Earl_Grey,

Thanks for your interest in the hymn texts of Worship IV, and for your wanting to have a professional discussion here. You raise some interesting questions in a respectful way. For that, I thank you.

There were two editorial committees for Worship IV. I was a member of the committee that chose the hymnal's contents. Once the hymns were chosen, they were passed on to a second committee, called the "English Text Review Committee," who reviewed each text. I don't want to sound like I'm "passing the buck," so to speak, but I was not a member of the text committee, so I can't comment on the rationale behind most of the specific text alterations.

I do know that the text committee worked very hard scrutinizing and discussing every text, but I was not privy to their deliberations. And I'm fairly certain that the members of that committee do not regularly participate in this CMAA forum.

As far as orthodox theology, the entire contents of Worship IV had to be submitted to the Chicago Archdiocese for approval. A notice is printed in the front matter of the hymnal from Chicago's Vicar General stating that the material "is free from doctrinal and moral error."

In another recent post here, I quoted that the editor of the new Presbyterian hymnal said of her committee: “We will inevitably have made some wrong decisions as a hymnal committee; but to the best of my knowledge we made no careless or cavalier ones.”

I think that same comment could be applied to both of the Worship IV committees.

I've seen worse. At least it's not "sees Christ rise." And I'm pleased they have more than 3 verses.

It's interesting to listen to layfolk complain about music, because their complaints are always so pedestrian and banal. But still, there's some validity in them. One of the most common ones, which sounds so silly is "they changed the words!!" People get REALLY worked up about this, even if the change isn't politically-driven. I found this sort of complaint so silly, myself.

Yet, the few times I've had to actually sing these texts, it IS hard! "Thee, Thou" to "You, Your" is a little trippy. But full-blown changes, "O Love how deep how broad how high it fills the heart with ecstasy," for example (Methodist hymnal) is just hard to sing if you know the other text well. And these editors often don't consider ease of singing in their text modifications!

I'm firmly in the "keep everything" (even "whelkin") camp. Or at least admit that their is a reception that's occurred with many of these texts, rather than ramming though political or linguistic agendas.

I once edited/compiled a "hymnal" (songbook) for a group of 12 people who all liked each other and were using the hymnal for a single, communal worship service.

While it is possibly valid to discuss specific issues with individual choices, I have two things to contribute:
1. If you've never done anything like that, it's way harder than you think.
2. There is absolutely no way to declare unbreakable principles and stick to them (always use the original text, use standard harmonies, don't transpose down, etc, etc). No way whatsoever.

People get cranky about stuff. Shocker.

Re: "prints of love," the Latin office hymns are full of ambiguities that are very close to puns.

Here's a little chart of the changes (see attached PDF page), with apparent reasons indicated, as best I can discern them.

Most of the changes from the original to the Worship III version appear to fall in these areas:
-- improve singability/euphony (5)
-- avoid thee/thy (4)
-- avoid awkward phrasing (2)

Most of the changes from Worship III to Worship IV appear to fall in these areas:
-- avoid he/him/his (10)
-- avoid antique words (2)

Some of the changes in Worship III are plainly constructive changes aimed at making the text more singable or euphonious. Most are arguably cases of dumbing down, following a language ideology of eliminating "thou" or other words considered antique.

Most of the changes in Worship IV follow another ideology, so as to minimize referring to Christ as "he" or "him". In some cases the "he" or "him" had been present in the original text, but (perhaps ironically) in slightly over half the cases the Unwanted Pronoun had been introduced by previous changes, maneuvering to eliminate "thou".

The resulting text is within the bounds of orthodoxy, yet the pattern of changes seems to show the influence of passing language fads -- and in the case of feminist language ideology, there may be a temptation to downplay the human male identity of Jesus, with possible harmful effects to Christology. Editorial committees need to question whether they should continue to follow such ideologies, especially in cases where the Church has warned against their influence on liturgical translation.

Most of the changes from Worship III to Worship IV appear to fall in these areas:
-- avoid he/him/his (10)
-- avoid antique words (2)

Chonak,
Let me assure you that nothing could be farther from the truth. I've already treated why "native" and "reascends" was changed. If changing stanzas 5 and 6 to second person were done to "avoid he/him," then why would we not have changed "him" to "Christ" in the very first line?

A few thoughts:

First: I'm delighted that you're offering comments here, Ron!

Second: Within the six stanzas of "Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise" in Worship IV, the words "he," "him," or "his" are used for a combined total of TWELVE times! I think it's quite a stretch for anyone to even surmise that the text was influenced by "feminist language ideology" or a "temptation to downplay the human male identity of Jesus."

Third: Even the revered Episcopal Hymnal 1940 uses the phrase "highest heav'n" rather than "native heav'n" at the conclusion of the first stanza of this hymn.

It was entirely in jest. I know, I didn't put it in purple text like everyone else does, but I never think about that.

The Christology professed here by Fr. Krisman is so utterly mistaken that one wonders where to begin to refute it, among the doubtless dozens of conciliar canons that apply. Perhaps with the Chalcedonian decree, which said that the union of the two natures in the one divine Person is such that the natures are unchanged (one of the four great alpha-privative adverbs). The divine Son, "ever at the Father's side," became Incarnate.

Cheap accusations of "Docetism" aren't helpful at all.

Kathy,
Are you denying that the divine Son of God, Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, before becoming incarnate, had but one nature?

Not completely off topic but slightly varying:

Fr. Chepponis and Fr. Krisman,

Could you comment on the (not quite as recent) changes to the texts of the verses of James Moore's "Taste and See?"

Those changes seem unneeded and completely damage the singability of the verses.

Also, where do companies like GIA, et al. gather their information on changing texts like the examples provided in this thread?

Thanks!

The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became incarnate here on earth. The God-Man did not exist from all eternity in heaven; heaven was not the God-Man’s “native” place,

This sort of language is problematic. As you know, the "who" of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity is the same as the "who" of the God-Man. That makes for a seeming contradiction when Fr. Krisman writes that "The God-Man did not exist from all eternity in heaven" -- unless one were to add some qualifier such as "in a human nature".

Everyone has "Edit" on their own posts and "Thanks" for everyone else's posts. That way nobody can edit your posts and you can't thank yourself.

The "Thanks" link allows you to express thanks for a particular message. The software is designed thoughtfully to not let users look silly by thanking themselves. :-)

In the meantime, Fr. Krisman, if you can scroll back a bit, I did try to indicate what seemed theologically imprecise in a couple of your comments. My notes are at
http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/comment/93596#Comment_93596
and
http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/comment/93615#Comment_93615

Really? So in writing this line:

No, the God-Man did not descend from heaven, so he cannot re-ascend it.

you weren't using "God-Man" to refer to a person? You used the pronoun "he"; "he cannot". That means you were talking about a person, not a union (an "it").

Sincerely, if you don't think that you're using the terminology in a confusing way, don't take my word for it, find a dogmatic theologian, show him your writings on this web page, and get an expert opinion. I'll leave the matter there.

--

And for now prescinding from all that, let's get back to the hymn.

You wrote:

No, the God-Man did not descend from heaven, so he cannot re-ascend it.

So if I understand you aright, you're objecting to "re-ascends" because it cannot be predicated of Christ after the Incarnation. Is that a fair description of your view?

Why are you limiting the framework in this way? Wesley is taking a broader view.

Wesley plainly is not limiting his vision to what happens only from the Incarnation onward. He speaks of Christ who was "awhile to mortals given". Therefore, Wesley is speaking of the whole Christ, the eternal Logos who became incarnate, lived, suffered, died, arose, and ascended. It is perfectly legitimate in that framework to say that Christ descended (John 3:13) and re-ascended.

What's your basis for limiting the subject matter to be only about Christ from the Incarnation onward?

.

Suffice it to say that hymnal editors have had a problem with Charles Wesley's "Hail the Day" for quite some time now. It did not begin with Worship IV.

I tend to agree on "Hail the Day..." I always liked the music more than the text.

.

One of the great things about Wesley's text is its use of Psalm 24.

I agree with you, Kathy.

I chose this hymn as a starting point since I figured it was fresh in our minds following the recent solemnity. I'm not particularly or sentimentally attached to it. So while I understand Adam's point above I don't think it necessarily applies here. I also figured this hymn would be much less contentious than the metamorphosis of Faith of Our Fathers to A Living Faith.

I'm reminded of some commentary I read about the rationale ICEL used in some of its Missal translations, and why they chose to leave the Lord's Prayer untouched even though some members of the committee could make a very rational and compelling argument for a more literal translation, and furthermore it's the only place in the Missal where the formal "thy" is used. It was decided to leave well enough alone since the English text of the Lord's prayer is so ingrained in the culture. I guess I don't understand why that same logic isn't applied in traditional hymnody.

For example; "Father, We Thank You who Have planted" just sounds awkward to my ear. Perhaps if I had first learned it that way I would feel differently. So why change it? Was there something wrong with the original text? IMHO there's no need to make what seems to be an arbitrary change to a beautiful and well known text. The same could be said for All Creatures of Our God and King. If eliminating (or at least significantly reducing) the use of the masculine pronoun wasn't the reason, why don't we sing "O Praise Him" anymore. There are countless such examples where the text changes are seemingly agenda driven or at least not carefully thought through despite all the claims to the contrary.

And if the blanket decision was made to only use contemporary, conversational American English in the hymnal, then why does Lead Me, Guide Me retain the use of thee/thou.

And I would also thank Fr. Krisman for joining the discussion. I very much appreciated your explanation of I received the Living God on the other thread.

Perhaps this is off topic, here: chonak please remove if it seems too out of place.

I was somewhat reluctant to join this discussion since I am not an author/poet/writer, and don't have any formal training in theology, but Earl Grey has raised a point that bothers me no end, and chonak mentioned it up above: the elimination of Thee/Thy and other 'antique' language.

As a musician with an interest in, nay, passion for early music, I find it incredible that we today seem to prefer Bach played on 17th and 18th century violins, or exact replicas thereof; we use Urtext editions where possible, and if they don't exist, edit our own scores; we compare everything with the first edition to make sure our readings of both music and text are accurate (see the discussion about sight/fight in Tallis' Third Tune); No one today would be taken seriously if they played Handel from the Shirmer editions in recital. But how is it that when it comes to hymnody we can't seem to respect the author's original text as he concieved it, in even the smallest areas.

I understand that as a practical book, which hymnals are supposed to be, it might not be appropriate to use a word or phrase that would require people to bring a dictionary or thesaurus to Mass, but to consistently be ammending texts to make them au courrante seems short sighted to me: after all what's at the hight of taste to day is frowned upon tomorrow.

I mean, if we were to 'fix' Dickinson or Tennyson or Keats to remove archaic words or phrases, and then attempt to publish it as a serious practical book, people would be appalled, furious, even. Yet it's perfectly fine to 'fix' Neale or Watts or Wesley. Why do these texts have to be modernised? Why does it seem that the driving force with textual changes in hymnals (of all denomenations) is to be 'modern' and 'relevant'; can't the author's text just stand as is?

They are both offensive - equally. If Monk wrote it that way, let it stand. (I'm glad that you made the distinction between the melody and the harmonization.)

The only exception I make is for JS Bach changing the rhythms and melodies of chorales by Luther and Co. We grant Bach an Indult. +

Let's change one word in the text of a hymn.
Let's change one note in the melody of a hymn.
Is one more of an offence than the other?

They are both offensive - equally.

And good, traditional minded hymnals would never do such a thing.

Line by line (from original to w4- ignoring the intermediary w3 unless relevant) and
JUST MY OPINION...


CW-1.2 Ravished from our wishful eyes!
W4-1.2 To his throne above the skies;

"Ravished" means something very different today than apparently it did to Wesley. Although there is also an apparent change in agency indicative of our modern theological language. We always talk about Christ "Ascending," on his own power. "Ravished" suggests being taken. We make this distinciton with the Assumption of Mary vs. the Ascension of Jesus. Of course, the Gregorian Propers use both to describe the event in Acts: "eum ascendentum in caelum" and "Hic Iesus, qui assumptus est a vobis in caelum." Apparently two different Latin translation of the original passage from Acts (as far as I can tell). Wesley seemed to have preferred the "taken up" notion, while most Catholics today would prefer the "went up" notion.

CW-1.3 Christ, awhile to mortals given,
W4-1.3 Christ, the Lamb for sinners giv’n

Wesley's original suggests that Christ was given for "awhile" and then (cf. above) taken back from us. I don't know if this was influenced by his theology vis-a-vis the Real Presence (or lack of it), but Catholics believe no such thing. The revision seems, if slightly inelegant, more theologically sound than the original.

CW-1.4 Re-ascends his native heav'n.
W4-1.4 Now ascends the highest heav’n

Is it really "the"? Seems like "to" would make more sense. At any rate- my opinion is on this line is stated above.


CW-2.1 There the pompous triumph waits,
W4-2.1 There the glorious triumph waits;

Obviously an improvement, as the meaning of "pompous" has so changed as to render the original ridiculous.


CW-2.3-4 Wide unfold the radient scene, | Take the King of Glory in!”
W4-2.3-4 Christ has conquered death and sin; | Take the King of Glory in!

"Scene" and "in" no longer rhyme in American English, as they did at the time of Wesley. Others differ on this point, but I am of the opinion that things which are supposed to rhyme should rhyme. Hymnals aren't intended to be historical records of literary merit, but useful, usable aides to worship.

So, once you get to "rhymes with 'in,'" the previous, line 3 becomes an obvious direction to go. Besides, we're more interested in Christ and his deeds than in the shining view of the eternal city (I assume).

CW-3.1-2 Him though highest heaven receives, | Still he loves the earth he leaves;
W4-3.1-2 Highest heav’n its Lord receives, | Yet he loves the earth he leaves;

I prefer CW here, a strong down beat on "Him" (meaning Christ) is a good thing. On the other hand, W4's version is a little more clear, which might also be a good thing. I have more faith in average people's ability to understand this kind of inverted grammar than most publishers do. On the other hand, I keep finding out that this faith is often misplaced.

Either way- there is no change in meaning here.


CW-3.4 Still he calls mankind his own,
W4-3.4 Still he calls the world his own.

This is tough.

I am of the opinion that using male-normative language FOR PEOPLE IN GENERAL is in appropriate. Moreover- my, or any (liberal, PC) academic's opinion isn't relevant. What is relevant is whether regular people in pews find it offputting to the point that it distracts from the purpose of the text. (The purpose of the text here being emphatically not related to theology of gender or any other thing wherein this usage is important in and of itself). So, I would be inclined, as an editor, to make the adjustment made by W4.

On the other hand:
Part of the theological point made in the line is not just that we humans "belong" to Christ in the sense of ownership (we are his own), but moreover that he persists in having our nature- human beings are his own kind. This is an important theological point.

I would not fault any editor from making either decision, nor would I find much fault in anybody's taking umbrage with the editor's decision. I don't know that there is a way to "win" on this one.


CW-4.2 See, he shews the prints of love.
W4-4.2 See, he shows the wounds of love;

"Shews" to "shows" is an obvious choice. Due to the rise of machine-based printing, I'm not sure that "print" - in the sense of stamp or mark - carries the meaning intended by CW in the original. I don't know that I would have gone with "wounds," but I certainly don't think it is unreasonable.


CW-4.4 Blessings on his church below.
W4-4.4 Blessings on his Church below.

What? No outrage over the blatant change from the original to support a theological ideology? Shocked.


CW-5.1-2 Still for us his death he pleads; | Prevalent, he intercedes;
W4-5.1-2 Christ, for us still intercede, | By your suff’ring for us plead;

I do wish more modern people understood the notion of Christ "pleading his death," but I'm afraid the original is likely to be incomprehensible to most people. And "prevalent"? Does anyone, anywhere, still use that to mean dominant, powerful, and strong- as opposed to common and widespread?

And the notion that Christ pleads for us is preserved (if somewhat modified) in line 5.2

Switching from describing Christ to addressing Christ (which happens a verse later in the original) seems to be a device used to fix the language problems, and I'm not sure the result is ideal. It's still a little too mouthy, in my opinion, but it does have the benefit of being understandable.


CW-5.1-2 Near himself prepares our place, | Harbinger of human race.
W4-5.1-2 Make us worthy of the place, | Which you offer us by grace.

Any normal English speaker today would find the lack of an article before "human race" to be somewhat odd. Also, I do wish more people knew and used the word "harbinger," but again- hymnals aren't textbooks.

I wish the notion of "human race" could have been preserved here. It's a minor point to me, but I think its use in religious texts (as in my rendition of the second line of Ave Verum as "crucified to save our race") emphasizes the fact that humanity is a cohesive racial unit, and that our ethnic identities and notions of race are arbitrary and not based in reality. But that wasn't really the point of this text.

Overall, I think v5 is the least satisfactory of the W4 version, but I do still think it is a practical improvement over the original.

I think the W3 version is actually the best of the three mentioned above, and I'm curious what was found wanting in it by the W4 committee:
Still for us he intercedes,
His prevailing death he pleads,
Near himself prepares our place,
He the first fruits of our race.

It preserves the voice of the original, and most of its language (prevailing in place of prevalent, first fruits for harbinger, etc..)


CW-6.1 There we shall with thee remain,
W4-6.1 There we shall with you remain,

I really don't understand the desire to replace "thee/thou" with "you/your." I think it creates all sorts of problems that then have to be solved some other way. Of all the archaisms in the corpus of Christian Hymnody, this is the one thing that EVERYBODY still knows what it means.


CW-6.2 Partners of thy endless reign;
W4-6.2 Partner of your endless reign;

Why singular? Is that a typo above. Seems weird.


CW-6.4 Find our heaven of heavens in thee!
CW-6.4 Live with you eternally.

The original is much more poetic, which I greatly prefer. It could be argues that the revision is more theological unambiguous, which is apparently a thing with a lot of people (usually the same people who complain about text changes, but whatever). I find both to be a little sketchy, as the subject (we) has be separated from the preicate by two and a half intervening lines and a semi-colon. But I've also argues other places that such grammar rules are merely a suggestion, so- it's really just a matter of taste (as with all things).