrinally deficient.

My last sentence should have read:

The bottom line is that the hymn, cited by the OP, makes for poor theology and is doctrinally deficient.

One other note to all of this: Hymns, such as “I Myself, Am the Bread of Life”, tend to water down the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to the point that we forget just what we are doing in Church and WHOM we are worshipping.

We don’t bow to each other during the Mass, nor do we kneel in front of each other. Taking the words of the particular hymn in question at face value, it would appear that, if we held to the lyrics, that is what we would be doing. We would, in effect, be worshipping ourselves because we are “taken and blessed, broken and shared”, as the song suggests.

Hymns, especially those sung during Communion, need to accurately present the sacred mysteries we are partaking and receiving. Yes, as St. Augustine says, we become what we receive; however, never, in any of his writings, did this great Doctor of the Church ever confuse the Mystical Body of Christ with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, wherein Jesus becomes fully and really present on the altar.

 

[Guitar]

Manfred, I think we also have to sock it to the publishing houses who continually plug this nonsense.

I’ve never actually heard the ditty in question but it is good to see someone else who thinks - as I have for some time - that the fairer target would be the publishers.

One of the reasons I dropped my local organ society membership was that I got thoroughly jack of reading the outpourings of atheist professional organists with high profile church postings who on the rare occasion they venture out into the 'burbs come back making disparaging and truly insulting remarks about the musicians who do their best out there with what they’ve got, and also make the mistake of thinking that the music they find out there is all the personal preference of the amateurs who serve those churches, and that it is demand from these musicians that causes the publishers to produce this stuff. I think it ain’t necessarily so. Our parish hymnals have material in them that we would never ask for and we’ve only got because the publisher put it in there along with the stuff we did want. We would buy a new hymnal no more often than every ten years. So if demand, rather than publisher decision, is determining what gets printed, well, “it ain’t me, babe” is all I can say. We’re more in the position of using what we can buy rather than buying what we want.

 

[Durango_Len]

I have never had the mis-fortune of hearing the song “I, Myself, Am the Bread of Life”, but the fact that it is being sung in some Catholic churches was brought to my attention by my daughter. The title rang a bell with me, so I opened up an old hymnal and found the song “I (meaning Jesus) Am the Bread of Life”.

It appears to me what has happened is that someone has taken what was originally a very beautiful song using words from the Gospel of John verse 6:35-58 and bastardized the hell out of it by changing the wording! Looks like a clear cut case of plagerism to me.