On Sunday, Fr. Finigan
gave an excellent sermon, with much food for thought. One thing which really hit home was the information that the hymn by St. Thomas Aquinas,
Adoro te devote, was added to most missals as part of the priest's thanksgiving prayers because of the beautiful way it encapsulates our faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
It struck me that the same cannot be said of the majority of "modern" hymns (I use quotation marks as the term is generally applied to hymns written back in the 1970s and 1980s... this hardly qualifies as "modern" after forty years!)
"If I was a wiggly worm" doesn't quite cut it...
4 comments:
Indeed! I very much like the Gerard Manley Hopkins translation which fits with the plainsong tune. It all leads so beautifully to that last verse.
"Jesu whom I look at shrouded here below,/
I beseech thee send me what I long for so,/
Some day to gaze on thee face to face in light,/
and be blest for ever with thy glory's sight!"
Wow!
Pretty awful grammar too!
Only the majority of modern hymns?
Name a hymn written post 1900, in English, that is any good at all.
For all the Saints? Music by RVW?
Now the really hard task.
Name one that's any good that was written post 1970.
Leutgeb - I'm not so au fait with dates and so was being cautious... I bow to your superior knowledge!
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