Anglican Catholicism and Church Music

 

Why we need to hold Church music to high standards.

A Hymn to God the Father

Apologies for the odd lengthening of some notes. I had to turn my own pages which is not easy!

Breaking the veneer

O Unity of threefold light,
Send out Thy loveliest ray,
Add scatter our transgressions’ night,
And turn it into day;
Make us those temples pure and fair
Thy glory loveth well,
The spotless tabernacles, where
Thou may’st vouchsafe to dwell.

The glorious hosts of peerless might,
That ever see Thy face,
Thou mak’st the mirrors of Thy light,
The vessels of Thy grace.
Thou, when their wondrous strains they weave,
Hast pleasure in the lay:
Deign thus our praises to receive,
Albeit from lips of clay.

And yet Thyself they cannot know,
Nor pierce the veil of light
That hides Thee from the thrones below,
As in profoundest night.
How then can mortal accents frame
Due tribute to their king?
Thou, only, while we praise Thy name,
Forgive us as we sing.

Archbishop Metrophanes of Smyrna c900AD
translated by Fr. J. M. Neale.

On Trinity Sunday, we sang this hymn to Tallis' Third Mode Melody which suited it rather well, I thought. It was clearly English and yet clearly Catholic, written before the Great Schism, and therefore perfectly Anglican Catholic. For me, personally, it presents the strange imagery of the Mass whereby in humble settings, with unclean lips, and sin-stained lives, the Light Incomprehensible can still shine forth into the world. I think sometimes we forget that this is possible.


There still is a sense in the world whereby people think that they are too sinful for God to be near them. They say with St Peter, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." and yet, rather than accepting His presence as the Prince of the Apostles, they continue to push God away. Now why should this be? I expect for most people who feel like this, the god that is so down on sinners is the one they try to steer clear of. Yet, this is not the God that we Christians worship.

What is certainly true is that where God is, no sin can be. This may sound like a rejection of sinners, but in fact it's more like saying that where light is, no darkness can be. We cannot get rid of sin by chasing it away any more than we try to sweep up the darkness before switching the bedside lamp on. The fact that we miss is that God loves us more than we can ever think.

As always, love is truly the key. This is a God Who, out of sheer respect of humanity, chooses to limit Himself so as to allow that Humanity to realise love without coercion. This has terrible consequences and yet those terrible consequences are allowed, as well as being provided for. Not one sparrow will fall without the eye of God beholding it and we are worth more than many sparrows. And yet, with God those terrible consequences mean more than some anodyne existence of not really being because they have a fulfillment within Himself. The suffering of Our Lord alongside us consecrates our suffering as surely as He consecrates the waters of baptism by being baptised in the Jordan.

It is in Christ that humanity finds itself completed. It was He who broke the lock of the door back to God put there by our failure to choose what is Good. It was He whose Humanity drags us back through death into life in God. Every single Eucharist holds this fact: Christ is truly present in the Mass and thus we find ourselves standing in the courts of heaven without realising it. We look around, and still see the cracks in the wall, the damaged floor tile, the slightly wonky nose on the statue of Our Lady, the frayed edge of the server's cotta. We look and we hear the priest's knee crack as he genuflects before holding up the little white disc.

Yes, that is what we see and hear and smell, and touch and taste, yet with Christ's presence it is truly consecrated, taken up out of the shabby shadow of our everyday existence and truly lying just behind the veil of God's infinite glory. If we come to church expecting just the same old boring things within the same old boring reality and fixating on the same old boring hymns and listening to the same old boring sermon, then we have forgotten the reality that lies behind what we see. Our reality is merely the dust cover to our true life. Look beyond the crack in the wall to see the golden walls of God's throne room; look beyond the damaged floor tile to see the emerald floor upon which the saints tread with steps beyond Time; look at the wonky nose on the statue and see beyond to see Our Lady, the Queen of Heaven, perfect in the presence of Her Son;look beyond the frayed edge of the cotta to see the white robes given to each citizen of heaven and remember that you, yes you! have your own white robe waiting for you.

Heaven is always threatening to burst in on our little thin veneer of reality, and God Himself wants nothing better to sit down with each and every sinner so that they will cease to be sinners just by His very act of sitting with us. God loves us and He is not too proud so as to separate Himself from His Creation. His divine humility shows that He has nothing to prove about His Majesty or His Glory. Neither must we bee to proud as to separate ourselves from God because we are sinners and therefore unworthy of Him. Of course we are unworthy, that's what makes the Mystery of the Incarnation more delicious. We should just accept, repent of our sins and find ourselves always in the presence of the Divine Christ.

Selling Records

 

This is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed and denied not, and said plainly, I am not the Christ.  

 And they asked him, What art thou then? Art thou Elias? And he said, I am not. Art thou the prophet?  And he answered, No.

 Then said they unto him, What art thou? that we may give an answer unto them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? And he said, I am the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.

 Gibbons lovely anthem always appeals to me, especially at this time of the year. It’s an anthem I’ve sung many times and thoroughly enjoyed for its power and clarity, yet its elegance and intricacy. It’s a truly Anglican piece.

The words are those of St John the Baptist. This is an interview with the priests and Levites to ascertain who he is. St John, in typical fashion, is simply not concerned about himself at all. He knows that promoting his identity is not the agenda he has been given. He is to be faithful to the task, and indeed he is faithful to the task, of promoting the One Who Comes After. Nothing else matters. He is happy to remain poor and in the wilderness, unkempt, making do with what little fare there is outside the big cities with their flashing lights and smoky streets. He simply baptises those who come to him and preaches repentance of sins for the coming Kingdom of God.

St John is the last prophet of the Old Testament. He points to the coming New Testament and does not waver from doing so. He points to the coming Christ and prepares those who come to him for that coming Christ.

St John sets the Church a challenge, for the Church is bound to do exactly the same. Our Lord Jesus will come again, though we are told that we cannot know when. It is the job of the Church to devote its life, not in riches or fashion, not in places of comfort or luxury, but in the wilderness pointing to the coming Christ. The Church’s energies and resources are to be focussed, not on self-promotion, not advertising dates and times of services or activities, or setting out its agenda, but rather pointing out the coming Christ. The Church herself must stand and shout “make straight the way of the Lord!” with all the energy and vigor she possesses. 

To all those who come to her for guidance, she must give them God’s promised grace in the sacraments, educate them, clothe them in simplicity and love and point them, as they repent, at the Saviour for true happiness and joy.

If the Church finds herself in the wilderness and in uncomfortable places and learns to live in those places surviving on the meagre pickings, the rough surrounds, away from a more comfortable and conventional lifestyle then she is doing well. There in the wilderness, out of the influences of fad, fashion and folly, and with a clear vision of her task, her preaching of Good News, there will she see God in her purity and help so many others find Him.

How should this affect the budget for 2014?

A Clear Midnight in Oldcombe

Sermon preached at the Carol Service at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis, Rochester.

“No white Christmas again, this year,” says Enid as she pulls on her thickest winter coat, “but then that’s not such a bad thing when we go out carol singing.”

The other members of the St Nicholas Church Choir nod in agreement as they too ready themselves with coats and hats and scarves and gloves.

When Sid has finally got his Christmas wellies on, the little motley band of carol singers hit the streets of Oldcombe City Centre.

It’s not an edifying experience.

Seven out of every eight houses do not even open the door. At least three times, the Choir notice the lights go out in the windows just before they get to the door. When the door does finally open, it’s shut pretty quickly again, usually with a word of abuse:

“We don’t believe that old story anymore.”

“Change the tune, it’s not relevant.”

“Charity begins at home!”

“Shut that row! I’m trying to watch the X-Factor Final.”

“Boring! Sing some Lady Gaga instead!”

And then it starts to rain.

But St Nicholas’ Church Choir struggle bravely on, despite the fact that Sid’s wellies are rubbing him raw, Barbara’s Santa hat has blown away in the wind, and Pauline is in sore need of a sit-down.

Finally, they come to a rather dingy part of town.

They knock on the door of a particularly shabby house and it’s answered by a young man holding his eighteen-month old daughter, who seems to be a very smiley baby.

The choir strike up with “It came upon the Midnight Clear” which makes the baby smile more, especially when Sid hits the wrong note.

Noticing their rather bedraggled state, the young man invites the group in for a warm-up.

It’s not an especially nice place at all.

The fire is really an old three-bar heater, there’s a strange smell coming from the sink in the kitchen and there are several patches of damp on the wallpaper.

“Please,” says the young man, “warm yourselves a little.”

Sid gives a sigh of relief as he pulls off the offending welly. Pauline sets herself down on a packing case which appears to be doubling up as an extra chair.

“Will you sing that song again about the Midnight clear?” says the young man.

The choir oblige, Sid even deliberately singing off-key occasionally to make the baby laugh. She does so very easily.

When the choir finish, the young man pulls out a wallet which has very few notes. It jingles a bit with lots of copper coins.

“Thank you,” he says and then looks confused. “Where is your collecting tin?”

“Oh we don’t bother with collecting tins,” says Pauline from her packing-case throne, “we don’t sing to collect money. Do we always have to do something expecting to be given something in return? There are lots of good charities out there collecting for needy people. We just sing to give the folk some Christmas Spirit, and we enjoy it!”

“But isn’t that a lot of effort for so little?” says the young man, trying to prevent the baby from posting her lego bricks in Tom’s beard, “I bet you come in for some stick!”

“That’s true,” says Tom, “so many people are so over-familiar with the words that they seem to have forgotten what they mean. People are always looking for new things, new tellies, latest phones, the speediest computers, so the old tunes and old songs just don’t matter to them.” “Why then do you do it, if your old ways are so irrelevant?” “Ah,” says Enid, “the old ways are not irrelevant! The old story may be getting older, but it is not getting less true. The Carols don’t need to change. For us, the Birth of Jesus is a great joy, even more so in times when it seems to be the least relevant. We go from house to house and are refused for exactly the same reason that St Joseph and Our Lady were refused. People just do not have room for Christ, so they don’t have room for us. But if we do not sing, how will folk hear the songs that the Angels in Heaven sing?”

“If God is so important, why do people not listen to Him?” asks the young man.

Tom shakes another lego brick from his beard, “Because people look but they do not see; they hear and they do not listen. Some people even go to church and sing the words but do not want to understand their meaning. Indeed, some songs that people sing in church these days are utterly meaningless because they change the story. God is important, but He gives us the choice as to whether to hear Him or not, whether to see Him or not, even whether to sing His song, or not. That’s because He sees us as important – so important in fact, that He comes to be born among us as a baby just to be one of us. Immanuel –God with us!”

“So we have to look for God in Christmas?” says the young man. “Well, he does come knocking,” says Sid, his feet now toasty warm by the fire and his carol sheet almost dry. “He often presents Himself with a knock. It’s your choice as to whether to open the door to Him or not. If only more folk would turn off the X-Factor and listen! If they did, then they’d hear something that would make much more of their lives. For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

“Wow,” says the young man.

“This old story’s worth the sore feet,” says Sid;
“It’s worth getting tired,“ says Pauline;
“It’s worth the abuse,” says Tom;
“It’s worth all this,” says Enid, “because it’s true! The ageless God is with us and He always will be.”

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.


The baby coos and smiles.

She knows the song these angels really sing.

Do you?

Worship Groups and Wesley's Rules

John Wesley's rules for singing:

1. Learn these Tunes before you learn any others.

2. Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or 'mending them at all; and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can.

3. Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up and you will find a blessing.

4. Sing lustily, and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of it being heard, then when you sing the songs of Satan.

5. Sing modestly. Do not bawl, as to be heard above, or distinct from, the rest of the congregation, that you may not destroy the harmony; but strive to unite your voices together, so as to make one clear melodious sound.

6. Sing in time. Whatever time is sung, be sure to keep with it. Do not run before, not stay behind it; but attend closely to the leading voices, and move therewith as exactly as you can. And take care you sing not too slow. This drawling way naturally steals on all who are lazy; and it is high time to drive it out from among us, and sing all our tunes just as quick as we did at first.

7. Above all, sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing Him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this, attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve of here, and reward when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.

I have a lot of time for Wesley. Rule 7 is very typical of his deep passion for seeing God in all things and puts him very much in the company of Du Caussade, Brother Lawrence, St Francis of Assisi, and St Benedict himself. It is tantamount that before we do anything, we first do it for the love of God.

The final cause of a hymn is for the greater glory of God and not, repeat not, for enjoying oneself. If we sing hymns for sensual reasons only then we shall sow what we reap, mere superficiality. My recollection of singing in the last days of my involvement with the CofE was that people sang because they "liked the tune" or because it made them feel happy.
There is an affinity between today's CofE with the Church of the post-Restoration and before the Oxford Movement in that the singing of hymns is accompanied by a band. Often this band is called the "worship group", primarily because it saw itself as leading worship. Yet, what we can often see and hear of "worship groups" is the band doing all the work while the congregation bask in the atmosphere when really it is their duty to join in. According to Wesley's Rules, a true worship group should seek to be of a secondary nature, playing the notes that are written without standing out.

Before I am accused of being musically snobbish, the same is very true throughout the English Choral tradition. A congregation cannot ordinarily join in with the execution of a Mass by Byrd, Palestrina, Ockeghem or Striggio. Their raison d'etre, we are told, is to enhance the worship of the Congregation. But how? By using the typology of heavenly choirs? Given the nature of the Catholic Mass, every ceremonial action and ritual is indeed a sign to draw one closer to Heaven. The choir then must seek to fulfil that type, just as the priest should seek to fulfil the person of the alter Christus in his role.

A hymn or anthem must always begin with the words which have to be sound theological poetry. Too many modern hymns have succumbed to the skill of the prattler of pious platitudes and of the egotist in which the word "I" makes a more frequent appearance than addresses to the Divine. It must mean something and convey truth upon which people can build their lives as well as sing in Church. One can tell the spiritual health of a parish by the quality of the hymns that it sings. A parish that doesn't mind what it sings is not likely to be thinking carefully about how it is approaching worship.

Likewise, the execution of sacred music requires thought. A choir, or worship group, should not seek first for people's enjoyment but rather for their alignment with God. Music that will have them "bopping in the aisles" is distracting from the presence of God. While it is possible for hymns in church to be accompanied by a guitar, often the guitarist treats the situation like a jam session and again people enjoy the music for the music. Of course, music is a gift from God, and musical skill is a gift from God, but it is imperative that one tempers one's musical skill and restricts one's exuberance with careful thought on "how am I going to play in order to bring the reality of God and the truth of His words to the congregation here present?"

Finally, execution of sacred music must allow people to sing with it. Many hymns and songs tend to become solos for someone who tries to emulate the late Whitney Houston by warbling all kinds of melismata over a tune. Some modern songs seems to be written to accommodate these vocal meanderings. The Reformers imposed a "one note to one syllable" rule for Church Music. While this might be rather excessive, it is not a bad maxim. Melismata can be left to the singing of a good choir who can execute them with discipline and the desire to narrow the gap between Heaven and Earth.
Surely that is worth working for!

Palm Sunday: Gory Garments and Saving Wrath.

Bishop A. Cleveland Coxe

Who is this with garments gory,
Triumphing from Bozrah’s way;
This that weareth robes of glory,
Bright with more than victory’s ray?
Who is this unwearied comer
From his journey’s sultry length,
Traveling through Idumè’s summer
In the greatness of his strength?

Wherefore red in thine apparel
Like the conquerors of the earth,
And arrayed like those who carol
O’er the reeking vineyard’s mirth?
Who art thou, the valleys seeking
Where our peaceful harvests wave?
“I, in righteous anger speaking,
I, the mighty One to save.”

“I, that of the raging heathen
Trod the winepress all alone,
Now in victor garlands wreathen
Coming to redeem Mine own:
I am He with sprinkled raiment,
Glorious for My vengeance hour,
Ransoming, with priceless payment,
And delivering with power.”

Hail! All hail! Thou Lord of Glory!
Thee, our Father, Thee we own;
Abraham heard not of our story,
Israel ne’er our Name hath known.
But, Redeemer, Thou hast sought us,
Thou hast heard Thy children’s wail,
Thou with Thy dear blood hast bought us:
Hail! Thou mighty Victor, hail!

There are times when I have sung hymns which have raised the hairs on the back of my neck. This morning at Mass I sang this hymn for the first time to a tune which I've always attributed to O the deep, deep love of Jesus and I must confess that it gave me quite a start.

Bishop Coxe based his words very closely on the episode in Isaiah lxiii of the figure who has trod the winepress visiting the wrath of God upon the enemies of His people. It is a troubling and arresting image for all those who cannot reconcile the God of the Old Testament with the God of the New. However, there is a great deal of hope in both Bible passage and the subsequent poetic rendition.

Of course, there are (not so massive) cultural differences between ourselves in the West and the original hearers of the prophecy of Isaiah (in this case trito-Isaiah). For the Israelites, the relationship with Edom was always very rocky. Edom became a vassal of Israel under David and Solomon, but later helpe Nebuchadnezzar II to plunder Israel, and it is this act to which God is responding through Isaiah. Interestingly, the name "Edom" has the idea of redness and was etiologically associated with Esau, Israel's rubicund brother. If we have that in the back of our minds when we approach Isaiah lxiii, then it gives our brains another jolt when we read of the "gory garments".

Of course, for many people, the difficulty is how we reconcile a wrathful God with a God of Peace. We tend to be a bit squeamish these days about gods being called upon in fighting battles. We tend to think of battle and war as being "politically incorrect", after all, Christians have still the problems of the effects of the Holy Wars known as the Crusades to deal with! We don't like to fight our battles in the name of God.

However, we are seldom at peace. For the past decade, the West has engaged in a "War on Terror", trying to rid the world of acts of violence which we saw all too clearly on 11th September. This has still resulted in horrible acts from all sides and it is quite right that we should find war repellent. We should be living as if “I hate you” was the most horrible swearing and cursing of all. Nonetheless, in this day and age we are still in the middle of wars and battles. Note well that, in the hymn above and the generating Biblical passage, Bozrah is the old name for Basrah of very recent memory in Iraq!

Yet, it is the titanic battle between Good and Evil that we overlook because it continues invisibly and yet affects us all the time. We are called to fight this battle, and yet more often than not we languish and fall to sin. All sin deserves the wrath of God because God thoroughly hates all sin. This brings us back to the picture of the wrathful and vengeful God that is supposedly peculiar to the Old Testament and different from that of the New. However they are the same God, and if we believe that Jesus Christ is God as the Second Person of the Trinity, then Jesus too possesses the wrath of God.

God’s wrath is a terrifyingly beautiful notion if we think about it. It is not we who are the objects of God’s wrath but Sin. If we choose to sin then we put ourselves in the greatest danger of death because God will not be where Sin is. We are so steeped in Sin. All around us we see the effects of greed, hatred, lust, loneliness, selfishness, cupidity and envy which are killing us and do we have anything that can help us?

This is where a passive, emotionless god would be useless, because such a being would sit on the side-lines, wringing his hands and calling ineffectually. Instead, God in His wrath does something.

It is He Who steps into the world, getting his hands, feet and garments gory with bloodshed. Ironically, this blood is His own, not that of His enemies. We are presented with a God who willingly pays the price for Sin, who makes good the satisfaction for the evil that we have done, do and will do, if only we will turn to Him. The price is His very own lifeblood.

This is such a very different wrath from that of a human being. This is because the idea of “wrath” is a human term and God is not simply a human being – the analogy breaks down if we think this way. God doesn't suffer from emotions and passions as we do, but He does act justly and with the most intense dispassionate compassion that one can every know. What we can understand is the intensity of emotion that wrath carries, that burning passion and the fact that it drives us into activity, usually foolishness and to our shame. But God’s foolishness is higher than Man’s wisdom and by His wrath we are saved.

This week, we behold that very foolishness and this very wrath. How will we experience them in our lives?

Advent IV: Insolent Ikons

The Epistle:


The Gospel:


It's painful for an ex-chorister as myself not to join in verses of Scripture which one has sung many times and the words of which have inspired great composers such as Orlando Gibbons and Henry Purcell to write iconic music.

That's just it. The music is ikonic, if I may be allowed to use more Hellenistic spelling.The purpose of any ikon is to point the way to Christ. The Roman Martyrology talks about various saints being persecuted for "the worship of sacred images" - a clumsy phrase considering that this is the translation of dulia - a profound veneration and not latria which is reserved only for God Himself and no other being. Sometimes, just sometimes, English doesn't communicate finely enough what is really meant. The act of dulia is the following of an arrow, the acceptance of the direction of a signpost or the attempt to be obedient to the directions of a yokel who tells you that you should have turned off near the windmill.

The two Ikons in the Epistle and the Gospel are those of St Paul and St John the Baptist, both of whom have a reputation for being rather on the stern side. You don't want to get on the wrong side of St Paul. How the Galatians ears must have rung with the shout "ω ἀνόητοι Γαλάται!" "O Foolish Galatians!" Likewise, you'd want to steer clear of startling figures such as St John the Baptist in his ragged appearance calling you a brood of vipers!

These saintly gentlemen will not pull their punches. If were on the wrong road, they will point it out to us. They will not spare our blushes because they certainly put the cost of our salvation ahead of our pride and dignity. And yet isn't this why we should venerate them? They actually bother and take pains to bother. They actually care about us, about our fate, about our relationship with the One Whom they know very well. Their music may sound rough to our ears - I doubt that St John the Baptist was a Kings College Alto - but it is beautiful music when it is put into the context of God and choirs of angels.

And their message is not one of stern crossness, of frowns and hard stares; theirs is a message of hope and joy. "Make straight the way of the Lord!" "Rejoice in the Lord alway and again, I say rejoice" Both are pointing definitely in their ikonic poses to the Coming Christ who will wipe away all material dependence, all riches, all misplaced ease when He does come again, and give us something even more permanent upon which we can rest. Maranatha!

Bottom of the form

In trying to demonstrate the (shall we be polite) unsuitability of Christian "worship" songs for Mass it seems I've hit upon something that is affecting the whole Church.

It seems that it's a modern disease of separating form and content or form and function and it's eating at the very fabric of the Church.

Let's consider the following problem. Supposing that a headmaster were to come into school wearing a floral dress, stockings, a fox-fir and a straw hat, there would be no way on earth that he could exert any authority over his staff or students. His form has an effect on his function.

For the Church, form and function or form and content are more important as we deal with sacramental realities which have their existence beyond the scrutiny of a directly observable universe. If we go to the rather glib definition of sacrament as "outward sign of invisible grace" then we are faced with what something looks like being coupled with what it is or does.

I've spoken about Transubstantiation quite a bit: to wit bread and wine before consecration become Body and Blood afterwards - their reality changes. Of course, one may reject the Aristotelian physics here of a substance being changed but not the accidents. However, there has certainly been some change and that change is substantial in that what exists after transformation is substantially (i.e. with a changed reality) different from what existed before.

Yet the form and function of the sacrament are very precise. A packet of Doritos and a bottle of Tizer clearly cannot produce the same sacrament - it's too divorced from the pattern the Lord set us, that has been established in Church Praxis and indeed sends out a very different message from the notion of spiritual sustenance and communion that wafer and wine have always provided.

I notice with some dismay that there is an attempt to remove weightier Christian themes from the service of Baptism in the CofE. Again, we have this divorce of form and function, by making the service less Christian, who can we Christen a baby? If the family are not going to play a part in the Practice of the Christian Religion, how can they be said to bringing up a child in the Christian Faith?

Form and function and form and content are inextricably bound. By changing how the religion is practice changes the religion. The exchange of the sign of Peace used to be a holy action in itself which had the practical benefit of demonstrating to someone who may not understand the high-falutin theology that he is meant to be an instrument of the Peace of God. Originally the action was practiced only at the Altar by the Sacred ministers, but today it has become a way to start a conversation in the middle of the Mass. The change of practice means loss of focus on God.

The same is true for "worship songs". I will admit that these do have a place in the correct assembly. A gathering expressly to sing songs of a Christian nature may well encourage people to find some emotional and spiritual expression, however the form of these songs is not often appropriate for the solemnity of Mass where a clear focus of one's attention is needed in order to meet God where the veil is thin.

The Ordination of Women (yes again! I am a one note tuba, aren't I?) is the same problem.

The fact of the matter is this: change the form of the sacrament and you change the sacrament. Change the practice of the community and you change the community.

Yet this is precisely what Fresh Expressions and Mission-Shaped XYZ are doing. Have any of the dioceses which have leapt aboard these bandwagons thought about this?

Gyrovagues in the key of G

Bless, O Lord, us Thy servants,who minister in Thy temple.Grant that what we sing with our lips,we may believe in our hearts, and what we believe in our hearts,we may show forth in our lives.Through Jesus Christ our Lord.Amen.

The RSCM chorister's prayer.

If you've sung in choirs since you were small, you may well have prayed this prayer. It's a right and proper prayer for a chorister to pray. I find, however, that it is that very prayer that, these days, keeps me out of church choirs. Why should someone who loves singing be forced out of church choirs for praying this prayer?

The Anglican Church has a wonderful Choral Tradition which, to all intents and purposes, is still alive. Regularly in Anglican Cathedrals one can hear Choral Evensong and Mattins executed very well. The excellence of the Anglican Choral tradition has lasted longer than Rome's by several centuries. One can compare the music as sung for the funeral of His Holiness Pope John-Paul II and the recent services in Westminster Abbey and Cathedral at which the current Holy Father was present.

Until recently, I was, for many years, part of a Parish Church Choir which was of a cathedral standard. We would regularly sing Evensong in the Parish and frequently elsewhere in cathedrals and abbeys and the like. However, what used to be weekly was, by the time I was asked to leave, monthly but the standard remained.

These days I sing in the school choir which, although brilliant in standard, is not a Church choir. When I do go to Church, I very rarely sing. Why?

I used to pray the prayer above assiduously. Reading it carefully, you can see that we are asking to believe the words that we sing and live them out in our lives. The problem begins if the words that a Christian is being required to sing are not those that the Christian should be believing. If the words of a hymn are pretty but actually say nothing at all, then by virtue of the Chorister's Prayer, what substance is there for me to believe, and subsequently, what substance is there for the way that I live life?

The chorister, as the prayer intimates, is a Church minister. The orders may be at best minor, but it is still an important ministry to fulfill for it is how the chorister leads the congregation in song that helps reinforce the belief of the Church in the faithful in attendance. The chorister must be disciplined to obey the direction of the choirmaster at all times. When the choirmaster says sing, we must sing. As he waves his hands, so must we keep time with him so that our song is excellent in its execution and clear in its promulgation of the message. The choirmaster is under the direction of the Parish priest, and the music chosen is at the whim of the priest under the advice of the choirmaster, though the former will usually devolve much of the choice to the latter, and whatever music is put in front of the chorister, that is what the chorister is bound to sing.

This, then, is where the Christian Chorister comes unstuck. How can one who believes in the Orthodox faith be obedient to a choirmaster when what is put in front of him is something that actually contains nothing for him to believe and thus practice, or worse goes against what the Church teaches? Further, what is the effect on a congregation of a choir singing a hymn that is riddled with vapidity and nonsense? It can be the most beautiful sound imaginable with stirring chords from the organ, sixteen-part harmonies executed by a choir that would make Kings College Cambridge sound like a box of angry cats and a fox, but if it is not singing the words of Truth which are the words of love, then St Paul's words in the first letter to the Corinthians come into play: their speech is as sounding brass or tinkling cymbal.

There is also the danger that Anglican Choirs become too "good" and then go professional. Why is this bad? Well...

Quartum vero genus est monachorum quod nominatur gyrovagum, qui tota vita sua per diversas provincias ternis aut quaternis diebus per diversorum cellas hospitantur, semper vagi et numquam stabiles, et propriis voluntatibus et gulae illecebris servientes, et per omnia deteriores sarabaitis. De quorum omnium horum miserrima conversatione melius est silere quam loqui.


The fourth kind of monks are those called Gyrovagues.These spend their whole lives tramping from province to province, staying as guests in different monasteries for three or four days at a time. Always on the move, with no stability, they indulge their own wills and succumb to the allurements of gluttony, and are in every way worse than the Sarabaites. Of the miserable conduct of all such it is better to be silent than to speak.

As St Benedict intimates in his description of the gyrovague, the choir that destabilises itself by ceasing to provide a vehicle for worship in a Church service and by becoming "performers" of Church music to be heard for their beauty rather than point to the greater Glory of God are damaging the faith of those who hear them. The Mass is not a concert platform, neither are Mattins and Evensong which are solemn offerings of prayer to God.

A good voice is necessary but simply not sufficient reason to be entered into a Church choir. A good tune is necessary but simply not sufficient reason for a song to be sung in Church. The Chorister must be committed to personal discipline and growth: as a minister of the Church he must work hard to improve the mastery of his instrument and of his personal subscription to the Faith that the music should express. All church choirs should seek the best in execution and belief. The choir should see itself in the role of a group of educators (literally ones-who-draw-out) by allowing the congregation to have their worship drawn from them and directed Godward.

As St Thomas Aquinas says:

Hymnus est laus Dei cum cantico; canticum autem exultatio mentis de aeternis habita, prorumpens in vocem.

The hymn is the Praise of God with song; but a song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on Eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.

Demanding? Yes. But then, isn't the life of a Christian necessarily sacrificial in nature? Why should a choir be any less sacrificial?

The Wideness of God's Mercy

I've been reflecting on this hymn lately:

There's a wideness in God's mercy
like the wideness of the sea;
there's a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.

There is no place where earth's sorrows
are more felt than up in heaven;
there is no place where earth's failings
have such kindly judgment given.

There is grace enough for thousands
of new worlds as great as this.
There is room for fresh creations
in that upper room of bliss.

For the love of God is broader
than the measure of man's mind;
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.

But we make his love too narrow
by false limits of our own;
and we magnify his strictness
with a zeal he will not own.

There is plentiful redemption
in the blood that has been shed;
there is joy for all the members
in the sorrows of the Head.

'Tis not all we owe to Jesus;
it is something more than all;
Greater Good because of evil
Larger Mercy through the fall.

If our love were but more faithful,
we should take Him at His word;
and our life would be all sunshine
for the sweetness of Our Lord.

F.W.Faber

Was Fr Faber's hymn written to open the mind or stretch the heart?

It seems we have failed to integrate head and heart sufficiently. We are certainly not supposed to be hard-hearted as Ezekiel reminds us when he reminds of the need to have a heart of flesh, but St Paul and St James remind us that we should remain firm in our belief and our reasons for believing what we do lest we be blown about by winds of doctrine. Does this mean that Biblically we should be hard of mind and soft of heart?

The trouble with being hard of mind, as St Paul reminds us, is that we become conceited with intellectual pride. Now, it is one thing to say extra ecclesiam nulla salus, but quite another to condemn someone to Hell with the coolness of the intellect. It is true to say that there is no salvation outside the Christian Church. Does this mean to say that I have now condemned all Moslems, Sikhs, and Atheists to Hell? Believe it or not, this does bother me greatly. Hell is such a terrible place that I wouldn't wish anybody at all, no matter who they are or what they've done, to even spend a moment there. I still hope that Hell will be empty.

However, there's a wideness to God's mercy, and thankfully it is not any one of us who will be the one who makes that decision. Those who wilfully reject God are destined to spend Eternity without Him, and they will find out just how unpleasant that is, for that is Hell indeed. My hope is that, by living our faith as best we can and praying fervently for the salvation of those who appear to be outside the Church, they will be able to see what we see and find their Salvation with us. We should certainly pray for those who do not believe, but first let us pray that the light of God should shine in our lives and work to that end, so that our brethren without the Church may see something of the Truth which we profess to seek.

Flesh and Faith, Appetite and Silence

Edward Bairstow's setting of "Let all mortal flesh keep silence." This is a hymn I rarely hear now. It's well known that this is part of the Liturgy of St James, one of the oldest liturgies that we have and still use in the Christian Church. I would have posted the Greek but for some reason my computer wants to transliterate it into English and it looks odd.

Actually, it's not surprising that this hymn is not flavour of the month for reasons that will become clear. If you like Moultrie's translation here it is:

1. Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly-minded,
for with blessing in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
our full homage to demand.

2. King of kings, yet born of Mary,
as of old on earth he stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
in the body and the blood;
he will give to all the faithful
his own self for heavenly food.

3. Rank on rank the host of heaven
spreads its vanguard on the way,
as the Light of light descendeth
from the realms of endless day,
that the powers of hell may vanish
as the darkness clears away.

4. At his feet the six-winged seraph,
cherubim, with sleepless eye,
veil their faces to the presence,
as with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

It's a good verse form for the original test, which is better translated as

Let all mortal flesh keep silent, and with fear and trembling stand. Ponder nothing earthly-minded, for the King of kings and Lord of lords advances to be slain and given as food to the faithful. Before him go the choirs of Angels, with every rule and authority, the many-eyed Cherubim and the six-winged Seraphim, veiling their sight and crying out the hymn: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

Bairstow follows this rather well.

This is sung at the Offertory before the gifts are placed upon the altar following an exhortation from the Deacon to stand upright!

And what a command: Be silent! Let everything be silent!

The trouble is, these days there isn't much in the way of silence. It's viewed very negatively by most folk. Silence is awkward. When Silence comes into a room full of people, there is a mad scramble in every person's mind to find something to say just to send Silence back out of the door. Why is there this antipathy to Silence? I suppose that the trouble with Silence is that frequently in silence we hear precisely the things we don't want to hear about ourselves and our lives. There is the danger that in the Silence we will learn just how little we are, how empty our lives are and how inconsequential some of our struggles might be. We may even be afraid that we will hear the voice of God and end up standing in fear and trembling.

Thinking biblically, off the top of my head, there seem to be four silences - the Silence at Creation, the Silence of Job before his Creator, the Silence of Christ before his accusers and the Silence in Heaven for about half an hour. Yet in each Silence we know a little more about God. What we learn isn't something that we actually can grasp, it's not really an intellectual knowledge, but we come close to God as He really is. There is Silence at the Creation because the only thing that makes a noise is God who breaks the Silence with his Fiat Lux!

Of course, the adept in prayer will be the first to tell you that hearing God speak is not like having a conversation with another human being. We can converse with Christ on the human level, but to converse with God, an entirely unique being, a being that is not as we are but bigger and fuller, well that's entirely different. We cannot expect to hear God in words (though we certainly cannot rule out the possibility - tolle, lege!) when we pray to Him. Indeed, it is in the Silence of prayer that He converses with us at a level our conscious mind cannot fathom. We are simply created deeper than we can ever really be aware. That depth is part of the image of God with which we are being created.

This is the same Silence that Job meets with - it's not the silence of one who is ashamed at the distress of another, but the silence of one who knows that words and argument mean nothing when facing the tragedies of human suffering. God has the compassion not to fob us off with platitudes, but to sit down in Silence and just be with us, thus preserving our integrity and God's respect for us.

Flesh hates this silence because it does not satisfy the fleshly appetite; it cannot be controlled or consumed or commanded in the same way that words can. Flesh will rail against the silence of God because it is not satisfied with anything that is not material. Flesh consumes only flesh, but cannot digest spiritual things. Our desire is for the pain to go away because we don't know how to be patient. The Lord Jesus Christ knew this even in the face of death by torture. He could have saved Himself, but was Silent in order to let the will of God happen. In turn, He was met with God's Silence on the Cross as He cried out the words of Psalm 22 - a cry of dereliction certainly, but following that psalm to its conclusion, ends in praise for God.

Again, the Lord is tempted by the pull of His flesh to resist the Silence, and yet He gives us of His flesh to eat in order that both our flesh and our spirit may be nourished. It is here that we return to the setting of this hymn "Let All Mortal Flesh". It occurs at the Offertory where they Mystery of the Sacrament unfolds - "Christ, Our God, to Earth descendeth, our full homage to demand."

I've often argued on this blog for Transubstantiation, and I know that many of my closest friends disagree with me about this. However, what I hope we all agree on is that we meet with God for real in some actual, more-than-physical, reality, whether we interpret that as substantial or not. I suspect most of our differences occur because we're coming in to the same thing from very different angles. Good! Let that be so! For the fact of the matter is the closer we come to God, the deeper the Silence. The Apocalypse is a mirror for the Mass and there is Silence in Heaven for about half an hour - a beautifully mystical statement at the opening of the Seventh Seal. As God reveals Himself more fully, the less we can actually sense. We are forced to walk by faith into the soundless expanse of God where the chatter of our minds and fears of our hearts have no place, no reality. Eat and drink of the Body and Blood of God unworthily and we actually lose reality!

We need Silence at Mass. We need Silence in the Church because that is where we meet with God. God's silence can be deeply infuriating but we can only travel with what we know by faith. God's silence infuriates because we expect something deeply definitive from God, an answer to our problems immediately. We have to accept God's decisions for our lives and to sit and listen. The minute we start filling the Silence with our own decisions, just to break that Silence, the more that we go wrong and stray from His way. God is not like us. His decisions and His Silence will baffle us, but that does not mean that we should suddenly start voting to amend the problematic situation and claim that this is the movement of the Holy Spirit.

If you want them, have your woman "priests" and "out and proud" bishops, your happy-clappy bands, meaningless hymns and liturgies, but they will only fill you full of noise and drive you further from the God who loves you because they all stem from a purely human understanding of appetite. These resolutions have been made because some members of the Church have been embarrassed by the Silence of God to "real world issues". They make us less real because they break God's Silence for Him! They are our impatience with God Who is infinitely patient with us.

We need to stand Silently.

We need to stand with fear and trembling because the effects of doing so raise us far beyond what we could ever imagine. See the Liturgy of St James for details or, better still, a Mass done well in your area.

Soul Music: aspiration versus affectation

Striggio's Ecce Beatam Lucem.

Tallis' Spem in Alium

I have just spent a very pleasant half an hour listening to, in my opinion, three of the most uplifting pieces of music written: Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis, Ecce Beatam Lucem by Alessandro Striggio and O Bone Jesu by Robert Carver which I'm yet to find on YouTube, but I thoroughly recommend that you purchase the recordings properly as they sound much more glorious than these rather grainy videos.

I'll readily admit that I am a big fan of polychoral motets - pieces of music which involve more than one choir of voices. On a much feebler scale I write my own which come nowhere near to the sheer genius of these highly talented and gifted musicians. I find that writing such pieces puts an enormous strain on my grasp of music, trying to get the noises in my head into some sensible and orderly form to express some form of my worship of God. It is a vast effort on my part, but then I am not a trained composer and have very little knowledge of form, structure or texture. I also doubt that I will ever hear my compositions performed other than by the munchkin chorus that inhabits my computer. That doesn't worry me too much - I don't write for performance because I worry that I might become conceited from any adulation and dispirited by any criticism.

However, the point is that I try to do something that pushes against the everyday tendency to ignore God. Music requires effort if it is to be done well and inspire people and worship God. The blood of the composer must be spilt into the manuscript page, and likewise the blood of the performer must be drawn if the music has any chance of lifting the soul from this veil of suffering and to touch the Divine who in His great act of humility permits us to touch Him.

Tomorrow, I shall go into Church and I shall hear songs half-sung, words half-read and prayers barely prayed. The angelic voices to which I have recently just listened will be replaced by songs that are easy to sing, that speak of the comfort of our position and how nice that chap Jesus is. There will be no aspirations, there will be no desire to move forward, there will be no wish to upset the status quo. All will be done to maintain a nice atmosphere while we watch the Rector putting on his performance at the altar, and it will mean absolutely nothing. And then we shall all get up and receive the Body and Blood of Christ, ignorant in our bloodless existence of the sheer and titanic effort that He made in order that we might receive that Communion.

It doesn't matter which parish I'm talking about - it's the face of Sunday worship in the C of E, with its modern take on things and its desire to make it easy for people to come through the door. to understand what's going on, to enjoy oneself.

Church Music is one single aspect and barometer of the spiritual state of the Church. I am not saying that every church needs to sing Striggio's 40/60 part Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno as its weekly Mass setting. The dear monks at Elmore Abbey do their level best at singing the simple chants in their hard Office. I don't think they are trained singers, but their simple effort and hard work make that music special even though it's a single unison line of music. If they can do it, then we should be thus able. We just need to get rid of the gimmicks, the affectations such as tambourines, guitars, drums and Clavinovas with their helicopter sound effects and put some effort into singing hymns of worship that are directed God-ward and not "Here am I Lord, look at me, Lord" which the majority of these ridiculous and offensive worship songs are, both from a theological and aesthetic point of view.

Sing to the Lord a new song? Yes, but one that we've actually made an effort to compose well.

A command or stating the obvious?

Yes, it's that dire little ditty that I once translated into Latin. I thought that since I had spent some time below on the error of I'm Accepted I ought to consider the error of an infamous song.

Lord, the light of Your love is shining,

In the midst of the darkness shining.

Jesus, Light of the World, shine upon us;

Set us free by the truth You now bring us.

Shine on me, Shine on me!

Shine, Jesus, shine;

Fill this land with the Father's glory;

Blaze, Spirit blaze,Set our hearts on fire.

Flow, river flow,

Flood the nations with grace and mercy;

Send forth Your Word, Lord,

And let there be light.

Lord, I come to Your awesome presence,

From the shadows into Your radiance;

By the blood I may enter Your brightness,

Search me, try me, consume all my darkness,

Shine on me, shine on me.

Shine, Jesus ...........

As we gaze on Your Kingly brightness,

So our faces display Your likeness;

Ever changing from glory to glory,

Mirror'd here may our lives tell Your story,

Shine on me, shine on me.

Shine Jesus ............

The question is: what is this song actually saying?

The first two lines "Lord, the light of Your love is shining, In the midst of the darkness shining." This is just a statement of fact, that the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness comprehends it not. A sound biblical idea, so why then "Jesus, Light of the World, shine upon us; Set us free by the truth You now bring us. Shine on me, Shine on me!"

From a purely logical point of view, either the light is shining on "me" or it isn't, since we have established in the first line that it is, there is no need for the second line. So much for logic.

The more important issue is this "Shine on me" business. When I translated this into Latin of course I had to use the imperative which is used to express commands and urgent requests. If this were an urgent request, I would expect to see some act of supplication, reverence and recognition of a need. I don't perceive that here, and even if it was here, the sheer gusto and hand-waving and general abandonment to the pleasure of singing for its own sake make it quite clear that this has none of the flavour of a request, but rather a demand. If that is the case then the song is guilty of Blasphemy in denying the Kingship and Authority of the Divine Christ.

Don't misunderstand me here, please. I am fully aware of the outpouring of love that the Saviour has for all Mankind, that it is boundless, that it is pure and overflowing with a liberality that one cannot truly fathom. But it isn't cheap and has come at a terrible price. Thus Our Christ's gift of love must not be held in as scant disregard as this song implies. Yes it talks about the Lord's "Kingly Brightness" but where is the humility?

Unlike "I'm accepted" there seems to be (albeit scant) reference to our need for cleansing: "Search me, try me, consume all my darkness". However consider that this is one line, sung quickly and triumphally, it renders it more of a boast, than an act of humility. What of the self-examination and confession for the individual to do?

Notice that the whole song is Christ do this, Lord do that. I hear in my head Our Lord saying "Yes, I'm doing this already, but what are you going to do?" I seem to remember in one of my previous sermons a mention of the Prattler of Pious Platitudes, the phenomenon of heaping praise and praise upon God until the words become meaningless and God Himself cannot get a word in edgewise. What of sitting and listening to God? How does this song allow God to speak to us? At its best it is just a meaningless sing-a-long. It's only when you try and put meaning to it that it truly gets worse!

How shall I sing that Majesty?

My sabbatical ends this Sunday, and I will no doubt be asked to provide magazine articles once more. Here's one that I've prepared for some of my critics. Thanks to Ed Pacht for his thoughts on the matter.

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Those of you who see me in Church will notice that I do not sing when the hymns are from the Mission Praise song book. It's quite reasonable that I should be questioned as to why I don't join in with these congregational songs and I do owe an explanation why.


I do take my hymn singing very seriously, after all singing praise to Our God is fully Biblical. Indeed the Bible is riddled with poems and songs and references to singing hymns en masse. So clearly congregational singing is part of our heritage and everyone in the congregation ought to sing as best as they can in order to offer praise to God as one body of Christ.


If I'm saying that everyone must sing congregational hymns, then why am I behaving like the hypocrite by not doing so? If our taste in music is not important and we should sing regardless of whether we "like" the music or not, then surely I am in the wrong by closing my mouth whilst everyone else's is open.


You see, I don't refuse to sing on the grounds of taste, but on the grounds of theology. As I say, I take my hymn singing very seriously, and the first consideration that needs to be made is answering the question "what is this hymn saying to God, to the people around and to me?"


Take this little song

I'm accepted, I’m forgiven,
I am fathered by the true and living God.
I’m accepted, no condemnation,
I am loved by the true and living God.

There’s no guilt or fear as I draw near
To the Saviour and Creator of the world.
There is joy and peace
As I release my worship to You, O Lord.

321 in Mission Praise.

It seems quite simple and harmless, but it's just wrong in its understanding of God. It contains bad theology that is contrary to our Anglican beliefs.


Let's take it apart.


I'm accepted, I'm forgiven: This first line suffers from a significant lack of detail about how we are accepted and forgiven by God. I am only accepted in the eyes of God if I have fully confessed my sins, fully repented and I am fully prepared to follow Christ in my life and in proper regard with the Sacraments. Taken as it is written, that first line could be guilty of the sin of presumption. It says nothing about the sorrow for our sins that we need to have and perhaps it also encourages us not to worry about our guilt.


I am fathered by the true and living God: This line could be sung by so many folk who claim to be Christians but are not, such as the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses.


I'm accepted, no condemnation: Repetition does not make any statement more true.


I am loved by the true and living God: Everyone is loved by God, including those who are not Christian, including those who do not believe in God, and also including those who are on the pathway to Hell because of their lack of repentance.


There’s no guilt or fear as I draw near To the Saviour and Creator of the world:

Who is worthy of approaching God? As C.S. Lewis remarks in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe:

"Is he safe?" "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver... "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

If we have no fear of God, then clearly we have not understood, nor wanted to understand, Who He is. The fact that we are permitted to approach is testament to Christ's humanity. To say that we can approach Christ with any less fear is Arian, meaning that we do not appreciate His power as God.


There is joy and peace As I release my worship to You, O Lord: An interesting phrase, but does it actually mean anything? How is my worship of God constrained, and how my I release it? Am I keeping it a prisoner? If I do not praise God willingly then my body praises him regardless. Compare this with St Luke 19:37-40.

Finally, what is the most common word used in this song? The answer is "I" - I'm accepted, I'm forgiven, I'm fathered, I am loved." Rather egotistical this song, isn't it? Can this be a song to praise the same God who said, "if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily , and follow me"? At Mass, we come together to praise God as a body forgetting ourselves ("though we are many, we are one body because we all share in one bread"). The only thing that we must do as individuals is confess our own sins - "I confess that I have sinned" - and confess our faith - "I believe in one God." Isn't it God Whom we are to praise? How does a song which focuses on "me" praise God?

This song is more concerned with soothing our consciences than praising and learning about God.

We really do need to think about what we're singing and saying in Church otherwise we can really make some terrible mistakes.


But this isn't the only thing that Mission Praise does. It changes the words of hymns to make them more "understandable" to people singing. In doing so, it changes their meaning, and changes our ability to find the truth of God within their words. This is true to some extent with all hymn books, but Mission Praise likes to chop and change for convenience such as the last verse of Crown Him with many Crowns (MP 109, AMNS 147) in which two verses have been cut and wedged together. Also the last verse of Christ is made the sure foundation (MP 73, AMNS 332 part 2) has been altered to make it easier to understand but in doing so omits crucial Anglican understanding of the Holy Trinity (consubstantial is not the same as "one in power" co-eternal is not the same as "one in glory").

In short, I do not trust Mission Praise to preserve traditional Anglican teaching, and because it is necessary for every Christian to follow the traditional teaching of the Church and because I don't have time to check the theology of every hymn and song at Mass, I cannot bring myself to sing from this book. It isn't because it's not to my taste, it's because it's not what any thinking Christian believes. I hope this answers the questions of my practices.