1. I went to "Wednesday school" for the better part of my childhood.

2. It is scandalous. I have never been bread to Christ, nor wine to Christ. Exactly the opposite.

3. I know a few who would be too eager to sing a tune like this. It's absolute heresy and I can't believe that the bishops ever gave their approval.

OK, ryan, it's heresy. Don't sing it. Pace as well.

Liam,

Citations?

I don't know if it is heresy or not, but I think these kinds of touchy-feely songs about us becoming "bread" can cause confusion among those who may be struggling to understand the true nature of the Eucharist. Is it merely bread - a sign, a symbolic sharing, a "meal" - or is it the true Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ? My wife says these songs are harmless, but I say why go there? Why not be crystal clear?

Even worse than the Haas, in my opinion, is Rory Cooney's "Bread of Life":

"I myself am the bread of life, You and I are the bread of life, taken and blessed, broken and shared by Christ that the world may live."

Similar concepts appear in Haas's "Now We Remain", Farrell's "Christ Be Our Light" (verse 3), and Alstott's "Gather Us Together".

Clemens, ACTS and Kauffman were real big in my last job. I didn't have an issue, and I don't have an issue with that song...except when it's in the context of liturgical worship. I believe songs like that are fine outside of the liturgy, but inside, they are at best confusing and at worst bordering on heretical.

Ryan

I am not your research service. This is a casual conversation. I did not ask you to cite chapter and verse how this was heresy, but responded in the same spirit as your original post. Be free to be skeptical as you will. I am a lawyer of 25 yrs experience when I am earning money; I don't do citations for free.

It is a prayer, addressing Christ, asking him to change us into his Body and Blood as a sign of love for the world. As noted above, this is orthodox theology, that what we receive, we are to become for the rest of the world.

Although the Eucharist is, literally, the true Body and Blood of Christ, it is also not without any symbolism at the same time.

(1) Folks, please note the little reminder to post messages that are charitable and helpful.

(2) This also applies to third parties like Haas. Even though his text isn't a great expression of doctrine, as far as I can tell every line in it can be read in an orthodox manner.

(3) A search for "do catholics believe in the real presence" brings up this web page from the National (pseudo-)Catholic Reporter:
http://ncronline.org/news/catholics-america/knowledge-and-belief-about-real-presence
According to the poll they ran in 2011, thems as don't believe don't attend.

(4) A search for "effects of holy communion" brings up this:
http://www.iveamerica.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=222:the-effects-of-holy-communion&Itemid=15

(5) I am so exhausted from doing those web searches I shall have to take a nap now. :-) Anyone who wants to send me money for the research is welcome to use paypal.

Well, what appears to be said?

Bruce, I agree completely, and would never use it in liturgy.

It may be an exaggeration to say that the term "body of Christ" is only an analogy: cf. the encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi (1943) of Ven. Pope Pius XII.

But anyway, let's set that aside. After all, Haas' lyric doesn't speak of us becoming Christ's Body and Blood. It speaks of us becoming "bread" and "wine" as a sign of God's love -- presumably for the world. What could this mean?

The significance of bread is of course obvious. Wine in the Old Testament is a sign of messianic joy; this is why the miracle at Cana is a sign of the Lord's identity as Messiah. So the lyric is a prayer that God make us his gifts to the world to bring sustenance and joy in Christ.

Really, I don't think this song deserves a lot of attention, but I'm trying to make the point, out of a sense of obligation, that it can be interpreted in an orthodox manner, which is enough to rule out a complaint of actual heresy.

What about the song which states, "Sing a new church into being" Is that heresy?

Sing the Propers. Problem solved.

Ruth- YES!

I'll repeat what I have said before with regards to "sketchy" texts. It is my opinion, so YMMV, but others have seemed to agree that it is a sensible proposal.

Some texts are CLEARLY orthodox. Any text contained in an officially approved liturgical book, for example. Faithful translations of these, also. Many fine hymns and songs which almost no one would object to on textual grounds. These are always "ok," (assuming they are otherwise appropriate choices, etc. etc.).

Some texts are CLEARLY heretical, or at the very least clearly heterodox. If I published a hymn such as:

Jesus didn't really save
he didn't rise up from the grave,
we only care symbolically
and worship god ironically.*

That would be CLEARLY inappropriate and wrong.

Then there is a VAST GRAY AREA of texts which are easily interpreted in heretical ways, but which can also be interpreted in a completely orthodox way. A good deal of folk-Catholic music falls into this category, because of the theological and academic trends of the time. Often, the writers were very faithful Catholics with orthodox theology and were not intending to write anything heretical at all, but were simply trying to speak old truths in fresh ways. Unfortunately, most consumers of this music were not (for example) trained in Jesuit seminaries (or taught how to play guitar correctly, for that matter).

It is my opinion that, in some contexts (a congregation with a clearly orthodox priest and a culture of doctrinal conformity) these texts are perfectly fine, because they are not likely to be misinterpreted. In another context (an extremely liberal parish with a history of dissent and agitation) the exact same text become inappropriate, because it is being used and understood in a heretical way.

(Obviously, parish A is less likely to use hypothetical text anyway, but that's not the point.)

So- if I were in the position of "choosing hymns" (assuming Propers aren't an option, for whatever reason), I would consider the context and the likely reception.

Further- when it comes to the "appropriateness" of texts, I find the Robustness Principle to be an excellent guide:

Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.



-------------------
* This text is Copyright Adam Wood, and should never be used for any purpose whatsoever.

Just a couple things: a permanent commission on sacred music needs to be established, perhaps at the Vatican level, to decide what is appropriate and what is not. I doubt you could find a handful of Bishops that would agree on many of these songs. Next, there are hundreds upon hundreds, if not thousands of church songs, with more being written every day. The composers need to make a living so they crank out variations on already overdone themes. I mean, how many different versions of Taste and See do we really need?

I still maintain that it is impossible for me to be the bread of the Lord and/or the wine of the Lord. I'm not using the h-word from a tower of radical traditionalism (besides, the title was a question, not a statement). If Haas has an explanation for this great mystery of myself becoming the wine of the Lord, I'd love to hear it, for it certainly is a mystery to me.

PS I've never even heard the tune, so it's not a matter of picking away at music I don't like. There is a lot of his music that I like. It was just a striking text to me as I was planning music for last week, and I thought I'd point out that it is possibly heretical, if not just clumsy and muddled poetry.

The fact that this text has sparked so much discussion might prove the point in itself, that texts like these are confusing (if not heretical) and should be avoided by directors and shunned by the Church.

Francis, cracking me up again.

Why not? If there are no guidelines this debate will never end.

Why not? The Church in Her wisdom has traditionally maximized the freedom of its members (and of its musicians) in matters not directly bearing on faith and morals. There's a reason for that: one guy in an office has just as much original sin as the rest of us. Unless that one guy happens to be the Pope, he doesn't automagically have the Magisterium on his shoulders. So he could very easily do more harm than good. Consider it a liturgical iteration of the principle of subsidiarity. We don't want somebody telling composers what to do musically. How do you know such a commission would support what you consider to be proper church music?

Look, Rome cannot even get around to squaring Musicam Sacram with the musical instructions in the many documents and ritual books that followed it. Anyone thinking Rome is going to go through some white/black list approach is seriously self-deluded. Look at how Rome has enforced the hint of such an idea (but with drafting and enforcement entrusted to episcopal conferences, not to the Curia) in Liturgicam Authenticam. As a cultural matter, it's beyond the appetite of curialists; Italians just shake their head at the legal culture of the Anglosphere that prompts an appetite for such things. Americans just have a very different understanding of the lack of correlation of norms to real life than Italians and Romans do; Americans tend to find it toothless at best or hypocrytical/cynical at worst, while Romans find it to be the perfect sensible approach, so long as one doesn't talk too much about it.

Then why the coup de gras, David? At some point one decides that a resource is a resource or not. If not, dust off the sandals. I know. Been there, done that, got the fat suit.

Hello! I'm new and joined the forum to ask specifically about this set of music regarding being / becoming bread and wine mostly because I am not having much luck comprehending what the composers intended.

According to the text, the process seems to go from physical bread --consecration--> becomes the physical flesh of Christ under the appearance of bread --"re-consecrated?"--> communicants become non-physical bread to give life to the world by loving people and doing good deeds.

One issue I have is that if the people can become a bread metaphor based on what they do to "feed" the world, then what prevents someone from claiming that the Eucharist is a similar metaphor?

Here are the references I found that seems to support this concept on being / becoming bread.

1 Corinthians 10:17 (Douay-Rheims)
17 For we, being many, are one bread, one body: all that partake of one bread.
Should this be taken as a metaphor or a spiritual reality?

St. Ignatius of Antioch on his way to martyrdom:
I am God's wheat and I shall be ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may become the pure bread of Christ.
As martyrdom pieces, these tunes seem to be unusually upbeat and cheerful. It kind of fits though if we are to imitate Christ, who poured out his love like wine on the cross.

Please comment because I seem to be running around in confusing circles.

God bless!

Agreed; they remind me of a chuzzle-witted engineer who was once my college roommate and argued seriously that Burns' "red, red rose" must have been quite a thorny lass.

We offer ourselves inasmuch as we offer the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ to the Father and we have been grafted on to him. We participate in his life - his sacrifice - because we have been baptized into his death and resurrection. We are "bread for the world" because Christ is the Bread of Life, and we are called to imitate him who we shall one day be like, and because we are in him and he is in us, just as he is in the Father and the Father is in him.

One of the unfortunate consequences of the progressive/liberal de-emphasis on sacrifice and ritual and True Presence is an equal and opposite reactionary conclusion among many traditional-minded folks who seem to think that the end-point of Eucharistic theology is understanding that the Bread and Wine become The Body and Blood of Christ. While this is, of course, true, it is not the only or last thing that one can say about this miracle.

It is fitting for food to become Christ, because Christ has already become food.

Were it not so, Christ could have said, "This tree is my body" or "This quicksilver is my blood." It is not only Christ's actual presence in the tabernacle, as an object and focus of worship, that is meaningful.

Were it not so, Jesus would not have said, "my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink."

Orthodox Catholic liturgical texts, rubrics, and prayers for centuries upon centuries have referred to the consecrated elements as bread and wine, as well as Body and Blood; also the altar is often called a table.

It IS a feast and a sacrifice, it IS both food and body, just as Christ is both man and God, both King and servant, both priest and victim.