Posted on 08/29/2006 1:08:37 PM PDT by NYer
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For classic Lutheran theology, hymns are a theological "source:" not up there with Scripture, of course, but ranking not-so-far below Luther's "Small Catechism." Hymns, in this tradition, are not liturgical filler. Hymns are distinct forms of confessing the Church's faith. Old school Lutherans take their hymns very seriously.
Most Catholics don't. Instead, we settle for hymns musically indistinguishable from "Les Mis" and hymns of saccharine textual sentimentality. Moreover, some hymn texts in today's Catholic "worship resources" are, to put it bluntly, heretical. Yet Catholics once knew how to write great hymns; and there are great hymns to be borrowed, with gratitude, from Anglican, Lutheran, and other Christian sources. There being a finite amount of material that can fit into a hymnal, however, the first thing to do is clean the stables of today's hymnals.
Thus, with tongue only half in cheek, I propose the Index Canticorum Prohibitorum, the "Index of Forbidden Hymns." Herewith, some examples.
The first hymns to go should be hymns that teach heresy. If hymns are more than liturgical filler, hymns that teach ideas contrary to Christian truth have no business in the liturgy. "Ashes" is the prime example here: "We rise again from ashes to create ourselves anew." No, we don't. Christ creates us anew. (Unless Augustine was wrong and Pelagius right). Then there's "For the Healing of the Nations," which, addressing God, deplores "Dogmas that obscure your plan." Say what? Dogma illuminates God's plan and liberates us in doing so. That, at least, is what the Catholic Church teaches. What's a text that flatly contradicts that teaching doing in hymnals published with official approval?
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The first hymns to go should be hymns that teach heresy. If hymns are more than liturgical filler, hymns that teach ideas contrary to Christian truth have no business in the liturgy. |
Next to go should be those "We are Jesus" hymns in which the congregation (for the first time in two millennia of Christian hymnology) pretends that it's Christ. "Love one another as I have loved you/Care for each other, I have cared for you/Bear each other's burdens, bind each other's wounds/and so you will know my return." Who's praying to whom here? And is the Lord's "return" to be confined to our doing of his will? St. John didn't think so. "Be Not Afraid" and "You Are Mine" fit this category, as does the ubiquitous "I Am the Bread of Life," to which I was recently subjected on, of all days, Corpus Christi — the one day in the Church year completely devoted to the fact that we are not a self-feeding community giving each other "the bread of life" but a Eucharistic people nourished by the Lord's free gift of himself. "I am the bread of life" inverts that entire imagery, indeed falsifies it.
Then there are hymns that have been flogged to death, to the point where they've lost any evocative power. For one hundred forty years, the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony sent shivers down audiences' spines; does anyone sense its power when it's morphed into the vastly over-used "Joyful, Joyful We Adore You," complete with "chanting bird and flowing fountain"? A fifty-year ban is in order here. As it is for "Gift of Finest Wheat." The late Omer Westendorf did a lot for liturgical renewal, but he was no poet (as his attempt to improve on Luther in his rewrite of "A Mighty Fortress" — "the guns and nuclear might/stand withered in his sight" — should have demonstrated). Why Mr. Westendorf was commissioned to write the official hymn for the 1976 International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia is one of the minor mysteries of recent years. "You satisfy the hungry heart with gift of finest wheat/Come give to us, O saving Lord, the bread of life to eat" isn't heresy. But it's awful poetry, and it can be read in ways that intensify today's confusions over the Real Presence. It, too, goes under the fifty-year ban.
Hymns are important. Catholics should start treating them seriously.
I propose the Index Canticorum Prohibitorum, the "Index of Forbidden Hymns."
"Ouuuhhhh. I like."
We all have our lists. "You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart."
The first hymns to go should be hymns that teach heresy.
You don't have that problem when you sing the Psalms.
BAGPIPES AMAZING GRACE ABOUT 0530 mornings of the weekend.Did quite well at top volume.
Ah, heaven! (Gramma was a McGregor. It's in me blood.)
Didn't the Seraphim have a set of six wings?
But are they strictly speaking angels (angelos, ie. messenger)?
Exactly so! "Amazing Grace is based on the heresy that by His Grace, Christ "covers" our sinful hearts and hides them from the eyes of the Father. Catholic teaching is that Christ's grace cleanses our hearts and sanctifies them from sin and its effects.
"A Mighty Fortress" is one of Luther's vile anti-Papist screeds.
No one's mentioned the hippyish "Let There Be Peace On Earth" yet. Compare to Matthew 10:34-36.
ping to #84
There's no hint of that in the text.
"A Mighty Fortress" is one of Luther's vile anti-Papist screeds.
Again, unless you're talking about German words with which I'm not familiar, there's nothing intrinsically anti-Catholic about the text.
For Sundays, I'll take "Holy God We Praise Thy Name" every week. Can't sing it enough.
For my funeral, I want the 1932 version of this. I haven't heard it since I was a boy with the priest in black vestments. Oh wow!
http://www.franciscan-archive.org/de_celano/opera/diesirae.html
I don't customarily refer to my wife as my "lover," I call her my wife.
The reason there's garbage like that is that in a Catholic church is that a fair amount of the garbage from OCP is written by homosexuals, like, e.g., Dan Schutte, who lives with his male lover -- there's that word again -- in San Francisco. The "hymns" are heretical because the people writing it often aren't faithful Catholics themselves!
Given the choice between homosexual propaganda in the guise of hymnody and something solidly Christian written by Martin Luther ... well, let's just say this Papist will say Hier stande ich, ich kann nicht anders!!
You can put "Anthem" at the top of that list...
...a Mormon theology lesson in song (if you ask me).
Seraphim, a Hebrew masculine plural form, designates a special class of heavenly attendants of Yahweh's court. In Holy Writ these angelic beings are distinctly mentioned only in Isaias's description of his call to the prophetical office (Isaiah 6:2 sqq.). In a vision of deep spiritual import, granted him in the Temple, Isaias beheld the invisible realities symbolized by the outward forms of Yahweh's dwelling place, of its altar, its ministers, etc. While he stood gazing before the priest's court, there arose before him an august vision of Yahweh sitting on the throne of His glory. On each side of the throne stood mysterious guardians, each supplied with six wings: two to bear them up, two veiling their faces, and two covering their feet, now naked, as became priestly service in the presence of the Almighty. His highest servants, they were there to minister to Him and proclaim His glory, each calling to the other: "Holy, holy, holy, Yahweh of hosts; all the earth is full of His glory."
I'd rather say, "You were ceated much more than a worm; fallen you are far worse, since you are the corruption of so noble a thing, and 'lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds'.(No that's not Scripture, I do confess it.) Redeemed, you are again higher, but you bear the marks of your degradation, as Christ bears His wounds. However in Him they are and in you they may become glorious."
But then, I'll say anything ...
We Catholics can defend through scripture our doctrine that works provide means of deepening and finding grace...and I can defend it using any mainstream non-Catholic Bible you choose.
Being stretched here and there as usual. Is there an option?
Didn't think so.
LUB,
THX,
Yes and no.
I understand his and your valid point.
But . . . God has taught me SOMEWHAT the perspective Isaiah had . . . HE IS HIGH AND LIFTED UP AND HIS TRAIN FILLED THE TEMPLE.
By comparison . . . worm is a reasonable perspective.
LOL.
The workshop participants certainly had trouble staying asleep with it.
NO.
THE BLOOD CLEANSES TO THE UTTERMOST. We are not in doubt or confused about that if we are reared in any healthy Evangelical church at all.
Good explanation. Thanks.
Welcome home!
Did you watch EWTN's The Journey Home, last night? Grodi's guest was a former Baptist minister. What an amazing journey!
Do you believe that a man/woman can be holy? God demands it of us. "You shall be holy, because I am holy."
I just heard that a lot of the Churches are taking all references to "blood" out of the hymnals so as not to offend anyone.
Who could be offended by that? Did Christ not spill His blood for mankind? Are we to pretend that He suffered an unbloody crucifixion? Someone shake up these decision makers; better yet, fire them.
That just disgusts me.
The blood? Or removing it from the songs?
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