Worst Hymn/Song Lyric Heard at Mass

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puzzleannie:
All Are Welcome is also a contender. It would be especially appropriate on an occassion when rainbow-sashers or pro-abort politicians are planning to publicly attempt to receive communion from a pastor determined to enforce Church teaching on the Eucharist.
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I will remember to use this if we are ever beset by the sash-wearing protesters. I may add any extra line, though.

*All are welcome in this plaaaaaace. *
Just don’t try to receive communion AHHHH- MEN

They great thing about being up front during Mass is I can always serve as bouncer should Father ever have the need. Try doing that from a choir loft.
 
The problem with "Amazing Grace " is the music. It is not liturgical. It is very kitschy music. The type of music is the key. For example, “Be Not Afraid” has non-liturgical music. The lyrics may be scriptural, but if combined with bad music, then it completely fails.

My son suggested as a joke one day that a Star Wars mass music would be funny. At the processional, the Star Wars theme could be played and all the altar boys could carry light sabers. During the offertory, the music from the bar scene. It has undoubtably been used somewhere.
 
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Wolseley:
And during the prayers of petition, there was one that went something along the lines of, “Help us to be Eucharist for those around us who are hopeless and oppressed”.
I just rolled my eyes. Help us to “be Eucharist”???
The Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man. Even suggesting that we can “be Eucharist” is to place ourselves on the same level as God.
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That’s funny, one of my friends was just complaining about the exact same thing the other day!
Sooo hard to decide which song I hate the most. I can’t pick just one but I can narrow it down to a few. I don’t know the titles for some of them so I’m just gonna type part of the lyrics.
“Gather Us In”
“Sing a new Church”
“Sing to the mountains, sing to the sea . . .”
“All are welcome, all are welcome, in this place . . .”
Pity because I actually like the melody of “Sing a new church”, reminds me of that hymn “Come thou fount of every blessing.”
The lyrics though are rubbish–what’s wrong with the old church??
 
Anima Christi:
Pity because I actually like the melody of “Sing a new church”, reminds me of that hymn “Come thou fount of every blessing.”
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The only hymn with the word “Ebenezzer?”

It is the same tune.
 
I guess we’ll just have to disagree. Jesus was a humble working man who would have understood the heart of a man humbled by his sin, whose whole life was turned toward Christ. As has been mentioned, this hymn has been approved by the Church–doesn’t mean it has to be used in every Mass or in any Mass, but it is acceptable. (And by the way, I’m a very orthodox Catholic, faithful to the Magisterium.) I personally find “Amazing Grace” incredibly moving and beautiful musically, in light of its humble origins, and I have a musical background. Musical tastes can differ, but that Star Wars reference was uncalled for.
 
Lord of the Dance, Kumbaya, etc., are pretty bad - in a stupid, silly sense.

Nothing can hold a candle to the genuine heresy and anti-God songs we were stuck with in the 1970s:

Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence
And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning, In the words that it was forming.
And the signs said, The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls. And whisper’d in the sounds of silence.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ Superstar
Do you think you’re what they say you are?
Jesus Christ Superstar
Do you think you’re what they say you are?

All I can say now is “What was the priest thinking???”
 
I would have to say Sing to the Mountans". I never got that song, just sing to God.
 
I’m in England for the month at the moment and the local parish church is very friendly, but pretty terrible musically. However, music-wise, we had a wonderful Mass last week when the organist was away.

Knowing we’d be singing a capella, and with a pretty crummy choir supporting us, only well-known “old-fashioned” (but vernacular) hymns were chosen: wonderful hymns like The Church’s One Foundation and He Who Would Valiant Be. I’ve only rarely seen such strong congregational participation in the music in a Catholic church!

Hopefully, the message will get passed on to the organist and this will become more regular…
 
😦 I have to agree with the numerous contributors about All Are Welcome and Gather Us In . To me they reflect the self-absorbed, liturgically correct, spiritually impoverished tendency to focus exclusively on the Eucharist as a meal that’s all about us and to ignore completely the Eucharist as the sacrifice of Christ for us. In the end, this tendency indicates that we do not know Christ or our relationship to him. If we did, we’d be singing Crown Him with Many Crowns and Alleluia, Sing to Jesus.
 
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Luvadoxi:
Musical tastes can differ, but that Star Wars reference was uncalled for.
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It was certainly no worse than a clown Mass.

Or a polka Mass, or a puppet Mass, or sixteen-year old pixies in low-cut leotards prancing down the aisles.
 
Give us the courage to enter the song…

Sounds like it’s veering awfully close to psycho-babble.
There seems to be quite a few lately that contain psychobabble, terminal silliness, or a kind of pompous “we are creating ourselves” kind of self-praise. It’s hard to get enthusiastic about songs like these, especially when you consider how embarrassed you might be a few years later when you come to your senses and realize how silly the lyrics are…
 
“‘Sing a New Church’. I just can’t even bring myself to sing along.”

Same here. Same here.

In Christ,

Adam
 
Nan S:
Lord of the Dance, Kumbaya, etc., are pretty bad - in a stupid, silly sense.

Nothing can hold a candle to the genuine heresy and anti-God songs we were stuck with in the 1970s:

Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence
And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning, In the words that it was forming.
And the signs said, The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls. And whisper’d in the sounds of silence.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ Superstar
Do you think you’re what they say you are?
Jesus Christ Superstar
Do you think you’re what they say you are?

All I can say now is “What was the priest thinking???”
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You guys sangs those at Mass in the 70s? I thought we were tortured when my sister used to be in the folk group for what we termed even then as “hippie Mass” and had to sing Sons of God and Kumbaya. I can remember a horrible version of George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord, in which the hindi praises to krishna were replaced with “Jesus, Jesus”.

That verse in Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence refers to people being so blind as to worship whatever flashes at them (neon sign). :hmmm:

As for Andrew Lloyd Webber- well, he’s just about alleged entertainment.
 
There were no lyrics (whew, thankfully!), but the worst song I ever heard played at Mass was an instrumental version of “House of the Rising Sun” (not in my current church, by the way).

Crazy Internet Junkies Society
Carrier of the Angelic Sparkles Sprinkle Bag
 
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OutinChgoburbs:
You guys sangs those at Mass in the 70s? I thought we were tortured when my sister used to be in the folk group for what we termed even then as “hippie Mass” and had to sing Sons of God and Kumbaya. I can remember a horrible version of George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord, in which the hindi praises to krishna were replaced with “Jesus, Jesus”.

That verse in Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence refers to people being so blind as to worship whatever flashes at them (neon sign). :hmmm:

As for Andrew Lloyd Webber- well, he’s just about alleged entertainment.
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Sound of Silence is simply wailing despair and depression. I re-read the complete lyrics last night, and found absolutely nothing uplifting or encouraging in them. Next to that one, even Gather Us In is full of hope and spiritual renewal.

Andrew Lloyd Weber can write catchy songs but he is a lousy theologian. JC Superstar (for anyone who has never seen it) is Jesus’ story told from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, who even in the end still did not figure it out (according to ALW). I will never understand why we were led to sing the blasphemous verses which were allegedly proclaimed by Judas as he watched Jesus being crucified.
 
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OutinChgoburbs:
You guys sangs those at Mass in the 70s? I thought we were tortured when my sister used to be in the folk group for what we termed even then as “hippie Mass” and had to sing Sons of God and Kumbaya. …
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aaaagh! I had forgotten about Sons of God! Now the memory is back. I can’t believe I remeber the words after all these years…now i have it in my head. ugh. I’ll share the pain… 😃
Sons of God
Hear His holy word
Gather round the table of the Lord
Eat His body, Drink his blood
And we’ll sing a song of love
Allelu, Allelu, Allelu, Alleluia!
 
Sounds of Silence? Bridge over Troubled Waters? Offertory and Communion hymns (respectively) at my HS Graduation in 1969. Entrance hymn - “Sons of God”. Recessional -“And They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love.” St. Aloysius High School, New Orleans, May 1969.

No one asked us whether or not we wanted this. We were not given an option. It was assumed that we would all want to “move into the modern era”. Wrong. Dead wrong.

An old friend and classmate called me last year regarding our 35th HS reunion. He sings in his parish’s “contemporary choir”. Although I am not singing now, I have sung in my cathedral parish choir for over 18 yrs. I only wish that my class had been given the opportunity to carry on the Traditions of HMC those 35+ yrs. ago… It was a fait accompli.
 
Ahhhhhhhhh!!! I’d almost managed to forget about this but at our welcome mass my freshman year in highschool we had “Come Sail Away” by Styx (we were the Mariners" and at our graduation mass we had the theme song to “St. Elmo’s Fire”. :eek:
 
I guess everyone’s musical tastes are different. Some of the songs mentioned are ones I enjoy hearing and singing.

The song that grates on my nerves is “Wherever you go I shall go”. Although a lovely song in the right circumstances – at a wedding or maybe ordination – one of the cantors at my church sings it at every single Mass he cantors for the past 15-20 years. I think he did it at a wedding once and has used it ever since. Thankfully, he’s not at my regular Mass time, but sometimes he fills in for someone else. Whenever I see him at the organ I cringe because I know what’s coming. And of course he does the speaking part every time, the part that goes “I want to thank each of you for being a part of the fabric of my life” or some such drivel.

God bless the singers
 
Detroit Sue said:
“It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back.” Very inspiring, indeed!

That is the one song I absolutely refuse to sing.
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I especially dislike the verse about Good Friday…seems inappropriate…Worse, the tune is “catchy” enough that I find it in my head hours later…
 
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