The parish does not feed you. Christ himself does. If the liturgy is reverant there, the homilies wonderful, and there is a good KofC chapter, why did you leave? If you want Bible studies, young adult groups, adoration, rosary circles, you can start all or any of those. If reverant, devout lay people do not start those sorts of groups and work to build them up, they will not spring up of their own accord. Yes, it is hard work, but so very worthwhile!
I started this thread and now here we are on Pentecost. Not only did we begin our celebration of this very significant Holy Mass with that perrenial crowd gagger, Sing a New Church into Being, we took the Sequence, a most venerable ancient, theologically correct, prayer out of the liturgy and added a rather bizarre, half Latin half English, duet by the Cantor and the Music Minister (piano accompaniment, of course).
I’m sorry you had to deal with this. Yes, as a catholic, you have a right to the Mass, celebrated in accord with the rubrics. It is their responsibility to celebrate the Mass well.
I here this hit on this song and others, but it isn’t any heresy. THe song calls for renewal, a call to arms in a way to do the work that Christ taught us. The remind us that we are a single body in Christ. A unified body a unified Church,
We’ll just have to agree to disagree. Here are the lyrucs to this self aggrandizing horizontal ditty:
I hope you will come back when you are robed in holiness and light.
Why, in your opinion, do radiant robed faithful need a penitential rite after the greeting of the Mass? Cuz it’s cute?
It’s the person who recites the penitential rite, not the robe.
OK, I got it now! Next week I get to play the tambourine and cow bells, OK?
Ping me whenever anyone hands you a tambourine and cow bell, OK?
I have heard a lot of people talking about how the lyrics in the newer songs are more about worshipping ourselves and not God.
It’s a reference to Baptism.
).Where does it refer to the newly baptized? Show me where it is a hymn to any of or all of the Trinity. It’s a song of one singer to the others. It’s ridiculous and heretical. JRRT turns over in his grave over this kind of stuff.It’s a reference to Baptism.
It’s pretty safe to say that anybody who has just been baptized, and washed from the stain of Original Sin, is now robed in holiness. The traditional baptismal garment is a white robe, an alb really, to symbolize that “robed in holiness and light”.
It’s not my favorite hymn, and it’s a little too much about “us” for my taste, but as far as I can tell it’s not heretical, and they had the good sense to set it to a good melody (I don’t think we Catholics are used to using the same melody for different hymns but it’s done in a lot in other churches, that’s why a good hymnal has a hymn tune index at the back).
It’s a little cheesy for my personal taste but I wouldn’t get upset over it. Definitely not worth leaving a parish over, on it’s own. If I were a music director, I might schedule it a few times a year if the parishioners liked it, but not often. Probably for the exit hymn (so the people who hate it can bolt for the door like good Catholics do at the end of Mass
JRRTFAN, are you a J.R.R. Tolkien fan? Don’t forget something he wrote in his letters:
It’s using symbolic language and imagery. Poetry does that, and hymns are a kind of poetry. It doesn’t have to be literal. I think the allusion to baptism is fairly clear : “risen from the water” and “robed in holiness”.
1. I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord. I agree it's not a direct praise of the Trinity, but not all hymns and chants, even very traditional ones, are. Like Psalm 121.Sometimes they're even in the voice of Jesus like communion chant [Ego Sum Vitis](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYgADJemGU4&feature=related), "I am the true vine, and you are the branches; he who abides in me and I in him, he it is who bears much fruit, alleluia, alleluia."