Especially when they won't sing!
When I was a kid, we rarely had choirs in Catholic churches. Sometimes you had the Latin Mass in which the priest sang parts of the Mass but that was it. But once the 70s hit, out came the geetars and the Protestant music and out went a lot of folk. The aesthetics of the early Church - still used in Italy and France - are beautiful.
“Especially when they won’t sing!”
In the old days, good old days that is, we didn’t sing, we chanted!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w000N-Seu5k
Those were the good old days too.
Especially when they won't sing!
When I was yet a (weekly attending) RC, the head priest (and vicar) used to exhort us, "sing like Protestants." Only the charismatics at that time came close to evangelicals.
And if RCs follow V2 as they are supposed to, then they must acknowledged properly baptized Prots as separated brethren among whom the Spirit of God works, though we find very few brethren among Caths.
Will they be as atheists and claim the thousands upon thousands of hymns (over 8,000 hymns and gospel songs by Fanny Crosby alone) by Prot and evangelical writers were works of delusion, or at least not allow many are in the top ranks that glorify God and edify men?
Their loss.
One of my favorites:
O worship the King, all glorious above,
O gratefully sing His power and His love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.
O tell of His might, O sing of His grace,
Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space,
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
And dark is His path on the wings of the storm.
The earth with its store of wonders untold,
Almighty, Thy power hath founded of old;
Established it fast by a changeless decree,
And round it hath cast, like a mantle, the sea.
Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;
It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail;
Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end,
Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.
O measureless might! Ineffable love!
While angels delight to worship Thee above,
The humbler creation, though feeble their lays,
With true adoration shall all sing Thy praise.
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/o/w/owtking.htm
Words:Robert Grant, in Christian Psalmody, by Edward H. Bickersteth, 1833, alt. This version is a reworking of lyrics by William Kethe in the Genevan Psalter of 1561.
Music: Lyons, attributed to Johann M. Haydn (1737-1806); arranged by William Gardiner, Sacred Melodies (London: 1815)
We can sing Catholic ones that glorify God also. Most modern music is another story.
Haha, the Catholic Church hasn’t been relevant in religious music since the Counter Reformation! And after Vaticant II the music is just plain laughable. Of course, everyone is “happy-clappy” now so it’s hard to tell the difference.