One song to the tune of another (isihac)

[gwyn]

I didn't go anywhere near any place of worship until I was 16 years old, then found my way into the village bells-and-smells high anglican church. I stayed there, learning to pray, serve, sing, and to play the organ. I loved nothing better than to occasionally go to town to the Roman Catholic Church for the 11am Sunday Mass where they would often sing a final hymn to Our Lady, Faith of our fathers, or other trad catholic hymn.

As a convert, many of these hymns still hold a freshness for me, as indeed does Missa de Angelis and Missa Orbis Factor.

Don't throw them out, rather use them occasionally. They have a beauty and a wonderous attraction.

I've been a Roman Catholic for 26 years now and that sense of newness continues.

We often have a meadley made up of the first verses of many traditional catholic hymns as the recessional song - in May we used the verse ones of: I'll sing a hymn to Mary, Daily daily sing to Mary, Hail, Queen of heav'n, O purest of creatures, and Immaculate Mary. Some may rubbish these hymns but I'll guarantee that whenever we do this hardly anyone at all leaves the church 'til the last verse is sung.

It isn't nostalgia for us converts.

[contrabordun]

..while we were all singing that with a single voice, members of each parish were thinking of quite different people...

at one of the Baptist churches, I opened the hymn book to have a look at it. I was surprised to see that Faith of our Fathers was there..

Maybe we could all agree that it refers to the Christian faith? Every denomination of which has had its martyrs, many of them killed for sectarian reasons. I'd hazard a guess that Jesus' followers have killed far more of each other on religious grounds in four centuries than all of his enemies put together managed in twenty.
I don't think even today the denominations - not just ours, but we do still sometimes seem to take the "you worship in your way, and we'll worship in God's" attitude - make enough of an effort to stress the similarities, rather than the differences, between them.

[Tanglewood]

The only one I've tried at mass was Amazing Grace to the tune of House of the Rising Sun which I think works very well. It went down like a lead balloon with the congragation as they were expecting the usual version (as in the hymnbook but changed to 4/4 with a 'blues' feel and a snazzy shuffle patern over the top). Might give it another go someday though! (mid summer holiday croud?)

[musicus]

Welcome to the forum, Tanglewood!

Musicus
(moderator)

[dunstan]

Can't see any problem with Faith of Our Fathers - I chose it for SS Peter and Paul this year.

So did I, and it was sung with gusto.

Linking smoothly back to the thread topic, my sister was at a funeral a few weeks ago where "Eternal Father Strong to Save" was put up as the final hymn, but the organist played Faith of our Fathers instead, in error (the two are numerically adjacent in the Celebration Hymnal). Amazingly the words fit just fine, except for having to repeat the last line.

Dunstan - can I just say this is my second time on this board ...

[Merseysider]

Can't see any problem with Faith of Our Fathers....

All depends where you are.

In my neck of the woods the "Faith" referred to is most definitely Catholicism – by which I mean the opposite of Protestantism, the other camp, the other tribe.

It's an area where this was sung as a rallying cry just as much as "The wearing of the green". Of course, the other side would be singing "The Sash My Father Wore".

On 12th July some members of our congregation are seriously worried that their windows will be broken etc.

It's not quite as sectarian as it was up to the Second World War but there are members of our neighbouring Anglican parish who have vowed never to set foot in a Catholic church. And children are kept away from summer holiday schemes which take place on Catholic premises.

On the other hand, a new ecumenical school is due to open in the autumn and one of our former churches is now part of an ecumenical university. There's a lovely story about that church when it was at the centre of the 19th-century 12th July riots: a woman in the crowd was carrying a stick with a kipper in top – she'd hung a notice from it which read, "Cured at Lourdes".

On Monday I was stuck at traffic lights as the Orange parade returned from its annual day out at the seaside. As I watched the long procession wind it's way up the hill and through the city I was, I'll admit, a tad scared. If I'd been singing "Faith of our Fathers" I really could have made myself a martyr.

[SOP]

Glad you said all that Merseysider because at this end of the Mersey, Faith of our Fathers is definitely a Catholic song.

I used to work at a Catholic Club which was known locally as an Irish club, it wasn't, but as most of the Catholics in the area were Irish it was obvious to see the connection. The band at the weekend played Irish music. At the end of the night they just could not play 'God Save the Queen' so each evening ended with Faith of our Fathers.

Our Whit Walks, the sound of Faith of our Fathers played over and over by bagpipes - stays in your head for days.

[gwyn]

You can sing The Old Rugged Cross to Elvis Presley's Old Shep - (but it hardly sounds any different !)