We Gather Together?

[Loren_1of6]

I grew up with “We Gather Together” in our hymn book and we sang it often enough for me to learn the words. I liked the song. Then, a few years ago, I was teaching our kids about Thanksgiving and the hymn was part of the curriculum. Imagine my surprise when the words were all different from the ones I remembered.

This year, we sang the hymn at Thanksgiving Day Mass. The words in the hymnal at our current parish are just like the ones in our school book. I like the ones I remember from my childhood better: they were much more Catholic.

So which way do you sing it at your parish, and who changed the words, us or the Protestants?

The way I first learned it:
We gather together to sing the Lord’s praises
To worship the Father through Jesus, His Son.
In this celebration
All sing with jubilation.
We are His holy people whose freedom He won.

We greet our Lord present within this assembly
To hear His good news announced clearly to all.
Our priest is presiding
In Christ we are abiding
As we invoke God’s blessing and answer His call.

The other version:
We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing.
He chastens and hastens His will to make known;
The wicked oppressing
Now cease from distressing;
Sing praises to His name; He forgets not His own.

Beside us to guide us our God with us joining
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom Divine.
So from the beginning
The fight we were winning
Thou, Lord, was at our side all glory be Thine!

 

[Cavaille-Coll]

I have only seen the first version printed in the J.S. Paluch hymnals (We Celebrate), and probably represents their attempts to Catholicize the song. The “wicked oppressing” version is the original translation and is found in OCP and other hymnals.

This hymn was written in the late 1500’s by the notoriously anti-Catholic Dutch poet Adrianus Valerius, and the “wicked oppressing” is generally held to refer to the Catholic Church. This song has no place in a Catholic hymnal.

 

[Lepanto]

I never understood the purpose of this song. Are we worshiping God or are we worshiping ourselves?

Even the wording doesn’t make sense. “We Gather Together” as opposed to what, “We Gather Apart”?

 

[Aramis]

I never understood the purpose of this song. Are we worshiping God or are we worshiping ourselves?

Even the wording doesn’t make sense. “We Gather Together” as opposed to what, “We Gather Apart”?

It makes perfect sense. We gather. Where? together.

Gather as a verb, and together as locative adverb.

 

[Phemie]

It makes perfect sense. We gather. Where? together.

Gather as a verb, and together as locative adverb.

It wouldn’t be ‘where’ but ‘how’ since “together” is not a place. Putting ‘together’ there makes it fit the tune but is totally unnecessary since gathered means being together.

For the record, we don’t sing this. I don’t recall ever having heard or sung it in a Catholic parish but IIRC we sang it a few years ago at the World Day of Prayer service at the local Anglican parish.

 

[mystified]

I learned the “Protestant version” in public school. 'Course that was back when the mention of God and the Christian ethic before the P.C. crowd infested virtually all tax-supported institutions.
We also learned Silent Night (written by an Austrian priest), and Away in a Manger (attributed to Martin Luther).

 

[Aramis]

It wouldn’t be ‘where’ but ‘how’ since “together” is not a place. Putting ‘together’ there makes it fit the tune but is totally unnecessary since gathered means being together.

For the record, we don’t sing this. I don’t recall ever having heard or sung it in a Catholic parish but IIRC we sang it a few years ago at the World Day of Prayer service at the local Anglican parish.

I heard it in Roman Parishes all my life. Even when traveling.

 

[Marysann]

I don’t think that these two hymns are Catholic and Protestant versions of the same hymn, but two different hymns. In traditional hymnals hymns are indexed by their poetic meter. Thus any set of words written in a particular meter can be sung to any hymn tune with that meter. The hymn tune that you are talking about is called “Kremser,” and has the meter designated 12.11.12.11. Besides the two hymns you mentioned, another set of words which can be sung to that tune is “We Praise Thee, O God, our Redeemer, Creator.” Another good example of this is the commonly used hymn tune “Old Hundred,” which we associate with “Praise God from whom All Blessings Flow.” The meter of this tune is designated as L.M. or Long Meter. There are many hymns which use this meter, and the different hymn poems and L.M. tunes could be interchanged. For example you can sing the words of 'Praise God from whom All Blessings Flow" to the L.M. tune “Duke Street” to which we usually sing “I Know that my Redeemer Lives” and vise versa. You can have a lot of fun with this. You can find a metrical index of hymns in back of any traditional hymnal. I wouldn’t get too hung up on what is a “Protestant” and what is a “Catholic” hymn. When no less an authority on Catholic Church music Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, brother of our Holy Father and professional Church musician, was asked about using “Protestant” music in the Church, he replied “Which note is Protestant?” If the words are not heretical, but reflect Catholic beliefs and teachings, and the tune meets the artistic standard worthy of the Church, I wouldn’t hesitate to use a hymn from a Protestant source. Many songs I see in missalettes don’t meet that standard.