Refused to sing "a mighty fortress is our God"

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That is actually a Civil War era (1861, published 1862) song with lyrics by Julia Ward Howe that connect God’s Judgment with the war. The music is based on an earlier song about abolitionist John Brown called “John Brown’s Body”, which in turn was based on a folk hymn “Say Brothers Will You Meet Us”

Original lyrics:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

( Chorus )
Glory, Glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

( Chorus )
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.

( Chorus )
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

( Chorus )
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies[14] Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,[15]
While God is marching on.

( Chorus )
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
While God is marching on.
 
Dad never liked that song because it gave him the idea of conversion by force of arms.
 
So many of the Catholic songs are not very inspiring and don’t have a good tune, either. Now and then we get to sing a song that swings along, and then a few people sing, and we don’t sound too bad! Most of the time, Catholics don’t sing–at least in our church. I’ll be trying to sing some unsingable song, and the people all around me are just standing there. Really, if you guys aren’t going to sing, does it really matter what song you aren’t singing?

Before Christmas, I went back to a Lutheran church for a Christmas music event. In addition to the show, they had some sing-alongs. And, boy, were we singing! Loved the music, loved the atmosphere. I am a Catholic now and very happy with my faith and my church. But I sure do miss the enthusiastic singing of the Lutherans.
 
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I don’t have a problem with “Mighty Fortress”’; I don’t see anything anti-Catholic in it. We sing it occasionally at our parish.

On the other hand, yesterday the MD programmed “Simple Gifts”, which I do despise and refuse to sing.

D
 
Even if not singing we still have to endure hearing a bad song. It might be nice to pray but a loud, distracting song makes it nearly impossible to pray.

The enthusiastic singing of the Lutherans is likely due to culture, both Germanic and Protestant. They have a culture of singing. Catholics don’t. I of course don’t mean Catholics never sing, but there is a reason for the difference.

Personally I love singing and love some of the old German and English hymns. But if you aren’t going to sing the harmonies, and in my experience Catholics don’t even bother printing the harmonies let alone try to sing them, then what is the point?

Not that you must have harmonies. The Catholic Church has a long tradition of monophonic singing, it is called plainsong or plainchant. But for some reason that style is largely relegated to history because it is supposedly too difficult to sing whereas singing a modern, wide range broadway style tune is easier. When such ridiculous arguments are made what can one say of the situation?
 
exnihilo said:
The enthusiastic singing of the Lutherans is likely due to culture, both Germanic and Protestant. They have a culture of singing. Catholics don’t. I of course don’t mean Catholics never sing, but there is a reason for the difference.
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Really, what it came down to is that Luther wanted to make the parishioners actively involved in the worship. He felt that the divine service was the means by which the gospel is delivered to the parishioners through the proclamation of word and sacrament, both by the priest and the laity. In that light, he began to hold the divine service in the vernacular, and returned the role of singing in the divine service to the parishioners as opposed to professional clergy. He then created a hymnal to provide worship songs in the vernacular to aid in the divine service and to catechize the laity.
 
The congregation could be actively involved even if not singing. Prayer is active. I don’t know if you are saying otherwise but I think it important to point this out.

I otherwise agree that hymn singing in the vernacular was a part of the overall plan of Luther. Not every Protestant group had the same idea, but Luther’s approach seems to have been more popular and won out. I can see why. Even today I find many people, even Catholics, choosing to go to a Protestant service because they like the music.
 
I am astonished at how many of you protest by refusing to sing one hymn or another.
 
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I remember it was in our Catholic missalette as a child and we never sang it at church. Once I asked my mom, “Why don’t we ever sing A Mighty Fortress?”

Mom said, “Because it’s Protestant!” in about the same tone she’d use if I’d asked why I couldn’t eat a candy I just picked up off the sidewalk.

I knew Protestant was a bad thing so that was the end of discussion. I was always a bit baffled why it persisted in the hymn book though, and the lyrics didn’t seem bad.

I think I’ve heard it at Mass maybe 3 times in 50 years.
 
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Loud-living-dogma said:
the song that Protestants sang when they slaughtered Catholics in the Thirty Years War?
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Actually, there’s a certain ironic revenge in a bunch of Catholics still here and living hundreds of years later, celebrating Mass singing that song, as the Lutheran contingent up the street dwindles to the point of having to go halvsies on a church space with the Anglicans.
 
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Agreed. I actually like the hymn, but I’ve never experienced it at Mass.
 
exnihilo said:
Hymns are Protestant.
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Except in the Divine Office. In the monastic Office, the hymn has been part of the liturgy since the 6th century. In the Roman, it came later, around the 13th. That predates Protestantism by about 3 centuries.

Hymns therefore have earned their place in Catholic tradition. Using them for Mass instead of the sung propers is relatively recent. However the Mass is not a stand-alone liturgy, it is the summit of the liturgy which is a day-long act of prayer and worship, and the whole thing begins at Matins… with a hymn, and has so since St Benedict’s time.
 
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One of the Catholic Church’s strengths is that she can absorb and make her own anything that is worthy and that honors God. I’d say the hymn meets those criteria in spades … even in spite of Luther’s and Bach’s intentions for it, if you want to put it that way.

One of the best avenues of evangelizing Protestants, it seems to me, is to acknowledge and reflect back to them the beauty of so many of their own beliefs & traditions. Show them how those can fit into the even more beautiful & larger context that is Catholicism. The best of Protestantism isn’t alien to the Church–its natural purpose is found in a return to the Church, enrichening both. Christen die feste Burg, sez I!
 
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Irishmom2 said:
We did have Sing a new Church as our recessional. Not a big fan.
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We had Sing a New Church yesterday too. Must’ve been the week for it. I’m not a fan either. “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” is so beautiful – and then Sing a New Church just takes its tune and puts obnoxious lyrics to it. Sigh.

I would much rather have “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” than “Sing a New Church.” Despite its associations with Luther and its ties to the Protestant reformation, the first hymn is less theologically questionable than the second. It’s certainly less insipid and annoying than Sing a New Church, IMO…
 
OraLabora said:
Hymns therefore have earned their place in Catholic tradition. Using them for Mass instead of the sung propers is relatively recent.
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Right. We are talking about Mass and in Mass hymns, and most especially the style in terms of music and words, that the vast majority of Catholics experience are novel.
 
Many are based on psalm verses though, and that’s not an innovation. Psalm and Bible verses have been the core of the Gregorian repertory for 1000 years. Come taste and see, for instance is based on a verse of Psalm 33(34) that has been the communion antiphon Gustate et videte for centuries.

One may not care for a musical style, but one cannot argue with a psalm verse.
 
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