www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Please tell me this isn't part of Byzantine chant now!!

//I've also attended a crowning ceremony where, after the betrothal in the back, the couple come down the aisle not to the 127th Psalm, but to, you guessed it, Wagner (albeit unaccompanied choir - but still).//

Who allows these things to happen?

There are two celebrations on a wedding day: the church�s liturgy or crowning and the family�s reception. One Byzantine pastor has a neat little formula for keeping things in perspective:

�Don�t tell the Church how to celebrate its wedding liturgies and, in turn, the Church won�t tell you how to celebrate your wedding reception.�

For too long, couples have dictated how they want their wedding to be done. Interesting how the church �community� is not invited into the equation. Total lack of respect, knowledge, and desire to have the Church celebrate its liturgies as they should be. Its all about the Burger King way.

We allow our children getting married to learn early on that their SELFISHNESS is to be respected and the Church�s almost 2,000 years of tradition and experience in the marriage business to be discarded so carelessly. Then soloists and others out of the blue blow in and ignore the cantor/choir.

What we need are some iron-clad cantors to instruct such folks to remove themselves from the cantor-stand and/or choir loft. They have no right for being there; nor do our priests have the right to ignore our own liturgical hymns and cantors for foreign imports.

Wagner�s opera music has no place in liturgy. Period. All liturgical celebrations should have God as the center and the context for why people are there. We have basically become an a-liturgical crowd desiring entertainment and sentimental cr-p.

BTW, what was so amusing about the bride "all dressed in white" ? Wagner's opera Lohengrin deals with an "illicit ceremony," and a "tragic bedroom fiasco" according to one commentary. Why would such material play a part in the ritual of marriage?

Again, who allows these things to happen?

It is quite obvious that years of ECF didn�t work; that Byzantine Pre-Cana classes didn�t work; that family instructions about learning to become a part of a �community� didn�t work; that the priests allowing this to happen don�t work.

It is the opening 'hymn' sung in Act III of the opera Lohengrin. Elsa, the bride, just got married that day and is led by the court ladies to her bridal chamber to be with her husband, Lohengrin. The famous wedding march, "Here comes the bride," is sung as a entrance hymn not for entering a church, but a bedchamber for a long-desired marital romp.

HERE COMES THE BRIDE:

"Here comes the bride
all dressed in white
sweetly serenly in the soft glowing light."

"Lovely to see,
marching to thee
sweet love united for eternity"


Layman Joe Thur

It always seemed to me that the "I" in the quoted song is referring to what Christ is saying not what we would be saying. I think you're misinterpreting the song.

Dear Joe:

In the case of the Wagner, it was the Redemptorist priests who run a large UGCC parish in northern New Jersey that shall remain nameless.

Yours,

kl

Since there's only one Redemptorist parish in that area of NJ, that doesn't leave too much to the imagination...

You are right, Joe. That should be a part of the marriage instruction, clearly laying out the boundaries of the service.

They can do what they want at the reception, but should respect the tradition of their church into which they are entering now as a crowned family.

Joe:

I don't disagree with the idea that one should just avoid substituting any selected piece for standard texts. And that, in the selection of additional hymns, careful attention should be paid to the ethos of the piece.

But the rant on Lohengrin? The details of the plot are no doubt lost on most, who hear it only at weddings. While it is about entering the bridal chamber (not unfamiliar imagery to us), it is hardly about a "romp"!

(I don't know where your text comes from, but it is not Lohengrin.)

It is sad to see Western-style songs entering into the Eastern Church here in the U.S.

We already have enough problems trying to accomplish restoration of what we had given up so long ago, and we don't need to add to it with this.

It is an unfortunate situation that must be dealt with before it goes too far.

While I won't say the music is one of the reasons I left the West for the East, it's not a big inducement to make me want to go back either

On the bright side...at least it was Be Not Afraid and not Gather Us In.....

Friends,

Many of the para-liturgical hymns commonly sung in the Ruthenian Church are said to be of RC origin. Yet I don't hear much comment about them. Perhaps it is because that transition happened so long ago no one remembers it and it was not recorded carefully. I know I was shocked when I went into St. Stephen's Cathedral in Budapest to venerate the relic of the saint there some years ago and Mass was being celebrated. The organist was playing (and people singing) the the tune of one of the hymns in the blue Marian hymnal, I can't know which way the cross-pollination happened but I'd imagine the Ruthenians "got" that melody from the RCs or the RCs and the Ruthenians got it from the same source.

What a coincidence...I hadn't noticed the date.

Happy St. Stephen's Day to all!

Yes, of course the "I" is referring to what Christ is supposed to be saying - that's exactly what I am saying!

Thomas Day (in "Why Catholics Can't Sing") describes this and similar songs as "Voice of God" songs, in which He lists other songs in the same style, such as "I am the Bread of Life," "Lord of the Dance" and "Whatsoever You Do," then goes on:

There is a beloved Carpatho-Rusyn hymn "Siju zapovid' daju vam" - "This new commandment I give to you", sung by both Byz. Catholic and Orthodox Rusyns (even in the OCA, who have mostly lost the tradition of Rusyn paraliturgical hymns). This hymn is all in the first person using the words of Jesus:

This new commandment I give to you,
That you love one another,
Just as I have so loved you.

By this will you show the world the truth,
That you are my disciples,
By your love for each other.

The original words in Rusyn/Church Slavonic are pretty much the same, in the first person as Christ. Are we modernists before our time?

I don't know, Lemko. Are you modernists in any other areas?

Please remember that I am primarily discussing a particular style of hymn that has almost completely wiped out any traditional hymns in the Roman Catholic Church over just the past few decades. And my concern at the beginning of this thread was that one of these hymns, "Be Not Afraid", had been sung at the end of a Byzantine Liturgy.

If that's okay with you, it's okay with me.

What is your definition of "traditional hymns" in the RCC?

Traditional hymns in the RCC include:
1) Latin hymns that are the _official_, or, to use Byz terms, "canonical" hymns of the Latin rite.
2) Vernacular hymns that vary by country. Prior to the 60's, vernacular hymns were not designed to reflect pop culture or banal emotionalism.

L-t

I think the current malaise in hymnody is a temporary cross, a purification from our sins, that we must endure patiently.

As a Friend of mine once said, "This too will pass."

Viva la Iglesia!