Church Music

I will have another divergence from the New Living Parish Hymn Book, to look at the songs being added to Breaking Bread by OCP for 2027. You can see the list of what is added and what has been removed here. As I say every year, having your music specified by a particular company is really strange and would never be accepted here in Australia. Being an OCP parish or a GIA parish makes no sense from my perspective. Projection where feasible or if not a bespoke parish hymnal seems much more sensible.

OCP have provided a webinar about resources for next year:

I will have a look at what has been added, but the trend to less lively church music continues apace. Everything is very sedate and Dan Schutte is about as lively as it gets.

Of some interest is the return of two songs whose deceased authors were accused of sex crimes. I gather that the crimes were not proven and so they are back on the menu. Having already looked at these many years ago before the allegations were made, I won’t be looking at them again.

Let’s see what OCP has to offer.

Also known as “Sweet Sacrament” this is a text by Frederick William Faber a C19 Anglican convert to Catholicism, set to John de Luca’s arrangement of a “German melody” he calls EUCHARIST but is better known as SWEET SACRAMENT sourced from Romischkatholisches Gesangbuchlein published in 1826.

It is a song for Eucharist, obviously, and I looked at it years ago in a compendium post about songs for Corpus Christi.

The text has had a fair share of “alt” going on and many verses are often omitted.

I made a fake organ backing:

1 Jesus, my Lord, my God, my all,
How can I love Thee as I ought?
And how revere this wondrous gift,
So far surpassing hope or thought?

Refrain

Sweet Sacrament, we Thee adore;
Oh, make us love thee more and more; Oh, make us love thee more and more.

2 Had I but Mary’s sinless heart
To love thee with, my dearest King,
Oh, with what bursts of fervent praise
Thy goodness, Jesus, would I sing!

3 Ah, see within a creature’s hand
The vast Creator deigns to be,
Reposing, infant like as though,
On Joseph’s arm, or Mary’s knee.

4 Thy body, soul, and Godhead, all;
O mystery of love divine!
I cannot compass all I have,
For all thou hast and art are mine.

5 Sound, sound His praises higher still,
And come, ye angels, to our aid;
‘Tis God, ‘Tis God, the very God,
Whose power both us and angels made.

There are extra verses:

Ring joyously, ye solemn bells!
And wave, O wave, ye censers bright!
‘Tis Jesus cometh, Mary’s Son
And God of God, and Light of Light.

O earth, grow flowers beneath his feet,
And thou, O sun, shine bright this day.
He comes, he comes, O Heaven on earth,
Our Jesus comes upon His way.

He comes, he comes, the Lord of Hosts,
Borne on His throne triumphantly.
We see thee, and we know thee, Lord;
And yearn to shed our blood for Thee.

What a lot of priests and behind them the nuns, with the laity in their place way up the back. I wonder what the occasion was?

Reminding us that this was a new song(!) in 2022:

Richard Connolly and James Phillip McAuley do a lot of the heavy lifting for Australian hymns in this collection. This is another of their fine hymns, which I have covered already in gushing terms because it turned up in Gather Australia.

It occurs to me that any overseas readers who find that traditional style hymns are how their assembly sings and prays, would do well to explore the songs by these men.

It’s so popular it’s even at guitar tab sites.

The sheet music can be purchased at Willow.

I get to do an organ backing this time:

Refrain

Jesus, in your heart we find
love of the Father and mankind;
these two loves to us impart
divine love in a human heart.

1 May we stand within the fire
Of your Sacred Heart, and raise
To our God in joyful choir
All creation’s song of praise.

2 In our hearts, from roots of pride,
Deadly growths of evil flower;
But from Jesus’ wounded side
Streams the sacramental power.

3 To the depths within your heart
Draw us with divine desire;
Hide us, heal us, and impart
Your own love’s transforming fire.

Insufficient wind instruments:

The New Living Parish Hymn Book is a look back into what Australian Catholics were singing up to the 1980s, collated, occasionally altered and often arranged by the editor John de Luca.

Unsurprisingly after all these years, many of the hymns have been already covered here, but there are still some that are new to me. I have covered this tune but not this text.

This Christmas text is by Anglican cleric Percy Dearmer (after John Mason Neale), and it is set to QUEM PASTORES LAUDAVERE a C14 German tune.

The clever aaab rhyming scheme, where b is the same for each stanza, leads to some fairly stretched word choices to preserve the pattern.

1 Jesus, good above all other,
Gentle child of gentle mother,
In a stable born our brother,
Give us grace to persevere.

2 Jesus, cradled in a manger,
For us facing every danger,
Living as a homeless stranger,
Make we thee our King most dear.

3 Jesus, for thy people dying,
Risen Master, death defying,
Lord in heaven, thy grace supplying,
Keep us to thy presence near.

4 Jesus, who our sorrows bearest,
All our thoughts and hopes thou sharest,
Thou to us the truth declarest;
Help us all thy truth to hear.

5 Lord, in all our doings guide us;
Pride and hate shall ne’er divide us;
We’ll go on with thee beside us,
And with joy we’ll persevere.

I somehow skipped this one – mea culpa.

…and just to show that, despite my occasional bleating, not every traditional hymn in this book is a Protestant cuckoo in a Catholic nest, this one is very Catholic.

The original Latin text was by St Ignatius Loyola from C16 and was translated by Edward Caswell, an Anglican priest who did the very C19 thing of becoming a Catholic – Cardinal Newman and all that. Having sadly lost his wife to cholera he was able to become a Catholic priest too.

It is set to a lovely Irish traditional tune, HURLEY (aka DANIEL), here arranged by John de Luca in D, which is too high for me, and vaguely in 4/4. Percy Jones’ arrangement in the Pius X Hymnal is in even higher in E and vaguely in 3/4 but it seems not to matter much.

As a love song to God, it would fit in well with Hillsong, but I’m struggling with a liturgical place for it – Pius X/Percy Jones suggests Trinity?

The text below is what is found in this hymnal, which is half modernised with a fair bit of “alt” going on and in places makes no sense – the less redacted lyrics in the Pius X hymnal below make somewhat more sense.

My backing uses chords I made up and inserted rests.

1 I love thee, O thou Lord most high,
Because you first have loved me;
I seek no other liberty
Than that of being bound to thee.

2 May memory no thought suggest
But shall to your pure glory tend,
My understanding find no rest
Except in you its only end.

3 All that you ask all mine is yours:
Say but the word, me shall be done;
I know your love, all-gracious Lord,
I know it seeks my good alone.

4 Apart from you all things are naught;
So grant, O my most gentle guide,
Grant me to love you as I ought,
Ever with you now to abide.

This is a text by Robert Bridges set to WERDE MUNTER, which is the famous tune by Johan Schop without Bach’s gorgeous fiddly bits I was expecting. The words are really not straightforward – they appear to try to express our longing for being in the presence of Christ in heaven.

I made two backings, but whether BIAB should be let loose on classical pieces remains questionable.

1 Jesu, joy of man’s desiring,
Holy wisdom, love most bright.
Drawn by thee, our souls aspiring,
Soar to uncreated light.
Word of God our flesh that fashioned
With the fire of life impassioned,
Striving still to truth unknown,
Soaring, dying round thy throne.

2 Through the way where hope is guiding,
Hark, what peaceful music rings.
Where the flock, in thee confiding,
drink of joy from deathless springs.
Theirs is beauty’s fairest pleasure,
Theirs is wisdom’s holiest treasure;
Thou dost ever lead thine own
In the love of joys unknown.

This is with all the Bach bits added:

Just the hymn:

I did look at this one years ago, but it is this hymnal too, so I thought I would have another look.

Set to LAND OF REST, a traditional American tune, the text is described here as a C16 “English hymn variously attributed”, which saves all the worry I had last time trying to pin down the author. There are six verses here but other sources have many more.

So Jerusalem stands in for heaven, therefore this song has a use at funerals or in situations where the only consolation available is in the afterlife – grim.

I made an organ backing this time:

1 Jerusalem, my happy home,
When shall I come to thee?
When shall my sorrows have an end?
Thy joys when shall I see?

2 O hap­py har­bor of the saints,
O sweet and plea­sant soil!
In thee no sor­row may be found,
No grief, no care, no toil.

3 In thee no sick­ness may be seen,
No hurt, no ache, no sore;
In thee there is no dread of death,
But life for ev­er­more.

4 Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
God grant that I may see
Thy endless joys, and of the same
Partaker ever be.

5 Thy saints are crowned with glory great;
They see God face to face;
A thousand years seem but a day.
Most happy is that place.

6 Ah, my sweet home, Je­ru­sa­lem,
Would God I were in thee!
Would God my woes were at an end,
Thy joys that I might see.

This is Ray Repp’s “Into Your Hands We Commend Our Spirit, O Lord” which takes inspiration from Psalm 30 (31) for the refrain and Psalm 21 (22) for the verses. It is something to sing in times of distress when God seems far away, although copying Christ’s use of these psalms from the cross seems a little dramatic. It depends on your circumstances I suppose, but it would make it somewhat difficult to sing communally except in narrow circumstances.

When I blogged this some years ago the only sheet music I had was from the New Living Parish Hymn Book I am currently working my way through. It looks like John de Luca left the chords very simple – I have seen more elaborate arrangements at guitar tab sites – but I don’t doubt he made his usual effort to make songs like this more playable on the organ.

I had no luck finding a current source for sheet music, but Mary at Godsongs found it under it’s Spanish title at OCP and if you know to search for it under that name, OCP will let you buy the sheet music in English – go figure. They only gave four verses, so I posted all six for completeness.

I made a new backing:

Refrain

Into your hands we commend our spirit, O Lord;

Into your hands we commend our hearts,

For we must die to ourselves in loving you;

Into your hands we commend our love.

1 O God my God why have you gone from me,

Far from my prayers, far from my cry?

To you I call and you never answer me;

You send no comfort, and I don’t know why.

2 Our fathers trusted, and you delivered them;

To you they cried and they escaped;

In you they trusted when darkness came their way,

And in your goodness you made them free.

3 You’ve been my guide since I was very young;

You showed the way when I needed someone’s hand,

And now I’m lonely; nobody’s by my side;

Stay near me, Lord, and be my friend.

4 My days are weary with people hating me,

Each place I go, each place I stay;

My heart is tired, my body aching.

Give me courage to face each day.

5 On ev’ry side my neighbours stare at me;

They pierce my heart with unkind words.

But you, O Lord, don’t stay so far from me;

Send me your comfort, and rescue me.

6 I will proclaim your name to all my friends,

God of our fathers and our God, too;

Your praise shall sound from ev’ry voice, O, Lord,

Soon ev’ry heart will worship you.

The original, with oddly tuned guitars:

Given the OCP treatment:

A nice vocal plus MIDI version:

Chris Brunelle adds class:

It needed sax:

The Midday Voices Choir:

Down to D and with chords:

On the mighty Yamaha:

A Marian hymn from the esteemed team of James Phillip McAuley and Richard Connolly, so little chance of being confused with a Protestant hymn here.

It is available to purchase at Willow, where there is a brief snippet and a preview of the sheet music. Connolly’s echoing rhythmic devices in the refrain are a standout. McAuley’s text is refreshingly unsentimental.

I made two backings with chords I made up but neither really captures the delicacy needed here.

Refrain

In your motherhood, O Mary, you and holy church are one:

Both at once we rightly call Mother of Christ, Mother of all.

1 When Lord Christ his Church designed, what other model need he find?

How but in your image could be formed the Church’s motherhood?

2 By the Spirit, all though time the Church renews your act sublime:

From the font she brings to birth Christs’s body, living still on earth.

3 In the church we seem to trace your form and features, full of grace,

Feel the same grave tender care, the ceaseless love that works by prayer.

I blogged this couple of years ago when it was added as a new song (!) to OCP’s Breaking Bread. It makes some sense in North America, but it shows how perverse we are in Australia that we could even imagine singing this song at a scorching summer Christmas liturgy dripping in sweat.

The tune, ROSETTI (aka CRANHAM), by Gustav Holst is, of course, absolutely fine. The text by Christina Rosetti has nothing do with the sitz im leben of the the Middle East Christmas Story but everything to do with miserable Victorian era winters in England. It is nonetheless, a moving poem.

I quite like the backing I made last time but did a fake BIAB organ one this time:

1 In the bleak midwinter
frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron,
water like a stone;
snow had fallen,
snow on snow, snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter,
long ago.

2 Our God, heav’n cannot hold him
nor earth sustain;
heav’n and earth shall flee away
when he comes to reign:
in the bleak midwinter
a stable place sufficed
the Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.

3 Enough for him whom cherubim
worship night and day,
a breastful of milk,
and a mangerful of hay;
enough for him,
whom angels fall down before,
the ox and ass and camel
which adore.

4 Angels and archangels
may have gathered there,
cherubim and seraphim
thronged the air:
but only his mother
in her maiden bliss
worshiped the beloved
with a kiss.

5 What can I give him,
poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd,
I would bring a lamb;
if I were a wise man
I would do my part,
yet what I can I give him,
give my heart.