The Recovering Choir Director

One often-overlooked issue in the erosion of belief in the Real Presence is the text of Communion hymns. As we sing, so we believe. In the rush to provide vernacular hymnody in post-Conciliar days, many Protestant hymns were adapted. Some are beautiful, suitable; interestingly, some are even more appropriate textually than modern-day hymns in “Catholic” liturgy booklets.

Contemporary hymns lead us to believe that Christ becomes bread, rather than the reverse; that the bread is only a symbol of Christ, or, worse, of something else entirely; that it is our body and our blood; that this is a meal only; or that this is a call to social activism. The words sacrifice, Real Presence, and even Body and Blood of Christ are strangely absent. [Read on...]

Looks like my own list of nominees for the best contemporary liturgical hymn in the JourneySongs hymnal will have to be pared down even more from its original eleven.

[Link courtesy of Mark Sullivan at Ad Orientem.]