Fr. Jolly's Daydream

'Tis'nt Good to Sing This Song

'Tis good, Lord to be here.
Thy glory fills the night.
Thy face and garments, like the sun
Shine with unborrowed light...

...’Tis good, Lord, to be here.
Yet we may not remain;
But since Thou bidst us leave the mount,
Come with us to the plain.

That's a mighty lyric. Not only is it deeply expressive of the mystery of the day, but it is also remarkable poetry. Note the pleasant vowel sounds, the long vowels at the end of verses, and the steady use of the l-sound throughout, in the most significant words. Plus the fresh, brief litany: Fulfiller of the past! Promise of things to be! The poetry is vigourous and confident, and very satisfying to the ear and mind.

Unfortunately, however, the hymn is all wrong.

(more, from the Archives)

Christ Is Alive! A good idea, a problematic hymn

Christ Is Alive!

This hymn, while popular, is theologically problematic. In verse 1, the image of an empty cross against the sky is used. Biblically, this image cannot represent the resurrection, because the cross was already “empty” on Good Friday evening, when the Lord was dead. The empty tomb is the biblical symbol of the resurrection, not the empty cross. Poetically there is a problem as well: the usual reworking of the fourth line “His love in death shall never die” is not a clear English expression. In verse 2, the implication is that there was a time when Christ was “bound to distant years in Palestine.” But that implies that the Trinity was deficient during the time of the earthly life of Jesus, which cannot be correct. Verse 3 implies that God was remote from His people until the resurrection. But this is not true for many reasons: first, God’s holiness was a holiness of presence and intimacy with the Hebrew community. Secondly, I John connects the tangibility of Jesus with the Incarnation, not the resurrection. In verse 4, the idea of the Risen Christ suffering is at the very least controversial.

Although it’s good to connect the Resurrection with its implications in daily life, this song fails to do that quite correctly.

"Dad, that song's weird."

"What do you mean?"
"At my school. Every year they sing this song about ashes. It's so weird."
"Oh. Do you mean the one that goes 'We rise again from ashes...'?"
"Exactly. Why do they have to sing it? It's not good."
"No, I don't think so either. Sit down for a minute and I'll show you what I think is wrong with it. Now let me write down the first verse:

We rise again from ashes, from the good we've failed to do.
We rise again from ashes, to create ourselves anew.
If all our world is ashes, then must our lives be true:
An offering of ashes, an offering to you.

And here is the last verse:

Praise be to the Father, who made us like himself.
Praise be to the Son, who saved us by his death.
Praise be to the Spirit who creates our world anew
From an offering of ashes, an offering to you.

Okay, when you look at those two verses, which is worse?"
"Well, the last one isn't too bad. But the first one is terrible."
"I agree. Can you say exactly what is wrong with it?"
"Well, for one thing, it makes us look terrible. I mean, I know we're sinners and all that, but if you say 'all our world is ashes' it just sounds too strict."
"I agree. If we thought that being sinners made us totally depraved, well, that might be okay to say. But as Catholics we believe that there is a lot of good in the world. And in us."
"The other thing I don't like is it reminds me of a phoenix. I mean, phoenixes are cool, but is that right to sing about in church?"
"I don't think so. Hmm, I wonder if phoenixes ever were Christian symbols? Could be, I'll google it later. But I would at least say that I'm not crazy about that image, because if I remember right, phoenixes rise out of their ashes as their exact same selves. But the New Testament is clear about the fact that when we rise, we shall be changed. We'll be ourselves, but different. But anyways there's something else that I think is a real problem with that verse."
"What?"
"Look at the last two lines of the last verse. Who is doing the action?"
"The Spirit. I guess they mean the Holy Spirit."
"Right. And who is doing the action in the first verse?"
"We are. That's it, that's what I don't like."
"Exactly. When was the last time I created something? Never. I make things, and I have children, which is as close as I come to creating anything. But I've never created something from nothing. I've never caused something to rise from the dead. The last verse gets it right. The first verse, I think, is completely wrong. It's misleading and it's wrong. I won't even go into the second verse."
"Okay, that makes sense. I mean, that it's God's job to change us, even if we try to do what we can. I mean, I try, but I can't do it all.Anyways, I hope they don't sing it next year."
Reprinted from last year about this time.

A Few More Principles

I've been putting together a few "principles of discernment" that I think are useful tools for choosing among the many hymn texts that we have at our disposal. I use these myself when choosing songs for the Liturgy, and when I write my own texts. I would imagine that preachers have a similar list of do's and don't's for when they prepare homilies: some things that they would always be sure to say, and some things that they would never ever say in a million years.

Right now I'm working out "the negative judgment"--some of the features of hymn or song texts that I believe make them misleading or harmful for the people to sing. Things I think we should never ever sing in a million years. Two of them follow:

• Hymns that speak of the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, the City of God, or the Heavenly Jerusalem must always be clear that this kingdom "is not of this world," but is fulfilled in heaven.
• No hymn should speak of the Eucharist as "bread" and "wine" without some clear, immediate qualification that indicates that bread and wine have been changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. Examples of acceptable usages include: Bread of angels, living Bread, Bread of life, the One Cup. Examples of unacceptable usages include broken bread, bread broken for us, wine poured out for us, bread (simply), wine (simply).
  
  (This last leaves out one of my favorite hymns, Father We Thank Thee Who Hast Planted, whose expression "broken bread" is (arguably, and imho) not sufficiently clear regarding the Real Presence. It's misleading on this one point alone. I know, I know, it's from the Didache. But, it's from the Eucharistic prayer of the Didache, and in an early point of the Eucharistic prayer at that. First of all, what are we doing singing a Eucharistic prayer as a hymn? Secondly, when would we sing it? It's neither pre-consecrational, nor post-consecrational. It's neither fish nor fowl for us; it doesn't "go" with our current rite. )
  
  To my thinking, a single corrupt or potentially misleading expression makes a corrupt hymn. If it can be fixed or reworked, why not? But then again, with all the music at large, why bother? Rare is the hymn that would be such a great loss to humanity, that we cannot simply let it disappear. And most of those are so consonant with Catholic sensibilities that they contain no errors anyhow.
  
  In some cases, just one verse might be problematic, but perhaps not the entire hymn. For example, another principle might be:
  
• No hymn should use the word "sacrament" for any activity other than the seven sacraments of the Church, unless it refers instead to the Sacrament that is the Church itself.(LG 9, 4)
  
  This leaves out the third verse of Draw Us in the Spirit's Tether--but then it was already pretty well farfetched in its Eucharistic theology in the verse two. Catholics don't "break the bread and bless the cup," exactly. "We" don't do anything, first of all; Christ does, in the action and words of the priest. Secondly, what happens is the bread and wine are offered in sacrifice; they are consecrated. The first verse of this hymn is quite pretty and good, and the tune, with its "alleluias" is so lovely, that its subsequent inadequacy (even poetic inadequacy) is often overlooked, even for its use in Catholic hymnals and churches. But it is because of theological inadequacy that it should not be sung at Mass.

"Mommy, why can't we sing On Eagles' Wings at Grandma's funeral?

"Mommy, why can't we sing On Eagles' Wings at Grandma's funeral?"

"Well, honey, Mommy always likes to tell you the truth, right?"

"Right."

"And you wouldn't like it if one day, when you were upset, I promised you that you could have cake and ice cream for dinner every night if you would behave and cheer up, would you?"

"You would never let me have cake and ice cream for dinner!"

"Exactly. But that song makes promises from God--and they aren't the same promises that God makes in the Bible. They are made-up promises. When Jesus says that you will shine like the sun, he is promising that only to people who are good. Not just because you trust him, but because you act like you trust him. And the Bible never says God will 'bear you on the breath of dawn.'"

"Then why does the song say so?"

"Because, honey, when people are upset, like at a funeral, we would like to make them feel better. But let's cheer them up by singing about the promises that God makes in the Bible, not by singing about made-up promises."

"Okay... Mommy, why can't we sing Be Not Afraid at Grandma's funeral?"

Please note: In the above "conversation" I am not ascribing intentional falsehood to the author of the song or to those who have chosen to use it. Rather I would hope to call into question the widespread desire that we find comfort in religion at all costs--particularly, in our age, at the cost of truth. The promises of God are better than those we make for ourselves--but also very demanding. The demands, the constant motif in the Gospels that we must be changed, must be recovered in our liturgical music.

A Hymn That Has Its Ups and Downs

At Mass today we sang, as many churches do on Transfiguration Sunday, the hymn 'Tis Good Lord to Be Here, by Joseph Armitage Robinson.

’Tis good, Lord, to be here,
Thy glory fills the night;
Thy face and garments, like the sun,
Shine with unborrowed light.

’Tis good, Lord, to be here,
Thy beauty to behold
Where Moses and Elijah stand,
Thy messengers of old.

Fulfiller of the past,
Promise of things to be,
We hail Thy body glorified
And our redemption see.

Before we taste of death,
We see Thy kingdom come;
We fain would hold the vision bright
And make this hill our home.

’Tis good, Lord, to be here.
Yet we may not remain;
But since Thou bidst us leave the mount,
Come with us to the plain.

That's a mighty lyric. Not only is it deeply expressive of the mystery of the day, but it is also remarkable poetry. Note the pleasant vowel sounds, the long vowels at the end of verses, and the steady use of the l-sound throughout, in the most significant words. Plus the fresh, brief litany: Fulfiller of the past! Promise of things to be! The poetry is vigourous and confident, and very satisfying to the ear and mind.

Unfortunately, however, the hymn is all wrong.

First, as a hymn, it is inside-out. Hymns grow to a height. No matter what has happened--even in the Gospel--there is more to come, and hymns must always celebrate the "more." Hymns end at their highest point. Contrariwise, this hymn takes for its model the "topography" (if you will) of the story itself, isolated from its fulfillment. The hymn walks a mountain up, then down. The "high" point of the story is the Father's voice, at which the apostles fall down; the high point of the hymn is the third verse, in which Christ is recognized for Who He is and the soteriological implications of His identity are evident. Then both story and hymn go down the mountain--as the hymn says, "to the plain."

St. Paul says "If our hopes in Christ are limited to this life only, we are the most pitiable of men." [Broad sense of "men," of course.] Even with the presence of Christ intensely with us "on the plain," if we are living for the life of the plain, we are living for the futility of a life that will end. But a hymn must point forward into eternity.

Even more problematic, but in a similar way, is the refrain of the hymn: "'Tis good, Lord, to be here." This should never have been said in the first place. It was a typical blunder of St. Peter's to want to halt the Lord's saving action by holding too tightly to penultimate moments of glory. The Transfiguration is not the "high" point of the Gospel--the high point so far is the Paschal Mystery, which has not even now been fulfilled. When it is fulfilled, then it will be time to rest in our booths. But not now. Nor is it for us to go to the plain as though that is the real life. We must press on in real but hidden glory to the Resurrection and beyond. It was not a lasting "good" to be on the mountain--and in any case, "we" are not there. Peter, James and John, as apostolic witnesses, were there. We are already heirs to the fulfilled promise of their vision, the Resurrection. And our hope lies in this promise's new fulfillment in the age to come.

This is why the far lesser poem O Wondrous Type, O Vision Fair is the far better hymn.

O wondrous type! O vision fair

of glory that the Church may share,

which Christ upon the mountain shows

,where brighter than the sun he glows!

The law and prophets there have place,

the chosen witnesses of grace;

the Father's voice from our the cloud

proclaims his only Son aloud.

With shining face and bright array,

Christ deigns to manifest today

what glory shall be theirs above

who joy in God with perfect love.

And faithful hearts are raised on high

by this great vision's mystery;

for which in joyful strains we raise

the voice of prayer, the hymns of praise.

O Father, with the eternal Son,

and Holy Spirit, ever One,

vouchsafe to bring us by thy grace

to see thy glory face to face.

Words: Latin, fifteenth century; trans. Hymns Ancient & Modern, 1861