At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing

I would save O filii et filiae until Low Sunday.

I would save O filii et filiae until Low Sunday.

Why?

My parish has always done This Joyful Eastertide (VRUECHTEN) at communion.

Organists seem to love Festival Canticle. While the text is worthy, musically it's a slog from a congregational singing perspective, and the text is shoehorned over the music in a way that doesn't do it justice.

I second at the Lamb's High Feast. I also like to do The Strife is Over throughout the Easter season.

No offense is meant by this Connor, but I do not think many, if any, on this forum would encourage the use of I Am the Bread of Life. There are so many hymns out there which are far, far better choices!

Looking ahead at the schedule, I have "Lift High The Cross" and "Crown Him With Many Crowns" as the entrance and recessional hymns for the day.

Here's a general tip for congregational hymns: when families come to Mass, if the dad sings, everybody sings; if he doesn't, then the kids will sense that singing the hymn is not cool, and then they will be losing interest. So the choice of hymns becomes a part of the parish's evangelization to families. If a hymn is full of cozy sentimentality (I have wuvved you with an everlasting wuv), or has difficult rhythms (you shall cross the barren desert, but you won't sing sixteenth-notes), and therefore won't be sung by the dads, then those are points against it.

And, in my observations over decades, the way the refrain for Festival Canticle is laid over the music encourages folks to sing things like "Fee-ye-ye-yeast" and to nearly elide the I in the descending march on "victory" (tip: make sure the choristers hold that I as long as possible before the consonant), and a punchy "YAH" at the end of at least the first two Alleluias. If you want something to eat up time for the Communion rite, one could readily deploy all 26 verses of Psalm 136 (or 24 verses if vv 19 & 20 are too obscure for your taste).

Would you use I Am the Bread of Life?

Yes, I would.

I've "thrown down" about this on this Forum before, and I neither desire nor intend to recapitulate old battles here and now. If you want to know my reasoning, feel free to PM.

I asked my Diocesan Youth Choir to sing it at their last holy hour, as an olive branch to the repertoire of 90% of parishes in the Diocese, amidst a set of largely Latin repertoire. It was and can be very moving, when sung with attention and beauty. I asked the singers to focus in a particular way on the phrasing ("don't sing it like you've heard it sung at funerals your whole life"), and on adding energy and life to the lines. We sang the refrain in four parts.

Sorry folks

Nothing to apologize for. Also, FWIW, I've never programmed Festival Canticle, but have had choir members / congregants request it in recent years. I don't think affection for it is just an "organist thing."

Sorry folks

Don't apologize. Make a decision based on your parish, it's needs and practices, and what works for you.

I should've clarified. I meant it in the form of an apology since I felt like I was doing something wrong by choosing a communion hymn that people may not agree to.

Not at all! Lots of opinions here.

If you can, read all of them and take them seriously --- you'll learn many things and hear many perspectives. But don't be afraid, as CharlesW indicated, also to exercise your own good judgment!

I've used I am the Bread of Life for the Communion Hymn on Easter Sunday for years. I also added in the Gouin antiphon before since it was published a few years ago.
Let's be truthful for a moment, while there are better options for a hymn; nothing gets the Christmas/Easter people singing like I am the Bread of Life. For my parishioners, it would be like removing Silent Night after Communion at Christmas. Let the complaint emails begin!

(Duh duh duh)
(Duh duh duh)

This is "The Bread of Liiiiiiiiife,"
It's a popular song indeed
With no meeeeeeeter to speak of,
Nor does it haaaaaave
A disceeeeernible rhyme scheme---

But it lives on and ON,
But it lives on and ON,
Yes, it lives ONNNNNNN and ON
IN THE R.C.C.!!

(Duh duh duh)
(Duh duh duh)

Unleeeeesss you've sung
This piece led by a cantor on guitar
(The only one who knows the lyrics),
You can't call yourself a Catholic,
You can't call yourself a Catholic.

Oh, it lives on and ON,
Oh it lives on and ON,
Yes, it lives ONNNNNNN and ON
In the R.C.C.!

(Duh duh duh)
(Duh duh duh)

In what we can term an increasingly
Frequent lapse in judgment,
The E-pis-co-pa-li-ans
Also put this song
Into the 1982 Hymnal---

It's number 335,
It's number 335,
It's number 335,
IT WILL NEVER DIE!

I wrote “I Am the Bread of Life” for a San Francisco archdiocesan event in 1964. I was teaching high school at the time and wrote the song during my free period. When the bell rang for the next class I decided I didn’t like the music, so I tore it up and threw it in the wastepaper basket.

My classroom was next to the infirmary, where the girls who didn’t want to take tests or were otherwise unprepared for class went for a period or two until they were tracked down by an exasperated teacher. As I left my classroom, a freshman girl came out of the infirmary and said, “What was that? It was beautiful!” I went back into my classroom, took the manuscript out of the basket and taped it together. It has had a life of its own ever since.

“I Am the Bread of Life” began to appear in archdiocesan liturgies. There were many purple ditto copies going around. Not everyone liked the hymn. One liturgist gave talks on why it shouldn’t work, saying: “It is not metric; its tessitura [vocal range] is too high. Its tessitura is too low.” Others objected to it because they felt by placing the words of Jesus into the mouths of the assembly, those words were being attributed to the assembly.

[...]

I could never figure out how the hymn became popular. I know in our Roman Catholic tradition it came at the beginning of our use of the vernacular, and we simply didn’t have much to sing in our own language. But I also think its popularity stems from its message of resurrection, which is so strong in these words of Jesus. We so need that message of hope. I am always touched when people tell me that at the funeral of a mother, father or friend, these sung words of Jesus gave them consolation. Then I know the hymn has done its work.

Thank you, young freshman way back in 1964! I’m sorry if you were not feeling well that day and had to go to the infirmary—or, I’m glad that you decided to sit that class out. I hope your teacher didn’t scold you too much.

-Sister Suzanne Toolan, RSM

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

I, too, don’t know why it works. It shouldn’t work, for very convincing reasons.

And yet, it does.

I remember, at a sacred music retreat for the TLM given in the late 2010s by Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth, we had daily Low Mass on the days when we didn’t have a High Mass for which we had been preparing. The cantor for one of them, spontaneously, decided to intone “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” at the end. It was taken up by the body of retreatants, in four part harmony, without a score or line of text in front of them.

We made some incredible music on that retreat, but that moment, that simple old hymn sung with such love, stuck out to Msgr. It was an intangible thing, he said, that happens sometimes in the most unexpected ways. “It was,” as he said, “worship.”

And yet, I am struck by the parallel. I remember that this, too, shouldn’t work. I remember, in the 1933 Caecilia, a Q&A with Dom Gregory Hügle, OSB that reads all too familiarly:

Q. "What qualities should a good hymn have?"

A. It should have simplicity, freshness, and reality of feeling, a consistent elevation of tone, and a rhythm easy and harmonious.

Q. "What, then, is wrong with the hymn Holy God we praise Thy name?"

A. It lacks clearness and simplicity in its poetry. It also lacks dignity and elevation of melody.

And yet, it works. And it is, in spite of this, both simple and dignified. In spades. And, from no less a voice than Martin Mosebach, works in a way unparalleled by any other vernacular hymn.

Truly, we don’t understand these things. Not a bit.

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

Maybe, though, these flawed, imperfect vehicles of praise work so well because we are imperfect vehicles of praise.

And, just as the Sacrifice acceptable to God could not be made by the Son in the context of the boundless perfection of Heaven’s bliss, but only when He was Incarnate, enfleshed, voluntarily sharing the lot, though not the fault, of limited and imperfect creatures, so too, perhaps, when we try to offer praise like Icarus, we wind up falling further by drawing nearer in the wrong ways.

Both seem to have staying power. Both were hotly criticized in similar circles. Along similar lines.

I exercise a healthy aporeia on this matter.

Would you use I Am the Bread of Life?


Yes. I use it pretty frequently.

Given your moniker, is this exactly a surprise?

Surely, anything after 1500 is modern...

I am doing "Christ, the Lord, is Risen Today" followed by "All You On Earth". Both are a bit more upbeat than I generally program for Communion, but I agree with the point above, that of all days, Easter Sunday would seem to allow for this.

BTW
Opening - Hymn of Joy
Preparation - The Day of Resurrection
Recessional - Jesus Christ is Risen Today!

Attached is a wonderful Easter hymn that would certainly be very appropriate for Communion at any Easter Mass: Carol Ye His Praises. It is by Louis Berge and comes from his YOUNG PEOPLE'S CATHOLIC HYMN BOOK, 1924, McLaughlin & Reilly. It is a joyful, cheerful hymn; and its wonderful imagery tells the Easter story like no other.

Be glad you are not a Baptist. What if you had to sing this jewel for Easter?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpJfT4_COzY

In my earlier days, I had to play them, too.

Yep, remember that one well, too. In the Protestant church where I played early on there was a millionaire steel magnate in the congregation. He subsidized the church so no one was going to tell him to quieten down. He had a volume that could have drowned the Mormon Tabernacle organ, and sang badly off key with screechy high notes. "He Lives" was one of his favorites. I used to dread it every time it was programmed.