Posted on 04/12/2014 5:04:51 PM PDT by Lorianne
A priest stunned an Irish couple by breaking out into song with a surprise rendition of Hallelujah at their wedding, leaving the bride crying with joy.
Father Ray Kelly surprised Chris and Leah O'Kane with the note-perfect performance during their marriage ceremony at Oldcastle, Meath in Ireland.
The video of Father Kelly's heartwarming performance was then uploaded to Youtube on Monday making the priest an internet hit after having 240,000 viewings in just two days.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Your point?
Indeed.
You’re welcome!
:D
Meaning by your reasoning, Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) probably doesn’t belong in a church either.
I'd pay money to hear that priest sing a musical version of Song of songs at a wedding, LOL!
And after that, 'Lola'.
Ugh I was wondering how one man could sing Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, in four part harmony, by himself. Came away sheepishly disappointed.
Here he is singing it on the Late Late Show with professional background music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB6YN2cJ03A
First of all, the priest did not sing Cohen’s lyrics, so you were off base with your comment from the get go
I was responding to your seeming to not think that sexual ‘lyrics’ have a place in a Christian setting. If that is so, then the Old Testament would not have a place there either.
Lucky guy!
What does the GIRM say about this sort of thing?
The problem is anybody who is not ignorant of the works of the great Leonard Cohen will automatically think of the original lyrics, which, while brilliant, are out of place in this setting.
As for Song of Songs, it would be inappropriate to sing a song based on those in this situation also. Not everything Biblical is appropriate for singing in church. It's not that difficult a concept to grasp.
The good priest changed the lyrics to fit the occasion...
From a speech by Leonard Cohen written 25 years before he wrote Hallelujah (from the above link)
*************************************************************
... And it involved telling stories. The story, Cohen knew, had kept the Jews alive. It captivated them even when the somber and accurate accounts of their progressions—thousands burned here, millions gassed there—were too much to bear. Canada, too, was surviving on account of a story: Its own chronology seared by divisions and stained by war, it told itself that it existed, that it was a real nation with a real unifying force, and, encouraged by that story, it persevered.
While all nations are, to some extent, imagined communities that come together only when all of their inhabitants envision them into being, Canadians and Jews had to imagine harder, hard enough to override history’s long odds. To create order, to make a community, to shape time, to find hope where logic and reason saw none: This is what the story accomplished. And it was the prophet’s job to tell the story.
Speaking to his fellow Montreal Jews, Leonard Cohen declared it his intention to tell the story as best as he could, not in pretty poems but in some other, new, unknown and throbbing way. To do it properly, he noted, he would have to go into exile. He would also have to stay stoic as his fellow Jews labeled him a traitor for daring to think up other possibilities for spiritual life—possibilities, like love and sex and drugs and song, for which there was little room in the synagogue. He was ready. As he finished his talk, the shouting began. His words about killing God, prophets as traitors, and the soulless rich enraged many in the audience. Some catcalled. Others demanded the time to debate. It was late at night, and the event’s organizers suggested that the discussion be continued the following Saturday night. Grumbling, irate, the audience scattered.
The following Saturday, the library was packed once again. On the dais, rabbis and community leaders sat gravely, ready to chastise Cohen for his impudence. But Cohen was no longer there. He was in his small white house in the Greek island of Hydra, playing his guitar outside his favorite taverna, dreaming up a new way to tell his stories, training to become a prophet.
Quite an exercise in putting God in second place.
There’d be a problem using Cohen’s version anyhow in a wedding; he’s got the sex in the past tense.
Many people mistake the song for a liturgy which, in the Leonard Cohen version, it decidedly is not.
Thank you so much. I’ve never heard all the words before. This makes it much more enjoyable for me. Thank You.
Thank you so much. I’ve never heard all the words before. This makes it much more enjoyable for me. Thank You.
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