well, some people on this forum would have you tarred and feathered for using it at all, since it is neither in Latin, nor a chant, but mainly because it has a copyright of 1982.

However, since it can be sung reverently and there is nothing heretical in the text, I would agree that it probably wouldn't be appropriate to use before Palm Sunday. Lent is more focused on things like repentance until Palm Sunday, then that's when we first start to look deeply at the Passion during Mass.

It deals very nicely with the actual emotions that normal people (not those looking down from the choir loft) may experience during such an event as the Veneration of the Cross.

I get moderately amused/annoyed at overly profound theological critiques of sentimental Christian hymns. For many of us, if not most of us, the sentiments, properly speaking, are the first, most viable entryway for transforming grace. And isn't that what Passiontide is all about?

In the case of "Were You There", the author's theology/ecclesiology/what-have-you may not pass Thomistic muster, nor add much to the Church's great history of apologetics. But, heaven's sake gang, are we too high falutin to stand trembling (even "tremblin' ") before the unfathomable mystery of the cross? the tomb? the empty tomb?

No, none of us was "there". But through the sacramental mysteries, we can be "there" as surely as those who were. That seems like very fine ecclesiology to my simple mind... and sentiments.

Sentimental music *does* lift *some* people spiritually.
Many people have come to a fuller spiritual experience through an initial encounter with emotional or "pretty" music, and it was only after this experience that they were able to appreciate the deeper spirituality that our Church has to offer. (myself included.)
I know that some would argue that everyone can be spiritually uplifted through chant and latin, but I strongly disagree, since I know there are people who have such emotional baggage that prevents them from hearing such things without rolling their eyes in disgust, as they worry about going back to the "bad old days" or whatever.
Why can't we at least *try* to please them by occasionally incorporating a song which is at least not in theological error, and can be sung in a reverent manner? Yes of course I agree there is no deep theology in it, but it is not incorrect to think about myself standing at the foot of the cross!

Maybe it would be suitable for a parish observance of the Stations of the Cross. Or is it permissible for a choir to sing before the start of the Easter Vigil?

By the way, it's a good bit older than 1982. James Weldon Johnson collected it in his Second Book of Negro Spirituals in 1926, with these words:

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree…

Were you there when they pierced him in the side...

Were you there when the sun refused to shine…

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb…

If the version you have includes a resurrection verse ("when they rolled the stone away"), that's probably a later addition and not really appropriate during Lent.

as a famous writer once said..."brick by brick..."
we're not going to change the world (and the things that our congregations expect to hear) in one day, and so realistically some of us *must* incorporate possibly questionable songs occasionally into the liturgy as we attempt to lead our congregations to greener pastures...

I pick my battles carefully and wisely. "Were You There" is ingrained in my parish for Good Friday. I can live with it once a year. However, I did throw out "The Old Rugged Cross" when I took the job in 2001.

"On a hill, far away,
Stood an old Chevrolet..."

I sometimes think those words instead, in my more wicked moments. I don't think it's possible to have everything at once. I played/directed for a confirmation mass yesterday evening which contained several Latin pieces, along with some other very good music. The reactions from the congregation and the bishop were favorable. We will succeed, as the old saw goes, "step by step, inch by inch..."

Brick-by -brick is good. Probably it prevents a disaster. And all the musicians know their parish situation the best. I just wanted to mention that I learned the difference between the "sacred music' and 'sentimental music' from this forum, and the liturgy is not about our emotion. I'm very thankful for that. It's the simple truth, but we can easily forget; the focus of the liturgy is on whom? And the Sacraments are being celebrated as if they are just human activities not as works of God in many local parishes. I 'tremble,' not because of my emtional baggage, but because I experienced the sacredness of the altar and the miracle of almighty God who is coming to me with His infinite love at the mass, and the sacred music truly leads us to that perfect truth, not to the half of the truth. I truly don't hear that kind of 'tremble' in this song.

Friends,

It is difficult to imagine, for me, that a song can equally fulfill the requirements of the genre of Spiritual and also fulfill the requirements of the genre of music appropriate at Mass.

It must be one or the other.

Either it is a motorcycle or a truck. They are different. One has certain advantages, and the other does too. But don't blame a motorcycle for being a motorcycle, or a truck for being a truck.

The biggest problem with the song, for me, is the STYLE.

With regards to whether it is "emotional," my emotions are deeply stirred by all kinds of music. My emotions are also deeply stirred when I hear CRUX FIDELIS, or TAMTUM ERGO, or VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS.

I hate it when people pretend that chant is not emotional. It is. But it is not gushy. It is dignified.

VCS = VSS? That's news to me. At our recent Episcopal Ordination, both were sung - VCS by all, VSS by choir only. One is an Office Hymn the other one of precious few official Sequences left to us by Rome - out of the once 5,000 such Sequences! Of course, in its new form, VSS is no longer linked to the Alleluia (Gospel) Verse, and the concluding "Alleluia" after the Sequence "Amen" seems to be suppressed as well. I guess that makes all Sequences equivalent to Office Hymns, and everything is now interchangeable?

IMO this is just one more indication of the break in liturgical continuity, although a small one. The Sequences evolved out of tropes to the Alleluia Verses, the last of the Propers to be included in the Mass. I guess it all got out of hand - too many Sequences, and some straying a bit too far from their Scriptural references - so the vast majority of them were relegated to the dust-bin of history. Luckily, some survived as stand-alone hymns. The rest can be found, at least their texts, in "Analecta Hymnica". Maybe it's time for a rediscovery.

so where was the pastor during all of this wallowing in the muddy smelly trenches?

I think that he was praying for me. And got a headache.