Crossed The Tiber

An Evangelical Converts to Catholicism

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Location: Pennsylvania, United States

I was born into the Catholic faith. At 14, I was "born again" and found Jesus personally but lost His Church. After thirty years as an evangelical protestant, I have come full circle to find that He has been there all the time, in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I wish others to find the beauty and truth of the Catholic faith as I have found.

Sunday, January 03, 2010

Trying My Hand at Liturgical Music


I usually attend the 8:30 AM Mass on Sundays. It just works out better for our schedule. It also happens to be the "folk" Mass. Usually just three gals singing, 2 of which have nylon strung guitars. Very reminiscent of my 70's folk Mass experience. Though I am not that keen on "folk" Mass music, there's something innocent and non-pretentious about their assisting worship with their music and I never feel like it's a concert or they are saying, "hey look at us over here."
But, we tend to sing the exact same melody for the Gospel acclamation before the gospel reading, the Memorial acclamation after the consecration as well as the Agnus Dei during the fractionation. The beauty of the Mass is that as long as the Eucharist is validly consecrated, Jesus comes to us and we get to receive Him- soul, body and divinity in the Eucharist! Regardless of how polished or not so polished the music that accompanies the liturgy is.

Nevertheless, I started thinking today, maybe I could try to write some new melodies for these parts of the Mass. Here's my first attempt starting with Agnus Dei .Yeah, I know. I'm trapped in the 70's.

Addendum: 1/4/10

My liturgically astute wife, Prodigal Daughter just pointed out this AM, that I left out the "Have mercy on us" on the second refrain. Back to the drawing board.......

5 Comments:

Blogger George Weis said...

Simon and Garfunkle esque :D Nice Job Russ... as 70s as they are, those are great harmonies!

-g-

January 04, 2010 9:23 AM  
Blogger Russ Rentler, M.D. said...

thanks George, now just to get that 2nd "Lord have mercy" in there.

January 04, 2010 5:43 PM  
Blogger kkollwitz said...

Got something in the mail, thanks...I like the lyrics, I'm playing it at work & having trouble drawing & listening at the same time.

January 06, 2010 9:02 PM  
Blogger Russ Rentler, M.D. said...

hope you enjoy, maybe there's a song or two that you could use in your CCD classes. God bless

January 07, 2010 8:31 AM  
Blogger kkollwitz said...

"maybe there's a song or two that you could use in your CCD classes"

I was just thinking that listening this morning....very substantial lyrics.

January 07, 2010 11:27 AM  

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