Hymn for Year of Consecrated Life?
  • lmassery
    Posts: 422
    Hey everyone - what do you think of this hymn for the year of consecrated life that is posted on the USCCB website?
    Do you know of anything else?


    http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/vocations/consecrated-life/year-of-consecrated-life/upload/Hymn-Text-for-Year-of-Consecrated-Life.pdf
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    At least they didn't get Marty Haugen to write the music. Things are looking up!
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    Hmm.

    Could use one more draft to refine rhymes and meter.

    Perhaps it focuses too much on the active life.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • BruceL
    Posts: 1,072
    I felt bad about not thinking of this.


    ...then I read the text.

    I really want to like this, but I feel like this comes across as "THE HYMN OF THE GREAT COLLECTIVE", not as a "thank you, God, for this vocation...how can we help you more" type of thing. Sort of as if, as a married person, my hymn in honor of matrimony somehow delineated all that I do as a father/husband/etc., rather than raising the heart to God. Also, rhyme in V. 1 is bad.

    Am I crazy? Uncharitable? I'd welcome the input...
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • ghmus7
    Posts: 1,483
    It's not Shakespeare, but a VAST improvement over the Hymn for the year of faith. that was truly unsingable.
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    Indeed! The "Year of Faith" song was pathetic! :-)

    But anyway, the people reading this forum could probably offer an improved text for the Year of Consecrated Life.
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,394
    My fundamental problem with the text is that it does not really do what the hymn writer states as her intention, namely: "The 4 verses of this hymn text refer to 4 significant aspects of consecrated life: Community and the Vows of poverty, obedience and chastity." In fact, if that intention had not been explicitly stated in those words, it's hard to imagine the typical reader/singer arriving at such an understanding from the hymn text itself, a text that reads like one more example of a hymn with the theme of Christian discipleship.

    Now there is nothing wrong with hymns which talk about the Church's call from Christ to follow him and to serve the world in his name. But if that's the kind of hymn desired for use at Masses in thanksgiving for the various expressions of consecrated life in the Church today, there are quite a few better texts to choose from.

    Also "community" is not necessarily an aspect of all forms of consecrated life in the Church these days. Think, for instance, of consecrated virgins, and hermits. "Community" is not an aspect of those expressions of consecrated life.
    Thanked by 2lmassery BruceL
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    It's complicated, isn't it? There are probably some forms of consecrated lay life that don't involve poverty either, hm?

    But perhaps it's just not possible to be completely comprehensive.

    (tune: UNDE ET MEMORES)

    A mission for this hymn let us conceive:
    to sing the praise of consecrated life,
    yet its diversity we must perceive
    in hermits and in married man and wife,
    While mendicants and cenobites agree
    At least we all are pledged to chastity.
    Thanked by 3Richard Mix CHGiffen ghmus7
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