Singing the Lord's Prayer

[Maz]

If anyone's interested, I have a no1 pet hate... and it's singing the Lord's Prayer.

Whenever I hear it in one of its horrid musical incarnations all I can think is 'make it stop'. It is a beautiful prayer so why make it into a yucky clichéd song?

To be liturgical about it, it is the one prayer that everyone is supposed to know - regardless of parish or denomination - and to sing it can mean alienating people who
a) don't like singing
b) don't know the tune
c) think the tune is yucky (like me, usually).

Most non-Christians also have an idea of how it goes. Which brings to mind Cliff Richard's class A murder of the Lord's Prayer which surfaced for the Millennium (how could anyone forget).

Well balanced and rational views anyone?



PS: Thanks for the emoticon, Admin!

[organist]

When we were at the Papal audience in St Peter's square we were surprised how few around us knew the Pater noster. I think congregations should occasionally sing this setting and the English version in the missal. Most of the other settings are awful. Big parish occasions we say it.

[Benevenio]

In my parish, we never sing the Lord's Prayer. In fact, it never crosses my mind to suggest singing it when we plan. I think this is due to growing up in the Seventies, with the first wave of particularly trite 'folk' music (to use the term very loosely) which the Church was blessed with following the move to the vernacular and which so many thought particularly appropriate for children.
Speaking personally, the chant, in Latin, has a certain appeal to me - I find it very restful when I am visiting parishes where they do sing it. But Maz is right - it can be very devisive just at the point when we are praying together. Perhaps that is why the Litugy Office ranks it as one of the least important things to sing (see the Liturgy Office website and look at the document Singing the Mass for details).
Organist has a point though - wider than just the Lord's Prayer - when the wider Church meets, how much repertoire is there in common. I happen to go to Universa Laus where we pray daily in the language of each group... with the most 'interesting' being praying in Dutch. Most usually, we sing in the language of each group, but the Lord's Prayer is nearly always said, each in his or her own tongue. It is very, very effective, and no-one rushes, partly because it is amazing how much you listen to the other languages and naturally synchronise the lines of the prayer: the Universal Church, united, but not uniform.

[organist]

People didn't join in Credo III in St Peter's square either!

[Tsume Tsuyu]

I cringe at most settings of the Lord's Prayer I've heard. I much prefer to say it and, as Benevenio says, it comes very low in the rankings of which bits ought to be sung, issued by the Liturgy Office in Singing the Mass.

However, for me, there is an advantage, sometimes, to singing that which is usually said. And that is that I tend to focus on the words more. The danger with repetition of prayers is that they trip off the tongue and we don't always think about what we are saying, or pray the prayer. I realised a few years ago that I was saying the Lord's Prayer goodness knows how many times a week without ever really praying the words because they were too familiar. The same thing happens with the Creed. More recently, we've been having regular Morning Prayer at our Church and I've become so familiar with the Benedictus that I've caught myself doing the same with that; saying the words without thinking about them. Now, when it is my turn to lead at Morning Prayer, I often use a sung version of the Benedictus, simply to make me focus more on the words.

It's not quite that familiarity breeds contempt but, for me, it certainly breeds a lack of awareness of what I am saying/praying.

I always notice when our PP uses a different Eucharistic Prayer too. Eucharistic Prayer II seems to be most often used (the shortest?). When one of the others is used, I notice – and I listen.

So, getting back to the Lord's Prayer, I don't like to sing it, but I do have to remind myself to really pray it and not just recite it!

TT

[Maz]

Your points about familiarity breeding contempt with prayers that we say regularly were interesting Tsume. It's something that bothers me a lot, being someone who finds themselves thinking a lot during the Mass (usually when I should be concentrating on the words of prayers!).

We had a youth mass a few weeks ago and some of the young people did a Lord's Prayer 'presentation thing' in the shape of a conversation between a wordshipper and God about how they were not thinking about the words that they were saying in the Lord's Prayer. Although it was a bit long-winded it has made me think more about the meaning of the words. Saying the rosary seems to be good for that as well - focusing on what you are saying through repetition of prayers.

Plainsong is an interesting exception to my cringe-factor rule though. I seem to have no objections to hearing the Lord's Prayer in that format. Unfortunately though I am too young to have much knowledge or experience of Latin liturgies but I am curious about praying in Latin and what effect this has on the worshipping experience. As time goes on less and less Catholics will understand Latin so I wonder how things will move on in that respect.

[manniemain]

The Rimsky-Korsakov setting is better than most in that it is chanted and quite beautiful as well as being dignified. Reducing this prayer to the banality of a song (even a nice song) is a major cringe factor for me as well. Chanting however does seem to have the opposite effect and slows the whole thing down. I hate to hear this prayer barked by a congregation and a dignified chant prevents that. Barking is even worse than a facile "song"