What a blessing it is to have a pastor who regards congregational singing not as fluff or entertainment, but as a vital source of spiritual nourishment for his flock.
I love that hymn and wish OUR church sang some of these old hymns instead of “new ones” that have no tune with which you can harmonize! We are having an old-fashioned Hymn-Sing at the East Congregationsl Church in Concord on 51 Mountain Road on May 10,2024 at 6:30 pm (open to the public) and our prayer and Bible Study group from Christ the King is attending as the wife of one of our members is helping to sponsor it in memory of her husband who went to be with Jesus about 2years ago. We have had one of the Hymn Sings before and it is wonderful!! The relatives are a very musical Christ-centered family. All are invited….
More prayers for your husband: prayers of thanksgiving. I am reading his Ten Ways, and in two paragraphs, pp. 214-215, I am slain. His account of picking blueberries with his father, and the silence of their work: like Wendell Berry’s words, “When we work well, a Sabbath mood rests on our day, and finds it good.” I picked berries with my mother: elderberries, service berries, teaberries. The moment I remember with my father, some sixty years ago, is riding our pony Missy as my father walks alongside her, leading her. Missy was a gift from my mother’s uncles, twin bachelor farmers, who never quite settled down to farming (“Neither one would let the other one be boss,” as my mother explained it.). I remember seeing a rooster in their living room. A herd of feral Shetlands galloped about their woods and fields….one of those ponies was given to me, and what she lacked in training she made up in cuteness: big brown eyes, long long lashes, creamy white mane and tail, red-gold coat, like a teddy-bear with wee tiny hooves. She was a little girl’s dream, and she was mine. But what I remember most is what my father said as the three of us walked out the driveway, under the great oak tree that my grandfather must have planted. Leading little Missy, his little brown-haired daughter happily riding on her round red back, my father said “The best things in life are free.”
Hope that doesn’t sound like an anti-climax! But I knew then, and I know now, that my father was one who knew to count his blessings, that he treasured the beauty of the day as I did. And he did treasure silence! When our family, who lived by a lake and had boats, though we were anything but rich, took the pastor and his wife for a boat ride in the moonlight, my father was dismissive of the pastor’s wife, who was a gregarious sort. “She wouldn’t stop talking and enjoy the ride.”
Sometimes silence is way to say Thank you Lord…..🥲
What a blessing the old hymns are. I wanted to start attending a church here, but the music was so loud I had to wait in the lobby until the sermon started. The new church seems to have lost all reverence and awe for our God. Dressing down seems to be the fashion -holy jeans, t-shirts with sayings on them(not all nice) and adults dressing like this is disgusting. Finding a place that teaches the Bible, line by line is almost impossible. I don't know if anyone reads scripture any more I know they all have bibles but no one reads them anymore. What happened to the way we were taught. You wear your very best because you are coming to worship a Holy, Magnificent,Loving God. In His presence we must have respect and honor to HIM. Amen.
I haven't really tracked it for too long, but if memory serves, my parish has had a fair mix between good hymns and the modern....stuff, at least in the past. Over the past couple of years, though, I've noticed a very clear move in the direction of more traditional hymns there, which pleases me. Either our music director is pushing for them, which is a blessing, our pastor is (an equal or greater blessing), or both of them are. I hope it remains so....but who can know, as our current pastor is stepping aside soon for health reasons. I can only pray that his replacement (who, along with our bishop, is graciously allowing him to remain in the rectory during his retirement) is a soul after the heart of the dear Fr. Bucci, and not someone who will replace the good hymns with the bad...
I hope Dr. Esolen feels better soon, and that the New Hampshire weather offers an abundance of fresh air and sunshine to help him recover!
I like the post and send best wishes for Tony's recovery.
You mention the loss we experience from not singing the traditional hymns. Yes, yes.
The traditional hymns give it to you straight. I always think of that line from the hymn, Blessed Assurance:
Heir of salvation, Purchase of God,
Born of His spirit, Washed in his blood.
How much more does that say about our relationship with God than being raised up on eagle's wings. There was sacrifice and pain involved in our relationship with God. I'm not on any eagles' wings, floating around all day in the dawn with God.
The traditional hymns, generally speaking, keep you grounded and focused in the right direction.
We have been blessed to belong to two parishes over the past 10 years in which beautiful hymns are sung weekly—our first experience with these sorts of hymns was our short stint in the UK in a tiny parish church in Leatherhead, outside of London. Years after our return to typical American Catholic music (which we avoided by going to the earliest Mass possible each week), we found the Ordinariate. And we heard beautiful English language lyrics that we could understand and were keyed to the liturgical year and accompanied by lovely singable tunes. I have a struggle though, when it some to TLM, which we sometimes attend, and the Latin that is sometimes sung at our Ordinariate Masses—I really want to understand and hear the English and so I am frustrated by the Latin. I don’t deny the universality of the Latin, and the tradition in the official use of the language, but once you hear the Vidi Aquam sung in English, it is hard to go back to the Latin. At least it is for us. It seems like, in order for congregational singing to be a vital part of our spiritual nourishment, it ought to be understandable. Is my attitude about Latin wrong headed? What is the role of liturgical music that is beautiful but incomprehensible?
We certainly are praying for your husband .🙏🙏❤️❤️
I love that hymn and wish OUR church sang some of these old hymns instead of “new ones” that have no tune with which you can harmonize! We are having an old-fashioned Hymn-Sing at the East Congregationsl Church in Concord on 51 Mountain Road on May 10,2024 at 6:30 pm (open to the public) and our prayer and Bible Study group from Christ the King is attending as the wife of one of our members is helping to sponsor it in memory of her husband who went to be with Jesus about 2years ago. We have had one of the Hymn Sings before and it is wonderful!! The relatives are a very musical Christ-centered family. All are invited….
You're both in our prayers. May your angels watch over you!
May Our Mother of Perpetual Help and our holy father Alphonsus watch over Tony and help him in his suffering.
More prayers for your husband: prayers of thanksgiving. I am reading his Ten Ways, and in two paragraphs, pp. 214-215, I am slain. His account of picking blueberries with his father, and the silence of their work: like Wendell Berry’s words, “When we work well, a Sabbath mood rests on our day, and finds it good.” I picked berries with my mother: elderberries, service berries, teaberries. The moment I remember with my father, some sixty years ago, is riding our pony Missy as my father walks alongside her, leading her. Missy was a gift from my mother’s uncles, twin bachelor farmers, who never quite settled down to farming (“Neither one would let the other one be boss,” as my mother explained it.). I remember seeing a rooster in their living room. A herd of feral Shetlands galloped about their woods and fields….one of those ponies was given to me, and what she lacked in training she made up in cuteness: big brown eyes, long long lashes, creamy white mane and tail, red-gold coat, like a teddy-bear with wee tiny hooves. She was a little girl’s dream, and she was mine. But what I remember most is what my father said as the three of us walked out the driveway, under the great oak tree that my grandfather must have planted. Leading little Missy, his little brown-haired daughter happily riding on her round red back, my father said “The best things in life are free.”
Hope that doesn’t sound like an anti-climax! But I knew then, and I know now, that my father was one who knew to count his blessings, that he treasured the beauty of the day as I did. And he did treasure silence! When our family, who lived by a lake and had boats, though we were anything but rich, took the pastor and his wife for a boat ride in the moonlight, my father was dismissive of the pastor’s wife, who was a gregarious sort. “She wouldn’t stop talking and enjoy the ride.”
Sometimes silence is way to say Thank you Lord…..🥲
O let me feel Thee near me,
The world is ever near…….
Brilliant! And Lord, be near Thy servant Tony.🙏
I only just noticed the note about Dr. Esolen’s health— be assured of our prayers!
What a blessing the old hymns are. I wanted to start attending a church here, but the music was so loud I had to wait in the lobby until the sermon started. The new church seems to have lost all reverence and awe for our God. Dressing down seems to be the fashion -holy jeans, t-shirts with sayings on them(not all nice) and adults dressing like this is disgusting. Finding a place that teaches the Bible, line by line is almost impossible. I don't know if anyone reads scripture any more I know they all have bibles but no one reads them anymore. What happened to the way we were taught. You wear your very best because you are coming to worship a Holy, Magnificent,Loving God. In His presence we must have respect and honor to HIM. Amen.
Thank you Debra for this beautiful post. Prayers for Tony’s quick, full recovery ❤️🙏
I haven't really tracked it for too long, but if memory serves, my parish has had a fair mix between good hymns and the modern....stuff, at least in the past. Over the past couple of years, though, I've noticed a very clear move in the direction of more traditional hymns there, which pleases me. Either our music director is pushing for them, which is a blessing, our pastor is (an equal or greater blessing), or both of them are. I hope it remains so....but who can know, as our current pastor is stepping aside soon for health reasons. I can only pray that his replacement (who, along with our bishop, is graciously allowing him to remain in the rectory during his retirement) is a soul after the heart of the dear Fr. Bucci, and not someone who will replace the good hymns with the bad...
I hope Dr. Esolen feels better soon, and that the New Hampshire weather offers an abundance of fresh air and sunshine to help him recover!
I like the post and send best wishes for Tony's recovery.
You mention the loss we experience from not singing the traditional hymns. Yes, yes.
The traditional hymns give it to you straight. I always think of that line from the hymn, Blessed Assurance:
Heir of salvation, Purchase of God,
Born of His spirit, Washed in his blood.
How much more does that say about our relationship with God than being raised up on eagle's wings. There was sacrifice and pain involved in our relationship with God. I'm not on any eagles' wings, floating around all day in the dawn with God.
The traditional hymns, generally speaking, keep you grounded and focused in the right direction.
We have been blessed to belong to two parishes over the past 10 years in which beautiful hymns are sung weekly—our first experience with these sorts of hymns was our short stint in the UK in a tiny parish church in Leatherhead, outside of London. Years after our return to typical American Catholic music (which we avoided by going to the earliest Mass possible each week), we found the Ordinariate. And we heard beautiful English language lyrics that we could understand and were keyed to the liturgical year and accompanied by lovely singable tunes. I have a struggle though, when it some to TLM, which we sometimes attend, and the Latin that is sometimes sung at our Ordinariate Masses—I really want to understand and hear the English and so I am frustrated by the Latin. I don’t deny the universality of the Latin, and the tradition in the official use of the language, but once you hear the Vidi Aquam sung in English, it is hard to go back to the Latin. At least it is for us. It seems like, in order for congregational singing to be a vital part of our spiritual nourishment, it ought to be understandable. Is my attitude about Latin wrong headed? What is the role of liturgical music that is beautiful but incomprehensible?