Posted on 05/23/2005 7:18:02 PM PDT by bboop
I’m doing research for a spec script about the 17 Carmelite martyrs of Compeign. The story is that these women – ages 27 – 78 – offered themselves as a holocaust to stop the Great Terror. This is the same story that was novelized by George Bernanos, and made famous in the opera Dialogues of the Carmelites.
(And I know some of you are out there thinking that this kind of project is just more unhealthy fodder for my macabre obsession to be the first one to authoritatively predict the next wave of Church persecution. Yeah, well, I’ll be the one smugly laughing when we’re all getting lined up and blind-folded. That’s right…)
Well, the story goes that as the first, and youngest, Carmelite ascended the scaffold, she intoned the Te Deum, and all the other nuns quickly joined in the chant.
O GOD, we praise Thee: we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord. Everlasting Father, all the earth doth worship Thee. To Thee all the Angels, the Heavens and all the Powers, all the Cherubim and Seraphim, unceasingly proclaim: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts! Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of Thy glory. The glorious choir of the Apostles, the wonderful company of Prophets, the white-robed army of Martyrs, praise Thee.
The nuns sang it in Latin, of course. And all the rabble standing around for the barbarous entertainment, halted in their jeering, and fell silent. They all knew the Te Deum, and that the nuns were singing a song of glory and triumph.
And so, I got thinking… What will be our song at the scaffold?
Rats.
Yet another reason to be sullen and irritated at the iconoclasm of the post-Conciliar weirdness is that we won’t even have a nice hymn to die together by.
Can’t you see the last ever liturgy committee meeting unfolding as we’re all lined up and bound? Somebody will shout to the rest of us, “Hey does everybody know Gather Us In?
Like the good-natured suffering sheep we are, we’ll probably all shrug, “Might as well give it a try.”
So, the martyrdom procession’s music minister will start singing,
Here in this place, of something and something, Now is the darkness gathered away. Here in this space our fear and our dreaming, Something and something the light of this day.
(She’ll pathetically try and raise her hand up so we can all join in)
”Gather us in, the lost and the somethings. Gather us in the blind and the lame. Call to us now and something will something, Ta-ta-ta-tum in the something ta – ay.”
“Hey! That sounds stupid,” complains one martyr to be. Like the weeds that never die, the music minister still has a few minutes left to be patronizing, “God judges the heart, not the voice.”
Meanwhile, the lambs getting readied for the slaughter are getting scared. Somebody tries again, “How about Be Not Afraid? We all know that don’t we?”
A bald-headed guy at the end of the line shakes his head. “We used the Gather hymnal at our Church.” The lady next to him nods, “We just added those. Now, we have the old Glory and Praises stacked in the pews because they both don’t fit in the hymnal racks.” The lady from the Diocese of Arlington sniffs, "We use the red Ritual hymnals."
The thirty-something lady closest to the scaffold looks back at her fellow oblates with pleading, “Can’t we sing something, PLEASE?”
So, then, a voice somewhere in the middle of the crowd starts a high-pitched wail,
"And I will RAY-HAY zhim up…."
And the others join in, screeching and straining,
"And I will RAY-HAY zhim up…."
An overweight, gray-haired lady in sensible shoes, and soon to be a martyr, makes a face, “I’m not going to die singing sexist language!”
And the other, weary martyrs nod, and then, continue with submission,
”And I will RAY-HAYZ YOU uh-up on the lah-hast day.”
And then, as we start to sing the refrain again, the persecutors will shoot us all down on the spot for our horrible music. And this will wreak havoc with our beatification processes, because it won’t be clear if we died for Jesus, or to spare our persecutors having to listen to our dreadful music.
Just watch.
If I have the grace:
Holy God, we praise Thy Name;
Lord of all, we bow before Thee!
All on earth Thy scepter claim,
All in Heaven above adore Thee;
Infinite Thy vast domain,
Everlasting is Thy reign.
Hark! the loud celestial hymn
Angel choirs above are raising,
Cherubim and seraphim,
In unceasing chorus praising;
Fill the heavens with sweet accord:
Holy, holy, holy, Lord.
Lo! the apostolic train
Join the sacred Name to hallow;
Prophets swell the loud refrain,
And the white robed martyrs follow;
And from morn to set of sun,
Through the Church the song goes on.
Holy Father, Holy Son,
Holy Spirit, Three we name Thee;
While in essence only One,
Undivided God we claim Thee;
And adoring bend the knee,
While we own the mystery.
Very funny.
funny.
ping
O God, we praise Thee, and acknowledge Thee to be the supreme Lord.
Everlasting Father, all the earth worships Thee.
All the Angels, the heavens and all angelic powers,
All the Cherubim and Seraphim, continuously cry to Thee:
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts!
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of Thy glory.
The glorious choir of the Apostles,
The wonderful company of Prophets,
The white-robed army of Martyrs, praise Thee.
Holy Church throughout the world acknowledges Thee:
The Father of infinite Majesty;
Thy adorable, true and only Son;
Also the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
O Christ, Thou art the King of glory!
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.
When Thou tookest it upon Thyself to deliver man,
Thou didst not disdain the Virgin's womb.
Having overcome the sting of death, Thou opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
Thou sitest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father.
We believe that Thou willst come to be our Judge.
We, therefore, beg Thee to help Thy servants whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy Precious Blood.
Let them be numbered with Thy Saints in everlasting glory.
V. Save Thy people, O Lord, and bless Thy inheritance!
R. Govern them, and raise them up forever.
V. Every day we thank Thee.
R. And we praise Thy Name forever, yes, forever and ever.
V. O Lord, deign to keep us from sin this day.
R. Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us.
V. Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, for we have hoped in Thee.
R. O Lord, in Thee I have hoped; let me never be put to shame.
Prayer Source: Thesaurus Precum Latinarum
Just posted it.
Sick minds think alike ... I had that going through my head from the first few lines of the article.
I would hope, though, that the Act of Contrition would come to mind before The Butterfly Song if I were about to be strung up.
Yes the tune is the same, the word have changes.
As long as we don't sing:
Marty Haugen's awful "song" for "liturgy":
"God of Day God of Darkness"
There are few songs that cause one to pray an act of reparation.
Barbara Nicolosi need not worry herself about the appropriate music for AmChurch martyrs to sing, because there will be no AmChurch martyrs.
AmChurch doesn't believe that it is the one true faith, or that anything else is, for that matter.
this is hilarious! Sadly, unlike the amchurch martyrs, I actually could remember the words to such "hymns" as Gather us In, Be Not Afraid, and Bread of Life. I heard these songs so many times in my parish church growing up, and heard little else, that they are seared in my mind. Thank God my current parish uses the "red hymn book" and only the good songs in it as well. In time, I hope to have most of those songs committed to memory.
All too true, and most greviously inconsistent with past instruction/direction from the Vicars of Christ.
No such thing as AmChurch I mean, there is the Universal Faith, the one we call Catholic.
I am pretty sure whatever popped out of my mouth (and there are a number of things that might), it wouldn't be something by Marty Haugen or John Foley.
Or Schutte!
/shudder
Yep. I would happily pull everything written by all three of them out of our hymnals...
One of my favorites.
As an aside, at every funeral I've been to lately, they've sung the odious "On Eagle's Wings."
I've told my husband that I will return to haunt anyone who sings that song at my funeral. I'll make Jacob Marley look like Casper the Friendly Ghost.
Regards,
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