Posted on 06/28/2015 11:47:57 AM PDT by Jim Noble
Our semi-Liberal Catholic parish recently changed hymnals. Today was the first Sunday since the change that A Mighty Fortress is Our God was on the hymn list.
Now, I come from 500 years of German Lutherans. I know the words to Ein Feste Burg, and I know the English version by heart (a bulwark never failing, Lord Sabaoth His name, etc, etc).
So, anyway, the words in the new hymnal are different. My first thought, of course, was "Damn Liberal Catholics, can't leave any of our good old hymns alone", BUT, when I looked down, I saw the copyright was Book of Lutheran Worship 1978.
Did you all change the words when I wasn't looking? Did it take the Catholics this long to catch up?
I kind of like the old words.
Especially when they won't sing!
A deacon in our parish in Oklahoma (St. Benedict’s of Broken Arrow) died in ... 2001 or so, I don’t remember exactly. At the viewing, a local convert who had been a Methodist minister, and before that a Gospel singer, and his wife sang “How Beautiful,” a very popular Christian Contemporary song. Our deacon, who owned a Catholic bookstore, had been instrumental in their conversion.
When they finished, he said, “If Lee could say anything to me right now, he would say, ‘Dammit, Larry, why couldn’t you sing something Catholic!’ “
When I was a kid, we rarely had choirs in Catholic churches. Sometimes you had the Latin Mass in which the priest sang parts of the Mass but that was it. But once the 70s hit, out came the geetars and the Protestant music and out went a lot of folk. The aesthetics of the early Church - still used in Italy and France - are beautiful.
“Especially when they won’t sing!”
In the old days, good old days that is, we didn’t sing, we chanted!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w000N-Seu5k
Those were the good old days too.
Especially when they won't sing!
When I was yet a (weekly attending) RC, the head priest (and vicar) used to exhort us, "sing like Protestants." Only the charismatics at that time came close to evangelicals.
And if RCs follow V2 as they are supposed to, then they must acknowledged properly baptized Prots as separated brethren among whom the Spirit of God works, though we find very few brethren among Caths.
Will they be as atheists and claim the thousands upon thousands of hymns (over 8,000 hymns and gospel songs by Fanny Crosby alone) by Prot and evangelical writers were works of delusion, or at least not allow many are in the top ranks that glorify God and edify men?
Their loss.
One of my favorites:
O worship the King, all glorious above,
O gratefully sing His power and His love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.
O tell of His might, O sing of His grace,
Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space,
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
And dark is His path on the wings of the storm.
The earth with its store of wonders untold,
Almighty, Thy power hath founded of old;
Established it fast by a changeless decree,
And round it hath cast, like a mantle, the sea.
Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;
It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail;
Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end,
Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.
O measureless might! Ineffable love!
While angels delight to worship Thee above,
The humbler creation, though feeble their lays,
With true adoration shall all sing Thy praise.
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/o/w/owtking.htm
Words:Robert Grant, in Christian Psalmody, by Edward H. Bickersteth, 1833, alt. This version is a reworking of lyrics by William Kethe in the Genevan Psalter of 1561.
Music: Lyons, attributed to Johann M. Haydn (1737-1806); arranged by William Gardiner, Sacred Melodies (London: 1815)
We can sing Catholic ones that glorify God also. Most modern music is another story.
Closing hymn today. Excellent hymn.
Haha, the Catholic Church hasn’t been relevant in religious music since the Counter Reformation! And after Vaticant II the music is just plain laughable. Of course, everyone is “happy-clappy” now so it’s hard to tell the difference.
Why does it have to be one or the other? They did both.
>>Catholics faithfully compiled, preserved, translated, and printed the Bible.<<
You're not fooling anyone who compares the original Hebrew and Greek to the Catholic bible. Already in Genesis 3:15 the Catholic Church changed the words from He to she and from Him to her. They certainly did NOT faithfully translate.
No, they changed the words as illustrated in the Genesis 3:15 example and they did so throughout scripture.
What are you talking about? We sing Protestant hymns all the time. In fact, my parish sang the one you mention very recently.
Something Protestant FReepers may not appreciate is that there is no “Catholic hymnal”, there are a dozen or more in US alone, because they are all printed by private groups or companies. They range all the way from some fairly slavish copies of parts of old Protestant hymnals (e.g., the 1940 Episcopal hymnal) with Catholic bits added (the “Vatican II hymnal”) to awful collections of 1960’s fluff (most anything from Oregon Catholic Press).
Is that why OCP loves Marty Haugen?
Catholic vernacular Bibles printed since the 1940s are prepared with comparison to the original texts. The Bible most English-speaking Catholic scripture scholars recommend today is the RSV-CE, which is (originally) based on the King James Version, not the Vulgate.
Already in Genesis 3:15 the Catholic Church changed the words
Jerome did that in the Vulgate; that's where it came from. And the actual Hebrew pronoun is ambiguous as to gender.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; they shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise their heel.'
Biblegateway.com has the RSVCE now (way cool!) and you might take a look at the footnote on Gen 3:15. The direct link is here.
How stupid is that statement?
The Hebrew word for He = ה֚וּא
The Hebrew word for she= הִ֛וא
Genesis 3:12 uses הִ֛וא (she), Genesis 3:15 does not but uses ה֚וּא (He).
See what I was responding to, the seeming indignation at doing just that.
Your link actually proves the inaccuracy of RC’s Latin translation. It also talks about mistakes, so you didn’t help your case by any means. From Hebrew to English CynicalBear is spot on.
” The Latin Vulgate has the reading ipsa conteret, “she shall bruise.” Some Old Latin manuscripts have this reading and it occurs also in St. Augustine, De Genesi contra Manichaeos, II, which is earlier than St. Jerome’s translation. It could be due originally to a copyist’s mistake, which was then seen to contain a genuine meaning—namely, that Mary, too, would have her share in the victory, inasmuch as she was mother of the Savior.”
http://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/3-15.htm
Translating languages is always problematic, but RC’s go from Hebrew to Latin to English meaning word and meaning possibly being lost two times. Instead try one translation and go from Hebrew to English less chance for loss of meaning.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.