USCCB Committee: ‘All Are Welcome’ Not a Welcome Hymn at Mass

  • Thread starter Thread starter Weserthy
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Julius_Caesar said:
I actually have a soft spot for many of such songs.
Click to expand...
Me too Julius. I’m afraid I caught the bug young. My parents took me to my first “Folk Mass” at age 4 or 5 because we were traveling by plane and the airport had the only available Sunday Mass and it used guitars. I liked the music and bounced up and down like kids do and my parents were bemused seeing me “dancing” at Mass. I also remember pretending the chair in front of me was a guitar and pretend-strumming along. So of course by the time I was a teen I was strumming at Mass on a real one.

I particularly like “Gather Us In” and “Go Make a Difference”. And all the old late-60s folk mass tunes that no one sings any more.
 
Last edited:
The Folk Masses of my youth turned me into a rock music fan in my teens. We would go to church on Sunday, sit about 3 pews back on the right-hand side, and we had an unobstructed view of the folk group at the 10:30. They had guitars, a flute, tambourines, an autoharp, all kinds of folksy instruments. The soprano also did all the cool descants and the guitarist was so enthusiastic that he frequently broke a string by the end of the liturgy. I sang my little heart out, and I learned how to sing well and appreciate good instrumentalists. By the time I got to my first rock concert, I saw little difference between emotional worship of God and passionate singing about whatever it is that British post-punk songwriters were concerned about. (My first concert was Siouxsie and the Banshees with Love & Rockets opening.)

So I grew up knowing all the NALR and St. Louis Jesuits and Haugen/Haas tunes. I have no idea how I became so traditionalized, but after a hiatus of 11 years outside the Church, my music taste changed with a vengeance. I found myself in a community singing CCM type stuff: “Go Make a Difference”, “(Everywhere I Go) I See You”, and “We Are One Body” and it was weird to sing and I was much happier singing traditional hymns but I put up with it for a number of years until I found the parish of my dreams.
 
I try to like all kinds of music at Mass, although I really don’t get much out of chant–I like a melody line, and the chant just sounds like “prolonged speaking” to me.

But it’s OK–I would probably try to find another parish to attend if our parish did all-chant Masses all the time.

My biggest problem with hymns in the Catholic Church is that there is no “music” for the congregation, so unless you are able to harmonize without the written music, you end up singing the melody, which often gets out of range for many people–and then they stop singing (or squeak their way through the high parts!).

In the accompanist’s copy of the Mass hymnals, the four parts are written out (unless the song is a chant). So I KNOW that Catholic congregations are “allowed” to sing four-part music during Mass! (Why would the parts be there if it were not allowed? --for the choir only?!).

When my daughters come to visit and the four of us go to Mass together, we sing ALL four parts (although I’m not the best “tenor”–but I can read the part). People turn around and smile!

One of the things I miss about the Protestant churches where I grew up and spent my younger years is the glorious hymn singing in all four parts–especially the low bass parts–these really add “depth” to a hymn and make it sound “strong”.

I’ve heard it in Catholic parishes, but it doesn’t seem to happen in my town. I think that this can probably be blamed on the poor music education programs in our schools–many schools have replaced traditional music education (including learning how to read music) with “relevant” music; e.g., hip hop, rap, rock, and alternative music. That’s fine–but I can pretty much guarantee the that “stars” in all these music genres are not only to READ music, but also have some pretty advanced training in music theory!

Anyway, I just try to appreciate any music in Mass–and I know that once we are able to ALL go back to Mass together and sing, it will sound glorious to me after all these months of singing alone in my home.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
This is a good way to put it. I can understand being “Mr. Spock” when a song seems to have a real doctrinal problem, such as “Mary Did You Know”, but there are always people who take it too far.
Click to expand...
I like the doctrinal take on that song. It does not say what Mary knew, or what she did not know. So on one hand, she had been given a prophecy. On the other hand, she is not divine and had not claim to omniscience. We do not have any doctrine on such a specific subject as to what she knew, or did not know, so questions seem to the be the most doctrinally sound approach.

But even for those who care less about the doctrine and more about what is spiritually uplifting, this document has good advice. It refers to the danger of a “steady diet” of implications. It may be not so much that any song that refers to us as the body of Christ is the problem as much as when that is all that is heard, or nothing about the Most Holy Sacrament is never sung.

I would add one more lesson, not mentioned in this document, that the reverse situation can also be problematic. Music that feeds the intellect with out that which is uplifting to the spirit can be a steady diet for a Pharisee, or one of Job’s friends, where we learn a great deal about God, without know Him.
 
YES. PLEASE. I will be so, so, so happy if someday I’m not personally responsible for choosing nearly - what - a third of the words the congregation hears in any Mass?, when there are words already chosen by the Church.
 
When I’m feeling provocative (more and more as I get older 🙂) I call the Propers of the Mass the 4th reading. That produces interesting, and usually fruitful, discussions.
 
Peeps said:
But to condemn a hymn because it doesn’t make sense to you, or because some of the poetry seems heretical to you—no. This is the realm of poetry–some people love a poet or an artist, and others just “don’t get it.” Both viewpoints are legitimate.
Click to expand...
During the Arian crisis, the Arians were propagating their heresy through songs with nice tunes. St. Ephrem realized the danger they posed because they made Arianism attractive. So he took the music of the Arian songs and wrote orthodox words to them. To this day they are sung in the Syrian Eastern Catholic Churches.
 
That actually makes sense, because I believe that’s why it was written.
 
“All the ends of the earth” was sung routinely when I was younger, I don’t hear it anymore.
 
ReaderT said:
48.png
Julius_Caesar:
A sheep cannot be a shepherd.
Click to expand...
True, but even a sheep bleats when it sees a wolf approaching 😉
Click to expand...
And a sheep can tell another sheep, “The shepherd said that what you are doing is not right.”
 
Julius_Caesar said:
Sheep depend on the keen eye of the shepherd.
Click to expand...
Yes but they still make distress calls when predators approach. I’m going to mute this thread now. You clearly know what I’m saying: when someone is actively teaching heresy (as Arius), the laity is not to just sit on their hands helplessly and not rebuke him. Yes, the Bishops will also respond officially. Good day.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top