Chewing on tinfoil is just it, Joel. I love the image of "born to raise the sons of Earth" and the thought of "raising each child" sounds too much like the tired old "each one, teach one" or "It takes a village..." (I always interpreted "Raise the sons of Earth" as including an allusion to Adam, and of course the "raise" is not "raise" in the sense of "bring up a child" but in the senses of "elevate" and "raise from the dead")
As for the tradition stuff - yes. There are so many great old hymns that I love. One thing that troubles me is that a lot of the mainline churches are going to "contemporary" vs. "traditional" services - so the "contemporary" service is all praise songs, all the time. And don't get me wrong - some of the praise songs are really good and will probably become part of the canonical music over the years. But some of them are *terrible,* because the winnowing process that happened with the 400 year old stuff has not happened with them yet.
But my biggest problem is that there is NO use of the traditional hymns, at least in the "contemporary" services I have been to - it's like they're gone down the Memory Hole. And as one of my mom's friends worries - the kids of the "contemporary service" generation (mostly MY generation, I have to say) are not learning those hymns. Not "A Mighty Fortress is our God." Not "For the beauty of the earth" (which is one of my favorite hymns EVER and if it's not too inappropriate-seeming, one that I want played at my funeral (hopefully some 60+ years in the future still). Not even "Amazing Grace," in some cases.
(We don't have a contemporary service at my church - sadly, the congregation is barely big enough to support a single, traditional service. We do sing a few of the more sedate "praise songs" once in a while, though. And the few other people around my age that belong to the congregation have never complained about the traditional hymns; in fact, a number of them have remarked that they appreciate that we are honoring the musical heritage of the church)
It seems to me, musically speaking, that they're being cut off at the knees. I love those old hymns - I love them both because so many of them are so beautiful (words, music, and the images they evoke) but also because those are the hymns my grandma sang, when I was a tiny child visiting her. And the hymns my mom would sing as she was going about her chores around the house. They are familiar and they speak to me not just of sitting in the big dim church between my parents, but of sitting under the dining room table* playing with my Fisher-Price people, while my mom cleaned house or sewed.
(*I used to like to play under the dining room table - my mom let me, she'd pull out the chairs a little to make more room. It was kind of like a little cave and there was enough space to set up a couple of my Fisher Price sets or to set up with my little plastic zoo animals. I guess she liked to let me play there because then she knew right where I was, and she tended to figure that it was better that her kids be happy and occupied, if in a slightly idiosyncratic place, than to have them bored and underfoot)
Anyway. I worry a bit when tradition gets wholly thrown over in favor of the "new;" I think some of the cultural issues we are facing today is the fact that so often the generations don't have common touchstones or even really a common vocabulary.
I guess at least some of you agree with me...
Monday, January 12, 2009
wow, so many kindred spirits
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I agree absolutely. You know one of the frustrating things about "contemporary" (read: bland and tuneless) songs? I sing bass - not very well, but enthusiastically when I can. With something like "A Mighty Fortress," I can let loose. But try belting out one of those tuneless wonders and see how far you get.
Funny you should mention "Amazing Grace," because that is one of the "frowned upon" hymns by our pastor. He takes issue with the use of the word "wretch." But if people request it for Mass, and he's not the one saying the Mass, my dad will play it.
But for the most part, the older ones are the ones with the better theology. Joel mentioned the OCP, which is usually where my dad and other church musicians in the area get suggestions for each week, but sometimes there are some really wacky suggestions. I've flat-out refused to sing particular hymns or verses of hymns because they're just bad, either in theology or tune, or both.
My dad likes to play instrumental versions of "old school" hymns during parts of the Mass where we don't sing, like after Communion. I think he's trying to score points with the pastor a little bit, but also I think it's just more like what he learned when he first started playing the organ as a teenager in the late '50s/early '60s.
He takes issue with the word 'wretch'??? What other word describes us?
I'm blessed to be part of a moderately large Presbyterian church that has a great music program. We sing lots of hymns and have a great choir (ok, ok I'm getting a little carried away because I am currently choir President). We do a very traditional service but also do more modern pieces; for me it enhances the worship experience immeasurably.
Count me among the (bleated) kindred spirits. Our church's music is quite often teh suq. I love my parish and think that we actually have a good music director - he knows his stuff, is generally pleasant, plays well. I even admit to liking the "folk" choir when they pop up in the Mass schedule. The trouble is that they are singing tepid 70's drivel. Schutte, Haugen, the usual suspects...
And that's my biggest problem with it. The music is all about the congregation, and not at all about God. The point of any church service is WORSHIP, but the music takes you entirely out of it. ""A Mighty Fortress" is clearly about God Almighty; singing utter bilge lyrics such as "we are question, we are creed" is NOT. In fact, it's clearly nonsense. It's like they're turning Mass into a Dr. Phil taping or something.
It's dreadful stuff. Add in the schmaltzfest that ensues with the Sign of Peace, the gender-neutralized language*, and the CLAPPING for the choir after Mass (like we were at a Donovan concert or something), and the Church of Nice is trying to replace the Church Militant. If the focus is all on the people, then of course you want to be nice to each other, right?
(*Yeah, the language. It's a BIG NO-NO in the Catholic Church to screw around with the Eucharistic Prayers. The priest says, "Pray that our sacrifice will be acceptable to Almighty God" and the people should reply, "May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and the glory of His name, for our good, and for the good of all His Church." But you guessed it, the first "His" becomes "God's" and the second "His" becomes "the." And there are other examples scattered throughout the service.)
I long to see the focus return to our God at Church, so that we can dispense with the squishy marshmallow stuff and get back to worship - and to the hard truths that we sometimes need to hear. There's almost too much divine comfort; we're forgetting why we NEED comfort in the first place. "Jesus Saves" makes no sense if you don't know what He's saving you from.
Sorry to rant in your combox but this drives me crazy - I hate not only being in the minority about this stuff, but also being regarded as a sexist, reactionary coot about it.
Heheheheh. That "bleated" should read "belated."
The priest says, "Pray that our sacrifice will be acceptable to Almighty God" and the people should reply, "May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and the glory of His name, for our good, and for the good of all His Church." But you guessed it, the first "His" becomes "God's" and the second "His" becomes "the." And there are other examples scattered throughout the service.
Criminy! That sounds like something the bishop needs to address. Not that some bishops are likely to do anything about it. Ours is no rad-trad himself, but I think he'd put a stop to changing around the Eucharistic prayers like that.
He takes issue with the word 'wretch'??? What other word describes us?
It's just a guess, but the priest might have a theologically valid reason, in that "wretch" implies Calvinistic total depravity, which Catholics don't believe in. Then again, he may just be trying to keep the Mass as limp as possible.
'Fly, 'bleated' is perfect :)
We live between several Catholic parishes, and go to all of them depending on our schedule and mood. The most traditional looking parish almost exclusively uses "praise" music, and after a while it really gets on my nerves. The parish we belong to, on the other hand, has the most balance between praise music, contemporary music (e.g. OCP), and on occasion "good ol' Catholic drinking songs" that sound good even when people sing them badly. That parish also tends to be the most inclusive, even though they've done a minimum of making it gender-neutral. A large part of the reason is that we don't use missalettes or have the words printed out or flashed on a screen; the people know the words by heart and say the prayers as they learned them. Furthermore, the kids are saying the prayers as they learned them from their parents. The sense I get is that the priests and the liturgy committee have respect for the people and their faith, and have decided not to mess with a good thing.
Joel--it's your first guess. Our pastor is really a solid, orthodox priest. You get a good Mass when he's there.
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