Morning Worship Sunday 6th September - St Therese

[Mithras]

Can "Therese" be made to rhyme happily with "grace"? No, it cannot.

M

ps - "great big world"? I ask you!

[presbyter]

Well, as a manufactured form of Morning Prayer for a radio audience, I thought it worked well. It engaged my attention and it has, I'm sure, made many of the Radio 4 Sunday Worship regulars aware of a great saint that might have been unknown to them.

[presbyter]

If you missed it -

http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnds

[presbyter]

Questions for Nick Baty - or anyone!

Google does not immediately bring up any published statistics. Does anyone know the approximate listener numbers for Morning Worship and the audience profile? Is the programme aimed at the eldery who, for reasons of infirmity, can no longer go to church? Does it have a broader appeal?

I'm wondering if the producers tend towards assembling a programme that is simply nice to listen to or if their intention is deeper - i.e. fully engaging the listeners in worship.

By the way - I thought that the poignant witness of the father who had lost his young daughter to illness made a powerful catechetical point concerning the value of the saints as exemplars of Christian living (and even the value of relics).

[Mithras]

By the way - I thought that the poignant witness of the father who had lost his young daughter to illness made a powerful catechetical point concerning the value of the saints as exemplars of Christian living (and even the value of relics).

Yes, on that I agree, Presbyter. But I don't think the case was advanced by having it embedded into a service consisting of music of such mawkishness. The closing hymn, How Great Thou Art, apart from its perpetuating an outmoded expiatory atonement theology (verging on penal substitution), which we can do nothing about until publishers decide not to include it in hymnals anymore, was elevated to new heights of implausibility by its emotionally tainted and harmonically suspect treatment. It seems the producer had the good sense to cut it short!

Mithras

[Psalm Project]

Out of pure curiosity I had to fast forward to hear the final hymn...
This kind of 'treatement' is what kills otherwise stately hymns. Forget about the other bits for a moment... Breathing? Rhythm? vocal support? all on public radio service?
I would not let my choir get away with this style of singing. However, I have witnessed worse!
They say it takes all types and styles...

[Mithras]

Out of pure curiosity I had to fast forward to hear the final hymn...
Forget about the other bits for a moment...

Ah, but I can't forget about the "other bits". Pushing this kind of theology through music is quite dishonest. Two phrases from this hymn are particularly distatseful: (a) "sent him to die", and (b) "my burden gladly bearing". Really? Jesus was sent to the world to die? Was he really glad about being crucified? No on both counts, I think. Certainly the crucifixion was accepted by the Father as a possibly inevitable but certainly not necessary component of Jesus' mission which was primarily one of revelation and a call to repentance in order to establish God's kingdom of love. And I doubt very much that what was on Our Lord's mind as he hung on the cross was anything akin to being glad about what he was going through, and neither would he be imagining that this was anything to do with anybody else's "burdens". He probably just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

Mithras

[Psalm Project]

Mithras... you are then going to have a big problem singing Stainer's 'God so loved the world'... especially the bit where it says 'that he gave his only son' etc...
You made me go look at my hymnal for the words of the verse you refer to... Verse 3 (in Laudate). We never use that verse in any case - thank you for drawing my attention to it. Hmmm. off to ponder more!

[Mithras]

I'll go with "gave" - but that verse has always been a problem in its English translation. Not "God loved the world so much" as is implied in English, but "because", or " as a result of his love of the world" (Gk houtos, because, therefore) which still does not suggest a predetermined sacrificial mandate.

M

[presbyter]

Ah, but I can't forget about the "other bits". Pushing this kind of theology through music is quite dishonest.

I agree and am wondering why the service had to end with a hymn anyway. Following on from my question about the BBC producers - would this (to me) inappropriate ending have been their choice? This particular hymn is, I suppose, a "national favourite" across denominations. Could it have been chosen simply to provide an anchor of familiarity for the listeners? On the other hand - there was no attempt at something such as a "Litany of Saint Thérèse", asking for her intercession. Perhaps that would have seemed far too Catholic for listeners of a more Protestant inclination. Are the BBC just "playing safe" with Morning Worship?

[Mithras]

Well they did include the Hail Mary.... Two cheers for the Rock Cakes!
M

[presbyter]

That particular verse of How great Thou art seems to me to deny Christ's "Sovereign Freedom", as the Catechism puts it. (See Catechism 606 to 616 - worth a careful read) How did John 3:16ff enter the discussion? No mention of sacrifice or bleeding and dying there. It's a statement of the divine plan for sure - but not how it will be achieved. (proparte Stainer sententia rutilus allec est)

[keitha]

I have been involved in several 'Sunday Worships' for the BBC, every one with a different producer. At no time has the BBC team ever made any suggestion about content, save where timing has been an issue or, on one occasion, where even the BBC's team were having problems obtaining PR consent. Presbyter asked about numbers. I was told that the programme attracts about 1.2m listeners (I will get the up to date figures and post them). The programme is aimed principally (but not solely) at those who would like to get to church, but for some reason cannot do so, and this is driven by the public service aspect of the BBC. The BBC also like to broadcast a range of liturgical and musical styles that is reasonably typical of what can be seen in churches and other places of worship across the UK.

I suspect relatively little thought went into the selection of the final hymn or the decision to have one. I know that when Jo Boyce and Mike Stanley were asked to direct the music for the feast of the Baptism of the Lord for Radio 4 in January of this year their arrangement of 'O Lord my God' was to have been the final hymn then, but it was cut the night before as it had little bearing on the liturgy and its inclusion would have meant cutting or shortening something that was more relevant. The setting forms part of a selection of traditional hymns that have been 'reworked' by Boyce and Stanley called, I think, 'Age to Age' (which includes the Soul of my Saviour setting that was used in the January broadcast). Their idea is to bring a contemporary 'twist' to traditional hymns so that they can be more 'accessible' to people today, and they have just published a second set of them. I will leave others to judge!

As for the two new songs, I thought 'My Song of Today' was reasonably tuneful and singable (even if it did not convey the real meaning of the original poem - see Presbyter's earlier comments) and I was ok with it. I thought 'Child of Grace' was simply dreadful - both music and lyrics. I thought that the liturgy generally was a success, and I found it engaging - particularly the sermon and the section about young Emily Nugent's illness and death (which I found particularly poignant, and my heart goes out to her family). I was not over-enamoured of the psalm (Angrisano - pub OCP) or the Marty Haugen setting of the Benedictus.

[musicus]

IIRC, Soul of my Saviour also received a make-over in Praise the Lord Revised

I don't think anyone uses that one today.

[Angela Barber]

Oh dear! Didn't they have an organ available...... I feel I'm losing the battle for good church music. There's plenty of acceptable French stuff around if they didn't want to keep to the English tradition. I'm a founder member of the B.A.G.I.C. society - (ban all guitars in church) so think I'll go into a quiet room with Tallis and spem in alium in an attempt to recover my sanity. Angela.