This is my husband’s favorite song that I have ever written. And after we became Catholic, he brought it to me and said, “See?! It’s the Mystery of Faith. You wrote it into a song and you weren’t even Catholic! How did that happen?”
It’s not exactly the mystery of faith, but’s it’s pretty close. And how, HOW did I ever write about “wrapping the Body of the Lord carefully?” Back when I was Protestant, no one considered this important. But I did. How? Why?
And how did I know that a colored light signifies that Jesus is present? Who taught me this? I hope that when next you see the read light burning next to the tabernacle in your church that you remember the words to my song.
We have seen this over and over again in my songs and in the songs of other Protestants. We believe that there is a longing in the hearts of Protestants for the truth of the Catholic Church, and it is in their music that this longing often is expressed. We believe that the Holy Spirit gives lyrics to Protestants that express the Truth of the Catholic Church, and that these songs are used by the Holy Spirit to bring Protestants HOME to the Catholic Church, as well as to minister to Catholics.
For this reason, I disagree strongly with the opinion that hymns and songs written by Protestants should be ignored or rejected. I believe that we need to examine the hymns that we sing, yes, and reject those that are contrary to Catholic teaching. But to throw out a song just because it was written by a Protestant would be to throw out songs like this:
Christmas Lights
Every Christmas Daddy brings
the lights down from their attic box.
And we watch him untangle strings
and check to make sure each bulb works.
Then Daddy hangs them upon the tree.
Glittering, shining, for you and me.
Colored lights on a Christmas tree
Telling all who pass by,
“Jesus, the Light
of the world is born.
Hallelujah, Glory!”
God the Father looked through the dark
and saw His children, lost and sad.
So He opened up His heart, gave Jesus.
Children, be ye glad!
But we hung Him upon a tree,
Suffering, dying, for you and me.
Colored lights on a Christmas tree
Telling all who pass by,
“Jesus, the Light
of the world has died.
Hallelujah, Glory!”
Take down the tree, wrap the lights carefully.
Hide them away 'til that wonderful day
When the lights once again
light the way for all men.
Children come!
Daddy’s done.
Gather close.
The Light arose!
Colored lights on a Christmas tree
Telling all who pass by
"Jesus, the Light of the world is risen.
“Hallelujah, Glory!”
(Sharon Whitlock, 1985)
If you like the words to this song, I don’t mind if you print the poem and share it with people. I only ask that you add my name and the date, please. Thanks.
Many of the Protestant denominations came from the Church, it isn’t that surprising that some of the symbolism which Catholics associate with Our Lord have remained in the Protestant traditions, even if in a subliminal/neglected way.
Many of those traditions also come directly from the Bible, Our Lord’s body being prepared for burial, the cloths which Simon Peter found at the empty tomb.
Again there are various times when the “light of Christ” is mentioned, either in the Bible or in the more traditional hymns which the Protestant tradition has retained.
To be honest with you even if we were to look at Pagan rituals or ceremonies and view them through the lens of Catholic symbolism we’d probably find a lot of points. For example Pagan ceremonies may involve waiting on the Sun to rise or coming to the ceremony in darkness, just as we do at the Christmas and Easter Vigil. They may involve incense and fire, they may have songs which can be construed, if looked at in a certain way, as speaking about Christ and His Resurrection. That doesn’t mean that when Pagans convert to the Church we should introduce Pagan rituals so they feel more at home, nor should we introduce hymns which are not entirely Catholic in nature.
It is not about saying this was written by a Protestant or this by a Catholic, its about saying whether this is an appropriate song for the Mass according to what the Church has said on it, and thats means going by the Church Documents and not what lay liturgical experts might have to say on it.
The song may be appropriate for a carol concert or a school concert, but I don’t think it should be used at a Christmas Day Mass or the Christmas Vigil.
The Church does not place a limit on what we listen to in our private time. When you go home you can listen to Protestant hymns till your hearts content, in the car you can play them, even in private prayer at home you could play it in the background. But when it comes to the Mass it should be the Catholic tradition and, to the fullest possible extent, the Catholic musical tradition which is heard, to dilute that with Protestant hymns, especially those which are doctrinally flawed is not appropriate.
We sang a lot of Catholic hymns in my Protestant churches. Yes, we did! “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” was one of the most frequently sung hymns in our “traditional” worship services. It’s in Christian and Missionary Alliance Hymnal (Hymns of the Christian Life), and this denomination is not exactly friendly towards Catholicism. All the words are the same. The thing we did differently in the Protestant churches is that we didn’t repeat the last phrase in the song.
And we didn’t do that little grace note thing that Catholics do on the last syllable of “infinite” and on the first syllable of “domain.” I really don’t like that grace note thing. Just personal preference, but I think it sounds nervous. I don’t play it on the piano when we sing it in Mass.
Because I wasn’t raised on chant like some of you were, I don’t get the same feelings of “home” that many of you get when you hear it. It doesn’t conjure up images of safety and love and God and Church and holiness at all for me, whereas some of you consider it utterly sublime. That’s your “culture.” It’s hard for me to fit in with that.
And what effect does missing out that repeat have? It decreases the emphasis which was obviously intended to be placed on the words.
What happened to you just being a pianist with no control over what you play? You have made an arbitrary decision based on your own judgment about changing something which is presumably in the arrangement the Church uses for it. So what happens if a very good singer comes over from a Methodist church, becomes a Cantor and decides she finds some of the words a bit “nervous” and so decides to change them as well? This is one example where you have just arbitrarily imported a Protestant practice, and yes in the grand scheme of things grace notes may not seem like much but whoever wrote them in probably had a far better understanding of the Catholic musical tradition and why they were there than anyone on here. This is precisely why we need to be careful when people expect the wholesale import of hymns they liked in their previous Church, we mustn’t be adding them at the expense of Catholic practices which actually belong there already.
It is part of the tradition of the Catholic Church and hence part of Catholic culture. And it is part of your culture since you joined the Church. That doesn’t mean you need to love it anymore than we are obligated to adore Eastern Catholic hymns or every hymn ever written. But it does emphasise the universal aspect of the Church, there may be differences but in the Mass those differences should not be constantly forced to the fore which is just what shall happen if you try to throw in a song or two for every ethnic or cultural grouping which might be members of a given Parish. If you can fit in with the Mass, the Sacraments and the other components of the Catholic Church then it should be fairly easy to ‘fit in’ with Gregorian Chant. Even if you don’t personally like it, you should just accept it as part of the Church something which is, and should remain, deeply embedded in the Catholic heritage just as the Church accepts that when you go home you might listen to Heavy Metal or Sandi Patty. Gregorian Chant, more than any other form of music developed with the Church. It used to be said that someone with reasonable familiarity with the TLM if transported back several hundred years would be able to recognise the Mass and follow what is happening. Similarly if we were transported back and heard Church music it should be something we can feel some familiarity with. Gregorian Chant is a very effective audio reminder of that link both to those who first used and introduced Gregorian Chant but also to those who used other Chants previously and indeed to the Jewish tradition which also used, and still uses, Chant.
