If liturgical music should serve recollection, where does that leave At the Name of Jesus?
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,515
    A few months ago we were singing At the Name of Jesus at Mass. I had programmed it, I was conducting it--this was a hymn I was "for." The words are a meditation on one of the great Pauline texts, Philippians 2:6-11, liturgically central as the NT canticle in Sunday First Vespers and as the second reading at the Mass for Palm Sunday. Vaughan Williams' tune King's Weston is majestic. But as the hymn progressed, the question came to me again and again: is this tune prayerful?
  • Paul F. Ford
    Posts: 864
    As Joseph Gelineau said, "After all, it is not the music that is important--what is important is what follows, the silence the music creates."
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,515
    That is a very interesting point.

    I'm thinking of office hymns, and how nice it is to sing a robust hymn before settling quietly into the psalter.
  • rogue63
    Posts: 410
    Kathy, you've raised some very good questions on these two discussions. I would answer your question by saying "Yes, King's Weston is a very prayerful tune." Not all prayer need be quiet and instrospective. The exultation of Psalm 150 or the triumphant procession of Psalm 24(23), or the glorious canticle of Psalm 19(18)? "Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei..."--it still gives me shivers when I read that psalm. This kind of joy and celebration is an important part of Catholic tradition, and to jettison a hymntune because it expresses joy and exultation is jettison much of the fun and perhaps even the very reason for being Catholic. Hope and wonder lead us on to dream of eternity, for our earthly existence is frequently a bore, or drudgery, or toil, or whatever. I say that celebration and joy deserve a place in our musical praxis.

    I'll paraphrase Chesterton: if we were commanded to neither sing nor dance, then that would be a prohibition. But when we are told "Sing over here" and then "Dance over there" that gives us a wondrous freedom, tempered by discipline.
  • G
    Posts: 1,401
    Yes, if for no other reason than that the tune serves the unquestionably prayerful text so magnificently.


    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • Ken of Sarum
    Posts: 406
    This hymn and the music for which it was written for, was originally used as a hymn on Ascension Day, and to be sung in processional; either in or out. It is a hymn of exultation.

    "Stanza 1 announces the triumph of the ascended Christ to whom "every knee should bow" (Phil. 2: 10). In stanza 2 Christ is the "mighty Word" (see John 1:1-4) through whom "creation sprang at once to sight." Stanzas 3 and 4 look back to Christ's humiliation, death, resurrection, and ascension (Phil. 2:6-9). Stanza 5 is an encouragement for submission to Christ, for us to have the "mind of Christ," and stanza 6 looks forward to Christ's return as "King of glory." The text is not only concerned with the name 'Jesus," whose saving work it confesses, but also with the glory and majesty that attends "the name of Jesus."
  • IanWIanW
    Posts: 763
    Joseph Gelineau wrote:

    After all, it is not the music that is important--what is important is what follows, the silence the music creates.

    There may be less to this than meets the eye. If the music determines the nature of the silence, then it is important.
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