Posted on 06/23/2005 1:37:42 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
What liturgical song has really made a difference for you? It might be a song that has helped to form or strengthen your faith; has played a significant part in the life of your parish or community; is associated with a noteworthy event; or is simply your favorite liturgical song.
We are inviting NPM members and other American Catholics to tell us your selection for a liturgical song that makes a difference. We would like to know the texts and tunes that have done the most to help American Catholics to discover, explore, nourish, and deepen their faith. We will continue to collect choices through September 30, 2005 and then publish a list of the most popular and important songs, according to the survey, later in the fall as well as some of the stories that we receive.
My choice for a liturgical song that makes a difference (One entry per person please!)
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(Excerpt) Read more at npm.org ...
Post your answers here, if you want. Fun, OK: but thiscould actually be valuable, who knows?
Seriously, the hymn that changed MY life was VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS.
I'm not famailiar with that one. Do you have more info on this?
Faith of Our Fathers
Holy God, We Praise Thy Name
Immaculate Mary
I'm a Catholic but I really like the old-time gospel music. Too bad we don't sing any of them during mass.
On my First Communion Day
Bring Flowers of the Rarest...
Holy God We Praise Thy Name
Mother at Your Feet is Kneeling
Tantum Er
Oh Sacrament Most Holy
Just tooooooooooooo many to list.
Examples.
Have just told off NPM. I don't expect a reply, unless it's a curt and snarky one.
We are called, we are chosen./ We are Christ for one another./ We are promise to tomorrow,/ while we are for him today./ We are sign, we are wonder,/ we are sower, we are seed./ We are harvest, we are hunger./ We are question, we are creed.
Count them: 13 separate uses of "I" or "we" in these lines. Nor do the verses help: they do not sing to Christ, but only about Him and to ... us! (If we are creed, I must say --- looking in the mirror --- we are in serious trouble.) The dialogue with the Almighty has been shut down, and we sing to one another about one another and only secondarily about Him, the object of all our affections.
Songs such as these give us a wonderfully ridiculous image of a bride so enamoured with herself that she cannot see the Bridegroom awaiting her at the altar.
Precious Memories
It Is No Secret
I'll Fly Away
The Old Rugged Cross
Just a few off the top of my head.
I've never heard the hymn in my Church. Thank the Lord.
Good thing I've never encountered it.
Of course, I've heard tales from Episcopals that Imagine has actually been sung in church.
Heh.
I gave them the Dies Irae from the Mass for the Dead, Liber Usualis/1935.
Heh.
I much prefer Salve Regina to Ave Maria. So simple. So beautiful.
However, the hymn that really had an impact on me was Faith of Our Fathers. It was always a kind of a family hymn for us. We always sang it at family Masses, etc. Then the feminazis got a hold of our daughter. She hated the song and took every opportunity to malign it. She left the Church for years.
After many years she quietly returned without any fanfare or announcement to us. At her wedding, the entrance hymn she and my son in law selected was Faith of Our Fathers. I literally wept with joy. I was practically sobbing in the Church. My wife couldn't tell if I was laughing or crying. Honestly, I'm not sure what I was doing either. It was extremely emotional for me.
"A Mighty Fortress is our God"
I know, I know. Luther wrote it.
I can't help it.
Sanctus from Mass IX
I think that's the last two verses of Pange Lingua Gloriosi.
Tough to go wrong with hymns written by Thomas Aquinas.
Adoro Te Devote is another.
We could sing O Sacrament Most Holy every week, IMO. But we hardly ever sing it.
Panis Angelicus is another good one.
LOL! Sounds tailor-made for those wymen's "ordinations" in several threads lately!
I still love "On This Day," maybe because it was the first "real" song I ever learned all the words to, at my mother's knee. Other favorites are "Be Thou My Vision" and "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence."
And I fell in love with chant at age 12, when in our little parish the 7th and 8th grades were the choir, and we sang the Holy Week services. My devotion has never faltered.
My current favorite (though I don't know if it qualifies as a hymn) is a beautiful musical setting of Psalm 23 -- 22 to you Catholics ;-) -- in Hebrew. I find myself humming it all the time; I just wish I could figure out a way to have it at my funeral.
I was not aware that we give birth to God. That certainly made a 'difference' for me. I almost screamed out 'What the **** is this!' in the middle of Mass.
Not a good 'difference' but a 'difference' none the less.
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