The Recovering Choir Director

At the risk of making this into a “bash OCP” session, something I just remembered regarding OCP and alternate verses. In the 2001 “Breaking Bread,” there’s a note in the copyright information on the song “Seek Ye First” by Karen Lafferty that states “This 2001 book reflects the text setting mandated by the copyright holder.” Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a 2000 or before issue of BB, so I don’t know what they changed, but it sounds like the song was not inclusive enough for them, so they decided to “improve the song.” That probably ticked off Maranatha Music, who owns the copyright to the song, and OCP was forced to revert to the original version from 2001 on. Does anyone have access to an earlier BB and can post the OCP-modified verses? (If it won’t break any copyrights, that is!)

Peace, all.

One last comment: Why on earth would you do just two verses of the last hymn? If I wanted a two-verse closing hymn, I’d pick “Seek Ye First.” I wonder if this parish decides to truncate the Gloria and the Creed too.

[This parish has neither truncated the Gloria nor the Creed, provided of course that one doesn't consider the ICEL Gloria translation "truncated". Otherwise this parish, like others, truncates the Gloria regularly. - A.A.E.]

Actually, the re-write of “wretch” to “soul” was done by conservative Catholics who misinterpreted “wretch” to refer to a Calvinistic understanding of human depravity, apparently not realizing that the author was an Anglican pastor (and formerly involved in the slavetrade, from which wretchedness he later repented and is the point of reference for the word). This change was not institigated by the Church Therapeutic, as it were.

No, I don’t.

The evolution of the subsequent change is something I recall. We did not sing “Protestant” hymns in Catholic churches until a few years after Vatican II. Amazing Grace was one of those (along with A Mighty Fortress Is Our God). I remember when we sang it first, with wretch, and hearing the complaints about the word and it being some Calvinistic heresy, and then, lo, in missalettes a while later, the word was changed to “soul”. This was before hymn texts were being viewed through the prism of gender and oppression and revised in a new light, as it were.