'hymns'

[Noel's angel]

oooohhhh thankies!!!!!

[jeffpugh]

Wow! Thanks so much!
[quote]Augusting called singing 'praying twice'. [/quote]

Thanks. I thought that was it.

Edited September 7, 2007 by Sacred Music Man

[Seven77]

[quote name='Raphael' post='1376288' date='Sep 2 2007, 11:40 AM']I hate that hymn. It's the worst hymn ever. The theology is completely screwy and it has no real meaning.

Anyway...

"I am the Bread of Life" isn't so bad, in my opinion. I'm one who is generally against songs where the choir takes on God's voice, but the psalms, which are the quintessential hymns of the Church, very often have parts where God is speaking to His people. I think sacred music is fine in doing that, but I'd rather the choir sing such a song while the congregation hears and meditates on it...that way the congregation is still hearing the words of God to them. I'm not sure how that jives with the liturgical documents because I'm not a liturgist, but it seems fine to me. If anyone can show me where the documents are against it, I'll humbly bow to that.

Anyway, most other such songs are filled with fluffy theology and/or shouldn't be sung by the congregation.[/quote]

I agree--"I am the Bread of Life" is fine. And yes preferably the choir sings while we meditate on it. The song really moves me.

[Apotheoun]

I find the song "I am the bread of life" to be aesthetically vapid.

[CatherineM]

I'm also in the choir. We are a small, very poor, inner city type church. We actually have prostitutes standing in front of the church at times. We can't afford to pay organists here like my church back home used to do. We have two women who volunteer a day a month each to play piano at mass. The choir has to drag all the equipment such as mics and cords out for every mass and then lock back up when services are over so that they won't be stolen for drug money by the neighbors. I come home after mass exhausted. It is sometimes hard to remember that we are there for his glory, and not our own. Two weeks out of the month, we have no music. We have a capella leaders. I personally love contemporary Christian music, and would love to be able to introduce some of it to the service, but when the parish is having to sing without music, old traditional songs that everyone knows work best. Having a song that upsets someone in the church with a pre-Vatican II sensibility, and the resultant debate is a luxury that our parish can't afford.

[Laudate_Dominum]

I used to think that I understood and appreciated the Church's authentic sacred music. Only recently have I begun to realize how impoverished my appreciation has been. The pride of place that is proper to Gregorian chant and the singular fittingness of this musical treasure for our liturgy cannot be stressed enough. People who minimize this fact are in error and are, quite frankly, participating in the destruction of the Roman rite and thus the life of the Church.

Anyone who disagrees will have to wait for me to finish my research and write up a systematic elucidation of this conviction.

[let_go_let_God]

First question, are we talking about the same version of "I am the Bread of Life" which goes,

"I am the Bread of Life
You who come to me shall not hunger
And if you eat of this bread
You shall live forever
You shall live forever
And I will raise you up
And I will raise you up
And I will raise you up
On the last day."

Also, I wrote a song once that is like Jesus speaking, but it came from me meditating on God's great mercy and how I'm not worthy of that. Should I scrap it or try to reword it so it wouldn't come from His point of view?

God bless-
LGLG

[Noel's angel]

I don't think it's simply speaking from God's perspective that is wrong in itself-people have mentioned that the psalms for exmaple, do just this. It's the 'horizontal' hymns that are the problem. The ones that people sing as if they were God, to and about the congregation. It's almost as if the choir are singing as God to the people about the people. There is no lifting of the spirit to God.

As for your hymn, I'm sure it's fine since you seem to be singing in awe of the mercy of God and His greatness.

Edited September 20, 2007 by Noel's angel