Trying to get it right, only for it to go wrong

In my previous incarnation as the Head of Music in a Catholic Secondary School, oh so many times did I play the introduction for a hymn, only to be the only person in a School Hall or Church to actually sing the first verse. This is the musical equivalent of being punched in the face by 400 people. (No, I've never even been punched in the face by one person, I'm just guessing.)

On the flip side, at WYD 2000, I seem to remember someone doing a hymn practice for 2.1 million people on the Sunday Morning, saying that we would get so much more out of it if we all sang. As I munched on my pilgrim biscuits, bleary eyed, I wondered at how like me that guy sounded. Slightly pleading, slightly exasperated.

Now this may seem to fly in the face of the previous post, but vernacular hymns as I may have said before. What's that all about? I play a vanishingly small selection, but it does seem that the present Proper-free NO Mass derives from Low Mass with hymns.

It wasn't meant to be lik this.

Look what the CMAA submitted to VII in 1963

4. Regarding the music at Low Mass:

This Society respectfully urges that consideration be given to maintaining the sung mass as the norm for congregational service, and where necessity demands, that provision be made for a simplified form of sung Mass that requires only the service of a trained cantor to supplement the singing of the congregation. The singing of hymns at low Mass, a solution suggested by the 1958 decree, is not completely satisfactory, because it remains extraneous to the action at the altar.

Why sing, when what you are being pleaded/bullied into singing is not part of the Mass anyway?

How did we get to a point where you sing four hymns and none of the Ordinary?

Strange.

The Past

Sometimes along with learning about the lives of Saints, I think that I should pay a bit more attention to the mess that was the world around them.

Lay it down!

Checking that no famous Newman hymn escapes an outing in September, I found myself listening to a couple of MIDI versions (Aren't we all grateful things have moved on a bit!) of things and happened upon Fanny Crosby and Lay it down!

Leaving aside the musical worth, I'm digging the dark glasses.
Don't mess with Fanny! Of course she is wearing them because she was blind and her biography on the link says:

Fanny Cros­by was prob­ab­ly the most pro­lif­ic hymn­ist in his­to­ry. Though blind­ed by an in­com­pe­tent doc­tor at six weeks of age, she wrote over 8,000 hymns. About her blind­ness, she said:

'It seemed in­tend­ed by the bless­ed prov­i­dence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dis­pen­sa­tion. If per­fect earth­ly sight were of­fered me to­mor­row I would not ac­cept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been dis­tract­ed by the beau­ti­ful and in­ter­est­ing things about me.'

In her life­time, Fan­ny Cros­by was one of the best known wo­men in the Unit­ed States. To this day, the vast ma­jor­i­ty of Amer­i­can hymn­als con­tain her work.

She died in 1915, aged 95.

8000 hymns. Impressed.


She would not care if you were liturgically entertained as long a you laid it down sinner.

Lovely Voice

is my stock phrase when I have to pass comment on the 'Archbishop' of Canterbury.

(Who was it who sent St Augustine to Canterbury? Oh yeh and St Cuthbert had hard words on his deathbed about avoiding the, 'We know better than the Pope when to celebrate Easter,' people. It's all in Bede.)

Splintered Sunrise has a great commentary on the present situation, quoting Fr L on Rowanspeak with a useful insight into how the folks who have to dialogue with Anglicans get on.

Personally, Anglicanism would cause me to short circuit big time. I have to be very careful to err on the side of silence when in Anglican Churches so likely am I to commit a faux pas. However, it must be hard to leave if you were born into it. It's not brill looking at lovely old Churches in the UK and none of them are Catholic, but we get by.

I might be a rubbish Catholic, but at least Catholicism is true and I know what I'm supposed to be doing.

St Benedict

Holidays are here again

and having broken up with only vague plans, already things are taking shape in a very good way.

In other news the allotment is parched but alive and if I eat a restricted diet of peas, broad beans, courgettes and tomatoes, I can live entirely from my own produce vegtablewise.

To beat the local roadworks I bought a bike last w/e and have relearnt how to ride. You never forget? Well it wasn't quite like that early last Sunday morning over in the park. The change from turf to tarmac was a surprise too. Not planning on Rome, but I can certainly use it for local trips. I'm even ventueing from pavement to road now. Yes, it does have a basket. Where else can I put my 'Plainsong for schools' book1 and my shopping?

Via Romea making excellent progress

They've done over 400 miles since Monday.

Pop here to read all about it and to make a donation.

The charities? Mary's Meals and The Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Inititive.