Re: Were You There

The other year, I thought I was very clever to translate it into Latin. I talked about it to my mom, and found out that she'd sung it in Latin at her school, which was long before Vatican II. And yes, they did sing that song at the preconciliar EF Masses at her school, because the real folk music craze was decidedly preconciliar. Not folk in Latin at Mass, though.

Re: Behold the Wood of the Cross/Gilligan

Gilligan's Island starts with a very standard "come all ye" opening verse, because it's supposed to be the Ballad of Gilligan's Island. It's supposed to sound a bit pentatonic or whatever, because it's supposed to sound like a sea shanty. That kind of scale routinely sounds "minor" to people.

If you want to make a song sound somber in today's musical vocabulary, you go to minor scales. A lot of Catholics go to the pentatonic folky sounding minor, under the impression that it sounds like Gregorian chant.

So yes, the Gilligan's come all ye and the faux chant of "Behold the Wood of the Cross" happen to hit a lot of the same notes.

All I can say is, no I wasn't there, and I don't have to hear that song for another year. I keep hoping that the new missal translation will require new hymnals for the mass parts that change. Perhaps a good excuse for selecting a hymnal without the music I want to be rid of - assuming such a hymnal exists and gets revised in time.

My problem with Were You There? is that I can never quite figure out how to pray the words to this hymn.

One Good Friday, I had been given the grace to experience deeply into the Liturgy. So much had been "right". Then, at communion, the organist began the strains of "Were You There?" Here were my people, coming to receive the very living Body of Him how had suffered His Passion and Death for their salvation, who was willing to look like bread so that He might be their food, and what were they directed to do? As they were coming down the aisle to approach their moment of most intimate union with their beloved, they were singing to each other "Were you there?" "How about you? Were you there?" "I wonder who was there. Were you?" "I dunno, but sometimes it makes me tremble? Does it make you tremble, too?"

Okay, it so I'm having a little fun with it. But it shattered me to think that my people were focused on asking each other those questions and talking about how "it" (whatever "it" is) effecting the sensation of trembling in them, instead of focusing on the moment of intimacy and profound gratitude that was afforded them.

The tune holds together as a piece of music well enough. It might or might not be the right style for a given setting, and I think we can talk about that till the cows come home. But, I never could figure out what's going on in that text. The closest I could come was to think, "Were you there at Mass, at the Sacrifice of Calvary, extended in time and space?" But, if we ARE at Mass, wouldn't it be more appropriate to sing that text in a setting other than Mass. (Granted, the Good Friday liturgy is not a Mass, per se, but it is part of the "one Liturgy" of the Triduum. I still don't know what to do with those words within a Good Friday Liturgy.)

In the end, try as I might--and, please believe me, I've TRIED!--I never know what to do when I'm given those words, and always wish someone would have given me different ones--ones that would help me to pray.

I have made peace with "Were You There?" because using it gave me a way to throw out something worse, "The Old Rugged Cross." You know, on a hill far away, stood an old Chevrolet...

I use the Reproaches, too. I stick WYT in as a post communion hymn to keep peace in the choir. They sang it for 20 years before I took the job in 2001.

I like "Were You There" a lot. It's a great devotional song. But yeah, I wish we could sing something else that's more... solemn. The whole point of devotional songs is that they're more human-y and less sacred-y. But most parishes rarely sing anything above that plane that really is sacred and solemn, so it makes devotional songs less meaningful and effective than they're meant to be.

Several years ago, I taught a sixth-grade class that absolutely loved to sing. I quickly discovered that this was the best way to teach them, and I made songs for everything! I can still picture them giggling over memorizing the bones of the body to the tune of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

During the season of Lent that year, our class went weekly to pray the Stations of the Cross. I introduced them to singing the Stations to the tune, “Where You There.” Each Station had a different phrase that explained it.1 As I listened to the voices of my students echo through the church, I could not help thinking of a saying of St. Teresa of Calcutta: “Suffering itself may be nothing, but suffering shared with Christ’s passion is a wonderful gift.”2

Let me explain.

Throughout this Lenten prayer form, we meet individuals who assisted Jesus in carrying out His mission; the salvation of humankind.

We meet Herod, who condemned him. Who of us can remember moments in our life when we did or said something that was “good” despite the reaction of others who shrugged their shoulders or wagged their heads? We stand beside Jesus as he is condemned.

We see Jesus fall under the weight of the cross, not once or twice, but three times. Who of us have not gone to the Sacrament of Reconciliation only to confess the same sin over and over again? Because of the grace of that sacrament, we have the strength to get up and begin again. We stand with Jesus as he struggles to continue His journey.

We meet Mary on the journey and under the cross. Who of us can’t remember a loved one who was sick or hospitalized and how we helped them with our mere presence? In moments like this, we stand with Mary.

We meet Simon the Cyrene. Who of us hasn’t helped others carry their cross despite our personal inconvenience? We become the hands of Simon in the 21st century.

We meet Veronica, who wiped Jesus’ face. Who of us hasn’t cooled the brow of someone with a fever, or tidied the appearance of another? At those times, our towel becomes the veil of Veronica.

We meet the women who grieve for Jesus. Who of us hasn’t listened to the sorrow of someone who has lost a loved one, a job, or a home? In those times, we stand shoulder to shoulder with these women.

We meet the soldiers who strip, nail and crucify Jesus. Who of us hasn’t done something “because everyone is doing it?” Who of us hasn’t used social media or technology in such a way that belittles or objectifies others? Our hands are as bloodstained as those first-century solders.

We meet Joseph of Arimathea, who owned the tomb where Jesus was laid. Who of us can’t remember a time in which we too were hopeless? We stand with Joseph dumbfounded in witnessing the empty tomb.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Oh, yes! Then. Now. What a wonderful gift!

By Sister Geralyn Schmidt, SCC, Special to The Witness

This hymn may have Protestant origins, but it is more Catholic than Protestant in meaning, isn't it?

After all, yes, we were there -- rather, we *are* there -- when that same Sacrifice is made present in the Holy Mass.

The depth of emotion, theological richness, and poetry that this song is able to achieve with such simple means is truly humbling for me, with my pretensions both as poetaster and songster. God only grants the gift of such music, I am convinced, to people in deep suffering.

It's a song that a child can learn in five minutes, but that an adult can carry with them through the most difficult trials of life, lean on, and take comfort in. I shall never outgrow it, and that last "tremble," with the longing rise of a fourth following it, will always send a shiver up my spine when I hear it sung pp by a choir that knows what it's doing.

Not only that, it is a direct and raw expression of grief at the death of the Lord. So much hymnody avoids that kind of raw emotion, but that is exactly the sort of expression that can make the reality of the thing quite palpable.

My favorite verse is rarely printed. It's almost Classical, in its refusal to speak directly of the profound mystery of the moment of Christ's death. It looks away, averts its gaze, hides its eyes from a reality too terrible for words to express:

"Were you there when the sun refused to shine?
Were you there when the sun refused to shine?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble,
tremble,
tremble!
Were you there when the sun refused to shine?"

Coupled with that rock-solid, utterly expressive tune, that verse does me in every time I'm fortunate enough to hear it sung.

Done in four parts ATTB by our Men's Choir on Good Friday, it's something to hear.

======================================

The hymn would be simple enough, too, to invite meditation on other mysteries of the Passion by the addition of further verses. Perhaps it's under-exploited -- that's exactly, after all, how this form of song, the spiritual, is meant to work.

"Were you there, when she held her broken Son?
Were you there, when she held her broken Son?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble,
tremble,
tremble!
Were you there, when she held her broken Son?"

As should the practice I have seen of using a recording of Samuel Barber's "Agnus Dei" a.k.a. "Adagio for Strings" as the quasi-processional for Good Friday.

Doesn't diminish the intrinsic value of the work, or its beauty, that it gets abused.

Hymns like "Were You There" make me think of that last verse of "Brightest and Best,"

"Vainly we offer each ample oblation,
vainly with gifts would His favor secure:
richer by far is the heart's adoration,
dearer to God are the prayers of the poor."

Yes, it's easy to mock the simplicity of the structure of the piece, "written" as it was by illiterate, enslaved people, designed for singing without any printed aids. It lacks refinement, erudition, certain literary features and poetic devices. It's nothing if not the prayer of the truly poor.

But what a prayer it is, and what a tune they crafted! What a beautiful tune, to adorn those poignant thoughts of the death of Christ, and to enrich with that tune, what is lacking in the text. It's like the "jubilus" of Good Friday. The words remind you of what the tune is telling you, or helping you experience, not the other way round.

And, like a jubilus, which speaks past what words can tell, it expresses something that many other Passiontide hymns do not, in my experience, in a very direct way.

As should the practice of using a recording as the quasi-processional.

And I fixed that for you as well! A liturgical abuse, no matter what the context.

Thank the three of you, I'm more than aware.

If a fabulous choir sang the Barber live on GF for the procession, it would likewise be an abuse.

Neither, however, ruins the piece. Abusus non tollit usum, which was the point.

Didn't Barber approve the choral setting?

wikipedia "his own arrangement of his Adagio for Strings".

were heard singing "Were you there when they laid him in the truck?

Now, THAT is an entirely appropriate use of the hymn! ...and, some can actually atest that 'they were there'!