love that graphic! it looks like the angel is saying "Shush!"
Victor Lams posts about infiltrating the liturgical complex by writing outlandishly heretical hymns that will be snapped up by music publishers and then slowly trying to introduce real music. He has some very funny possible hymn titles of which I have put the words to one of them:
I Am The Resurrection Muffin
For the poor, the sad the downtrodden
Look to me the Resurrection Muffin
No half-baked theology for you or me
I am fully cooked plainly you can see
Chorus:
Repent deeply of all your sins
Look deeply upon the Resurrection Muffin
Your salvation now has truly began
available in Banana Nut or Healthy Oat Bran
Diversity in liturgy is no problem for me
Yummy Chocolate Chip and also Blueberry
I am the true paschal pastry
Eat of me and you will be set free
Chorus:
All the best liturgists fully approve of me
Chocked full of nuts like their liturgies
Pop me right out of that muffin tin
Enjoy the life of the muffin within
Chorus:
And here is another offering sung to Here I am Lord, and if you don't know the music that goes along with it - then count your blessings.
Here I am, Bored
Masses with guitar licks.
Heretical insipid fare.
Let me listen to you.
Fill me with despair.
Here I am, bored.
Here I am.
Music that is a disservice, here I am.
Here I am, bored.
Here I am.
Music that is a disservice, here I am.
This song is everlasting.
Pop music of I tire.
A total tonal bleakness.
Couldn't you all just retire?
Here I am, bored.
Here I am.
Music that is a disservice, here I am.
Here I am, bored.
Here I am.
Music that is a disservice, here I am.
Lyrics that are just plain dumb.
Hear my cry for help.
Hear me using these three words,
Gregorian Chant Now!
Here I am, bored.
Here I am.
Music that is a disservice, here I am.
Here I am, bored.
Here I am.
Music that is a disservice, here I am.
Get rid of "Kumbaya" forever!
This is most certainly true.
I just keep my mouth shut during those "We are Jesus" songs. I know my husband is tired of me elbowing him every time our choir sings a song I don't like. :o)
I once held the opinion that for a congregation to sing in the divine "I" wasn't kosher, until I stumbled upon hymns in the Byzantine tradition that used that device. Then I began not to care that much about that "defect."
I love "I am the Bread of Life." To sing it is to sing Scripture. Just as a reader doesn't become Christ when s/he proclaims Scripture in the divine "first person," a cantor or a congregation is not at fault when they do the same. If the hymn proclaims Scripture in a sense that agrees with Tradition, I no longer care if it is in "the first person."
The rest of the article is right on the mark.
Good article.
One of the reasons that "Amazing Grace" will not be sung at anything Catholic that I have anything to do with.
Read the words -- they support that we are saved by grace ALONE. Not ture with Catholic teaching.
"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."
Why only 50 years? I might still be alive.
"The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste"
Emphasis obviously mine. I think that for a lot of youngin's growing up at the time, this triumph occurred because none were any the wiser.
We was young.
We was ignorant and stupid.
Where the h&ll were the elders to straighten us out about the issue of what was in good/bad/poor/indifferent, and most of all, sacred taste?
While I agree in general, even in our condemnations of the terrible we should be just.
I think "I am the bread of Life" is almost entirely a cento of verses from the Bread of Life discourse. I think singing Scripure isn't a priori bad. We're no more pretending to be our Lord than St. John was when he wrote the passage. In principle it should be okay.
BUt why we have to sing tripe mystifies me. It's like the defense given to Judge Carswell - that the mediocre should be represnted like everybody else. Nope. Hymns should be the best we have, for many reasons, not the least of which is that hymns may be the one opportunity a lot of people have to listen to and to sing good music. (Same goes for translations of Scripture.)
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.
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
You can put "Anthem" at the top of that list...
...a Mormon theology lesson in song (if you ask me).
I dislike the 7/11 songs... you know, seven words sung eleven times.
I attend an excellent protestant church with a passion for evangelism, worship, and discipleship.
Unfortunately, our hymns remind me of people playing with disposable plastic trinkets while ignoring the real and weighty treasure accumulated over the last few millenia.