A-words in LSM?????

[yrieithydd]

I was slightly surprised to find us singing Come ye faithful raise the anthem as the offertory hymn this evening because I associated it with cheerful occasion, not quite Eastertide but nearly (partly I think because of Come ye faithful raise the strain. However, I had forgotten until we got to the relevant verse (4?) that is was definitely

Comments

[mr_ricarno]

I don't quite understand why the A-word gets 'buried' during Lent, especially when they just change the Gospel Acclamation to 'Praise be to thee O Christ, King of eternal glory'. That, in my view, is cheating, since you're simply translating the A-word and applying it to Jesus.

If I understood the reason for not saying the A-word in Lent, I might be able to think of it as something other than spiritual OCD. Any ideas?

[yrieithydd]

And then throughout Eastertide we use it lots and lots and lots.

There is a school of thought that in fact, it is not so much that the word is omitted in Lent but that it never spread there from Eastertide in the first place.

In many ways it is similar to the omission of the Gloria (although there are more occasions which bring that back) in terms of creating a more sombre atmosphere during Lent. The vicar back in Aber did not get why we should omit the Gloria `why shouldn't we praise God in Lent/Advent?' he asked. But we do continue to praise God, but just not in those particular ways. It is part of the way in which the timescale of liturgy is the year not the day. As the preacher has been telling us, liturgical time is non-homogenised and corporate and such things as avoiding the A-word in Lent is part of that.

[mr_ricarno]

Yeah, I'll go along with that. Am I still a good A-C if I can see both points of view, though?

[yrieithydd]

[grins] I suspect the preacher had chosen it for its understanding of time without noticing the problem.

[naomir]

Indeed! And two-fold: almost all the LSM set of psalms for Morning Prayer last week started and ended with the A-word. Would have been interested to see if Fr A had used or omitted it (or changed psalm!), but alas I didn't make it to any offices to find out...

[yrieithydd]

My recollection from last year is that it was indeed omitted.

[jy100]

Verse 3 is the alleluiatic one (at least in the NEH recension). I suppose its use in Lent is just about tolerable, since here we are not proclaiming the A-word in direct speech, but merely affirming that the "sons of light" in the Kingdom do so. And if you were in Wales on St David's Day, an exemption from customary Lenten strictures for the country's patronal festival would have been understandable. But I admit I was perplexed to be singing such inappropriately triumphant verses as the sole hymn at last night's Mass, and a curious lapse from the fastidious attention to such details one expects at LSM (failed syllepsis, but what the hell!)

If the trend continues people who care may just have to remain mute at the offending words - as some (don't ask!) already appear to do for the filioque clause.

[meirion]

If the trend continues people who care may just have to remain mute at the offending words - as some (don't ask!) already appear to do for the filioque clause.

but only when it suits them, remember. consistency on the matter would be a blessing, to be honest.

-m-

[senji]

consistency is beneath some people :)

[sashajwolf]

There are people at LSM not saying the filioque now? I remember being quite shocked at the Episcopalian Cathedral in Glasgow two years ago to find that it seemed to have been excised from their service books. I gathered from the modifications to the Eucharistic prayer that had also been made and from talking to a friend afterwards that it had been done in anticipation of some form of accord with Eastern Orthodoxy, which however never materialised. Is that what's behind it at LSM, too?

[sashajwolf]

*grin* Courtesy of a post a friend made elsewhere, I have an earworm of Leonard Cohen's H---------, which from time to time insists on bursting forth into actual song - so I'm not doing too well in this department either ;-)

Don't mention it?

[anonymous]

The distinction between use and mention of a word seems to me to be crucial here. If we are merely describing what other people sing, we are not ourselves singing what we say they are singing. So presumably, since we are not among the heavenly host, we do not sing "A..." all the time, though they do. But we have to be allowed to tell other people (including them perhaps) that they do, though we don't.
So I'd say this hymn is exempt, at least on those grounds.
As for the filioque, I see no reason for consistency. Sometimes I think it is more important to leave it out, since it shouldn't be there, and on other occasions I think it is more important to leave it in, since leaving it out would make it seem as if it said something that mattered. So sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.

Re: Don't mention it?

[jy100]

I see no reason for consistency.

One obvious problem with this sort of inconsistency is that it can confuse the faithful, especially when it is displayed by their pastors and masters. The doctrine of the Double Procession may be well nigh indeterminable (there are good arguments both for and against it, rather better than for most of the other stuff in the creed), but that's not to say that it's immaterial. It's a matter of faith (not of mere custom, like which hand one receives communion in). And isn't there a further inconsistency in saying that something "shouldn't be there" and yet that that something doesn't say anything that matters?

So if anonymous really believes that the Western doctrine is wrong, shouldn't zie conscientiously strive for its excision from the liturgy forthwith - or at least consistently decline to recite that clause and explain zir position to those who might otherwise be perplexed?

[robert_jones]

hand!?

[jy100]

Yes, that is the ancient custom. But I suppose Bourne Street insists on achirodosis.