▼
Monday, 16 January 2012
Singing at the Office
I've been looking at the Little Office and wondered what the hymns to Our Lady sound like. Some of them I know already, but this one is new to me and I must say this chap sings it rather beautifully.
I've noticed that on the application form for helping out at the homeless shelter that St Joseph's Church are organising in collaboration with other Brighton churches volunteers are required for a 'prayer team'. Of what does the 'prayer team' consist I wonder? I hope and pray that it isn't like what Protestant churches offer when they feed the homeless, asking if anyone wants anyone to come and 'pray over them' then there is a prayer team at the ready. I'm not sure whether I'll be doing anything with the shelter project, but if you were going to introduce those not used to Christian prayer to the beauty of prayer, you could do worse than sing the hymn above.
'Shine Jesus Shine' could well scare people (including me) off but Gregorian chant is soothing introduction to prayer. The hymn above is humble, plaintive, mournful - that's the place where many of the homeless are at.
Well that is one suggestion of how it would sound...
ReplyDeleteThe Office Hymns are metrical and usually strophic, this means that they have been written to a pattern that usually repeats.
Most Office Hymns are written to one metrical pattern so the melodies (also metrical) are interchangeable. Also some melodies have a number of variations, the melody sung above has 2 other similar versions and a couple more with greater differences.
Also that Hymn can be found set to a number of other melodies.
N.B. When we sing that melody we sing it much faster and slightly higher (that does not mean that we are singing it the "correct" way)
Have you seen the church this chap sings at? Or the sort of Mass he sings at? Look here
ReplyDeleteI wish you had promoted your choice of hymn without feeling the need to attack your fellow Christian brother's attempts at sharing the joy of Christ with souls from their own experience of God's grace. It's not a competition. It's time for a Pope quote, methinks!
ReplyDeleteThe Meaning of Christian Brotherhood Pope Benedict XV1
pages 87/88
"There is no appropriate category in christian thought for the phenomenon of Protestantism today (one could say the same of the relationship to the separated churches of the east). It is obvious that the old category of heresy is no longer of any value. Heresy, for scripture and the early Church, includes the idea of a personal decision against the unity of the Church, and heresy's characteristic is pertinacia, the obstinacy of him who persists in his own private way. This, however, cannot be regarded as an appropriate description of the spiritual situation of the Protestant Christian. in the course of a now centuries-old history, protestantism has made an important contribution to the realisation of Christian faith, fulfilling a positive function. The conclusion is inescapable, then; Protestantism today is something different from heresy in the traditional sense, a phenomenon who's true theological place has not yet been determined"
Shine Jesus shine!
'Shine Jesus Shine' isn't Church music to the ears of the Pope. If you listen you can tell its a rip off of Sweet Caroline anyway.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1569975/Pope-to-purge-the-Vatican-of-modern-music.html
ReplyDeleteYour general mocking attitude towards the non-catholic volunteers and their offer of prayer for those in need, was my main cause for commenting.
ReplyDeletePerhaps they don't sing with the music of the angels, they love their fellow man, that's what will count, eventually.
And I doubt they are planning on singing in the vatican anytime soon!
I don't regard Graham Kendrick as a rip off musician. He is a fervent believer and loves Jesus. God bless him!
I'm not mocking them, actually Shadowlands.
ReplyDeleteI'm mocking the music I hope will not be played to the homeless.
I don't know what the 'prayer team' consists of.
All I've said is that I hope it is not the kind of prayer team served to the homeless at Protestant mega churches or Baptist churches.
All I did say really is that some music is quite protestant. Prayer teams are kind of protestant. I think the protestantisation of Catholics is actually very damaging to Faith.
What I was getting at was that the Catholic approach to evangelisation should be distinctly different to that of the evangelicals. We are not born again Christians.
ReplyDelete