Out of Season Hymns

[JMJ_coder]

Hello,

Why is it that we can’t use certain hymns outside of certain seasons? For instance, the hymns “There is No Rose of Such Virtue” and “Behold a Mystical Rose” is given the liturgical season of Advent/Christmas, but it is such a beautiful hymn it would be nice to hear it in May or October. In the Latin Church “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” is also an Advent/Christmas song, but it is such a deep chant of the Incarnation that it would be nice to hear in July. Why can’t we contemplate the Incarnation outside of a month or two per year? Or contemplate the Passion in Fall? In September is ordinary time, so aside from Saints days there is not much taking precedence. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear Stabat Mater on the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross?

 

[jbuck919]

Hello,

Why is it that we can’t use certain hymns outside of certain seasons? For instance, the hymns “There is No Rose of Such Virtue” and “Behold a Mystical Rose” is given the liturgical season of Advent/Christmas, but it is such a beautiful hymn it would be nice to hear it in May or October. In the Latin Church “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” is also an Advent/Christmas song, but it is such a deep chant of the Incarnation that it would be nice to hear in July. Why can’t we contemplate the Incarnation outside of a month or two per year? Or contemplate the Passion in Fall? In September is ordinary time, so aside from Saints days there is not much taking precedence. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear Stabat Mater on the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross?

In the first place, “There is No Rose” is not a suitable congregational hymn, so I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that you consider this as part of the question at all when most people who addressed the general issue you have raised would be wondering why we can’t sing “Tis the month of our Mother” in February or “Holy God We Praise Thy Name” every single Sunday the way “everyone used to.” At least you appear to have taste.

The problem here reduces itself to the general problem of Catholic hymnody in English-speaking countries, especially the United States, and it goes back to the assumption that “another suitable hymn” or however you wish to translate the rubric means “anything that feels good at the moment and that the few people who come to church anymore in the first place find comfortably familiar.” High-level Protestant denominations such as the Anglican/Episcopalians know and love hundreds of hymns of artistic value worthy of worship, which they always program well in advance and which are never programatically out of place. Catholics have their own great worship tradition but long ago abandoned it. Singing, or more like not singing (who can blame them?) the same rubbish every Sunday in the US goes way back to before Vatican II, and nothing in the way of “reform” has ever set things right.

 

[johnnykins]

In the first place, “There is No Rose” is not a suitable congregational hymn, so I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that you consider this as part of the question at all when most people who addressed the general issue you have raised would be wondering why we can’t sing “Tis the month of our Mother” in February or “Holy God We Praise Thy Name” every single Sunday the way “everyone used to.” At least you appear to have taste.

The problem here reduces itself to the general problem of Catholic hymnody in English-speaking countries, especially the United States, and it goes back to the assumption that “another suitable hymn” or however you wish to translate the rubric means “anything that feels good at the moment and that the few people who come to church anymore in the first place find comfortably familiar.” High-level Protestant denominations such as the Anglican/Episcopalians know and love hundreds of hymns of artistic value worthy of worship, which they always program well in advance and which are never programatically out of place. Catholics have their own great worship tradition but long ago abandoned it. Singing, or more like not singing (who can blame them?) the same rubbish every Sunday in the US goes way back to before Vatican II, and nothing in the way of “reform” has ever set things right.

You don’t like “Tis the Month of Our Mother”? I guess you prefer “Bring Flowers of the Fairest.”

It’s true there has always been junk - but I do think the last 40 years have raised junk to an entirely new level of junkiness - both in its level of junkiness and widespread usage.

I think we could all happily deal with some junk - but today’s problem of junk almost all the time and in almost all places is a problem of unprecedented proportions. My parish usually has fine music - but going to another parish for any reason is usually enough to leave my stomach in knots.

 

[JMJ_coder]

Hello,

In the first place, “There is No Rose” is not a suitable congregational hymn

Could you expound more on this? I have only heard this hymn once or twice, and it seemed ok to me (though I didn’t study indepth the lyrics).

 

[puzzleannie]

You don’t like “Tis the Month of Our Mother”? I guess you prefer “Bring Flowers of the Fairest.”

.

I would have to offer my vote for On This Day O Beautiful Mother as the Marian hymn most easily and consistently distorted by congregational singing.

 

[jbuck919]

Hello,

Could you expound more on this? I have only heard this hymn once or twice, and it seemed ok to me (though I didn’t study indepth the lyrics).

It is a great deal more than ok, it is one of the great classics of Marian hymnology. It has been set many times, including by great composers. It just doesn’t work very well as a congregational hymn.

Hymnology is a very difficult art (and it is an art), and of course there is room for different opinions, but I’ve been at this for many years, and there is a spectrum within which a hymn can be both a little work of art (and therefore worthy as an offering to God) and singable by ordinary people congregated in worship. I don’t imagine anyone here will appreciate this (I detest the man myself), but Martin Luther invented this notion and was one of its great exemplars. I wish I could say that Catholics have found a way to do as well as the best of the Protestant tradition has done, but they have not, nor after years of considering the matter am I sure how I would correct the situation if it were in my power to correct it at all. Popes with both real and don’t-we-wish documents “motu proprio” have failed in this matter. Even angels have not feared to tread…