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Somewhere recently I read a piece by a Catholic English professor lamenting the weakness of the lyrics to the modern Catholic hymn “Gather Us In.” It is a common complaint among Catholics today. Why is our liturgical music so lame?
Lyrics to popular songs are often awful when you set them down in print. These modern Catholic hymns are not egregious by comparison. Still, as the present author argues, why do we cling so hard to them when we have a 2,000-year tradition of the finest composers and poets in Europe to draw on instead, most of whom wrote religious poetry and music?
Some of his objections to the lyrics of “Gather Us In” seem nitpicky when I read them. Yet I myself am deeply aware that the song is unsatisfying, banal. So I take a closer look.
First line:
“Here in this place new light is streaming.”
Coleridge defined poetry as “The best words in the best order.” Keats advised to “fill every vein with ore.” Every word must work in several ways, as though it and no other simply had to be there. Like the gears of a fine watch.
“Here” and “in this place” are redundant. No reason to use both. Just filling in syllables for the scan. “Place” is vague, and so evokes little. A more precise word is more vivid, obviously fits more precisely. And this song was composed to be sung in a church.
Then there is a theological problem, surely, with the word “new.” In what sense is the light of Christianity, of Jesus, or of the sacrament “new”? Truth is eternal, Jesus is eternal, and the church has been doing this for two millennia. It is hardly le mot just. It looks as though “new” has just been tapped here as an attractive, “happy” word, for the same reason it is so often found on packaging and in consumer ads.
“Now is the darkness vanished away”
The entire line is redundant, since it is hard for new light to steam in without removing darkness at the same time. The grammar is also awkward: the correct English word order would be “Now the darkness is vanished away.” Sometimes mangling of grammar is done in poetry to fit the metre, and is accepted, but here it is not even necessary on those grounds. The correct grammar works fine. Even better, as it still scans while more concise: “”Darkness now is vanished away.” The bad grammar seems introduced only to make the lyric sound more “poetic.” Like throwing in a “prithee” or a “fain.”
And, of course, "away" in “vanished away” is yet again, redundantly, redundant. It is hard to vanish, if you are darkness, while still being there.
“See in this space our fears and our dreamings”
Bad parallel. Surely that should be either “fears and dreams” or “fearings and dreamings.” And the latter, with so little mental effort on the part of the lyricist, actually makes the line scan better:
“See in this space, our fearings and dreamings.”
“See in this space” is also perfectly redundant. We have already plainly established, if it were necessary, that the action is taking place here. Which is after all simply to say that it takes place where it takes place.
And on it goes. Little care seems taken, beyond grabbing the first words and phrasings that make superficial sense, are not heretical, and fit the needs of rhythm and rhyme. The thing feels posted in by regular mail. Bulk mail.
Some will no doubt argue that using classical poetry as lyric instead can give us hymns that are hard for many parishioners to understand. Depends on the poem; depends on the poet. But there is also a vast folk tradition we might draw on, with lyrics that are simplicity itself.
Were you there when they crucified my lord?
Were you there when they crucified my lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my lord?
Not hard to understand, and not a lot of spam.
Here’s a Spanish folk hymn, "Pescador de Hombres," that even when imperfectly translated into English, shows what a hymn can be. Our priest back in Athabasca had it taped into the hymnal at the back. A bit of liturgical rebellion, perhaps, on his part, or that of the music director. I love singing it:
Lord, you have come to the seashore,
neither searching for the rich nor the wise,
desiring only that I should follow.
Refrain
O, Lord, with your eyes set upon me,
gently smiling, you have spoken my name;
all I longed for I have found by the water,
at your side, I will seek other shores.
Lord, see my goods, my possessions;
in my boat you find no power, no wealth.
Will you accept, then, my nets and labour?
Lord, take my hands and direct them.
Help me spend myself in seeking the lost,
returning love for the love you gave me.
Lord, as I drift on the waters,
be the resting place of my restless heart,
my life’s companion, my friend and refuge.
