New hymns 6 - While Shepherds Watched

In this slot we have previously invited along John Henry Newman, King David, Charles Wesley, Christina Rossetti, and William Williams to attend master-classes on how to write a good "modern" hymn. Today, we are pleased to welcome Nahum Tate, Poet Laureate (from 1692 to 1715), and author of "While shepherd watched their flocks by night".

At least one of these is Nahum Tate.

While shepherds watched
Their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down
And glory shone around.

Other versions are available.

Eccles: Whoah! Stop! You've got something there that looks like poetry. What's more it makes sense, and tells a story. In fact the whole hymn is recognisable as a faithful rendering of Luke 2, verses 8 to 14.

Nahum: Sorry, Eccles, I produced this carol before your previous master-classes on hymn-writing. Can you suggest some improvements?

Eccles: We could go for the Bernadette Farrell treatment, maybe, as seen in "Christ be our Light". You make things sound gloomy and depressing, but we know that, since we are socially-aware Tablet readers, it must be someone else's fault.

Out in the fields, shepherds are freezing,
Out in the cold, shepherds have woes,
Some of them coughing, some of them sneezing,
And one with a runny nose.
CHORUS: Christ be our light, etc.

Nahum: When do we get to the angel of the Lord and his message of Good News?

Eccles: Probably, never. We have another three verses about how there was a leak in the roof of the shepherds' hovel, one of them had a blister on his toe, and...

I'm allergic to wool, but does anyone care?

Nahum: Well, I really wanted to mention the shepherds, sheep, angel and Baby. Could we do it more punchily?

Watch, Shepherds, Watch, Keep an eye on your cuddly lambkins;
Baa, Muttons, Baa, Do whatever sheep do;
Shine, Angel, Shine, Tell the Good News to all the shepherds;
Cry, Baby, Cry, They are off to see you...

Eccles: I like it, but it does sound vaguely familiar. Can't think why...

Letters to the Catholic Herald

SIR,

I was horrified by the rude and offensive article from Damian Thompson, entitled "Can Bad Catholic Music be stopped?" I have always regarded Damian as a very meek and mild writer, without a harsh word to say about anyone; hence, this sudden meltdown came as a shock to me, and, may I add, to my fellow-members of the Royal Association of Bad Catholic Musicians. In particular it caused distress to Bernadette Farrell (lovely lady, she rehearses all her hymns with the aid of a kazoo before releasing them to a delighted public), and of course The Master of the Queen's Bad Music, Sir Paul Inwood C.H. C.H.

Rehearsing a new hymn "Lord, aren't we jolly super, pip-pip".

Damian Thompson's views have obviously been formed by too much listening to classical music (he mentions Haydn, Parry and Vaughan Williams, which are names totally unknown to me and my fellow bad composers). Damian doesn't appreciate that the youth of today want religious services in which the music is produced by guitars - electric, of course - the hymns are all about what a wonderful time we're having, and there is the opportunity to do the kiss and cuddle of peace after a spell of liturgical dancing and a sermon about how God likes football.

Get lost, Damo!
Yours in The Light of the Lord,
Doris Muzak (Ms)

Damian Thompson and Paul Inwood do a "gig" together.

SIR,

I'm puzzled that an eminent Catholic historian, Tim Stanley, doesn't seem to understand the role of historical drama. In his review of Downton Abbey, he complains about the historical accuracy of some of the scenes. For example, he thought that the episode where an army of Daleks broke in and exterminated Lady Mary was unrealistic, as there are no recorded accounts of Dalek-extermination among the upper classes in the 1920s. He has obviously forgotten the 1922 Dalek Invasion of Hull, where the whole town was reduced to a wasteland (not very different from today's Hull), including - and this is the key fact - the Duke of Prescott's ancestral home, "Puddings".

Davros returns as a woman - note the unconvincing rubber mask.

Academic historians - especially Cambridge ones - should be aware that nobody cares about history. If Julian Fellowes chooses to invoke the atmosphere of the 1920s by writing dialogue such as "I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool!" or "EX-TER-MIN-ATE", then we should accept his Tolstoyan skills for what they are, rather than heckling from the sidelines.

Dr William Misery-Guts.

Tim Stanley comments on the latest episode of Downton Abbey.

SIR,

Your correspondent is critical of ACTA's role in influencing the bishops of England and Wales before the recent Synod, apparently sharing the view of many traditional Catholics that ACTA is a quasi-Masonic organization with aprons, rolled-up trouser legs and funny handshakes. Whether or not it is (and I have promised not to divulge ACTA's secrets on pain of having my heart torn out by giant vultures), I am anxious to make it clear that we do not dance naked at the full moon - well, not all of us - we do not sacrifice babies to the god Pan, and we certainly do not stick pins into wax dummies of Cardinal Burke.

It may help your readers to understand us if I mention that we do not attend church and we do not believe any of the standard Catholic teaching. So in that respect we are exactly the same as any other Tablet-reading Catholic.

Andrew Bowman
Lead author of the ACTA report "The smell of the donkeys".

"You fool, I ordered sheep! How will I get a donkey round my neck?"

SIR,

As a very well-known bishop, I am getting increasingly embarrassed by your page of "Bishops' Engagements". My Dean has remarked to me that, whereas some bishops are able to record "Pilgrimage to Lourdes", "Blessing of the camels at the zoo", "Mass in memory of St Tharg", etc., all that I can find to list is "Watching television", "Going to a football match" and "Pub crawl". It would be best if you could omit this feature altogether.

+Paresseux, Bishop of... well, never mind.

It's time to mock Charlie Hebdo

Although this blog is primarily for spiritual nourishment, we do occasionally tease the arrogant and powerful; likewise, we receive criticism in good humour.

For example, if Pope Francis insults my mother by calling her a self-absorbed promethean neopelagian, then I do not feel it necessary to punch him. In fact, since he was once employed as a nightclub bouncer, he probably packs quite a good punch himself.

Pope Francis demonstrates the Catholic "punch of peace".

Likewise, if a deacon from Hell devotes a blog post to a character assassination of me, simply because I don't have a high opinion of Bernadette Farrell, then I take it in good humour, simply making a few cryptic references to idiots in garden sheds.

Now, how should we react if people insult Jesus, Mary, etc.? In Chesterton's The Ball and the Cross, there is the distinct suggestion that we should fight them:

The glass fell in ringing fragments on to the pavement, and Evan sprang over the barrier into the shop, brandishing his stick.
  "What is this?" cried little Mr. Turnbull, starting up with hair aflame. "How dare you break my window?"
  "Because it was the quickest cut to you," cried Evan, stamping. "Stand up and fight, you crapulous coward. You dirty lunatic, stand up, will you? Have you any weapons here?"
  "Are you mad?" asked Turnbull, glaring.
  "Are you?" cried Evan. "Can you be anything else when you plaster your own house with that God-defying filth? Stand up and fight, I say."
  A great light like dawn came into Mr. Turnbull's face. Behind his red hair and beard he turned deadly pale with pleasure. Here, after twenty lone years of useless toil, he had his reward. Someone was angry with the paper. He bounded to his feet like a boy; he saw a new youth opening before him.

Never mind this blog: here's something much better to read.

Obviously we do not approve of fanatics murdering cartoonists, even talentless prats who couldn't make a decent joke. Still, if Cardinal Vingt-Trois had horsewhipped the Charlie Hebdo editor on the steps of Notre Dame, many would have thought it no more than he deserved. Cartoons about the Virgin Mary giving birth, or Jesus being sodomized, deserve some response. Curiously, a lot of the Charlie Hebdo stuff is sexual: I suspect that its staff pinched most of their ideas from toilet walls.

So, Cardinal 23 definitely shouldn't have been ringing the bells of Notre Dame in memory of Stéphane "Charb" Charbonnier and his bunch of talentless freaks - a gesture mocked in the new issue of Charlie Hebdo:

"What made us laugh the most is that the bells of Notre Dame rang in our honour," the editorial stated. "We would like to send a message to Pope Francis, who, too, was 'Charlie' this week: we only accept the bells of Notre Dame ringing in our honour when it is Femen who make them tinkle."

No, it's a gesture they don't appreciate. What they appreciate is tasteless abuse.

Charb has some awkward questions to answer at the Pearly Gates.

Got that? Je ne suis pas Charlie. Charlie Hebdo is a blasphemous Christ-hating pile of garbage, written by some very creepy people indeed. As you see from the picture above, Charb himself wore a shirt which his mother bought him when he was a teenager. Also, he couldn't even shave properly. A Peter Pan character stuck in the 1960s. A man whose hobbies included pulling the wings off butterflies and writing on toilet walls. His only friend was a pet rat called Eric, and even Eric decided he was too repulsive and ran away.

A bunch of fools sticking up for radical secularism.

Ring the bells of Notre Dame for the thousands killed by Boko Haram, or for the millions killed by abortionists. Given the quality of French driving you might even ring them for the thousands killed in road accidents. Just don't honour people who insulted your God.

The Bells! The Bells!

All right, rant over. Let Chesterton have the last word. Our duellists, Evan MacIan (Catholic) and James Turnbull (atheist) have reached France.

"Yes, France!" said Turnbull, and all the rhetorical part of him came to the top, his face growing as red as his hair. "France, that has always been in rebellion for liberty and reason. France, that has always assailed superstition with the club of Rabelais or the rapier of Voltaire. France, at whose first council table sits the sublime figure of Julian the Apostate. France, where a man said only the other day those splendid unanswerable words"—with a superb gesture—"'we have extinguished in heaven those lights that men shall never light again.'"
  "No," said MacIan, in a voice that shook with a controlled passion. "But France, which was taught by St. Bernard and led to war by Joan of Arc. France that made the crusades. France that saved the Church and scattered the heresies by the mouths of Bossuet and Massillon. France, which shows today the conquering march of Catholicism, as brain after brain surrenders to it, Brunetière, Coppée, Hauptmann, Barrès, Bourget, Lemaître."
  "France!" asserted Turnbull with a sort of rollicking self-exaggeration, very unusual with him, "France, which is one torrent of splendid scepticism from Abelard to Anatole France."
  "France," said MacIan, "which is one cataract of clear faith from St. Louis to Our Lady of Lourdes."
  "France at least," cried Turnbull, throwing up his sword in schoolboy triumph, "in which these things are thought about and fought about. France, where reason and religion clash in one continual tournament. France, above all, where men understand the pride and passion which have plucked our blades from their scabbards. Here, at least, we shall not be chased and spied on by sickly parsons and greasy policemen, because we wish to put our lives on the game. Courage, my friend, we have come to the country of honour."

Of course, times have changed. And Charlie Hebdo isn't exactly Voltaire, is it?

Anti-Catholic magazine sells 3 million copies

Thanks to a brilliant marketing coup, the anti-Catholic magazine The Tablet, edited by Catherine Pepinster, went on sale this week under the name Cathy's Tablo, and promptly sold three million copies to people who had confused it with the rival magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Cathy's Tablo (top shelf only).

Said one shocked customer, a Cardinal V.N. of London. "As someone who wouldn't dream of offending the prevailing secular consensus, I have been supporting the Je suis Charlie campaign this week, and so naturally I wanted to buy a copy of the Charlie Hebdo magazine. Because of its content it is sold on the top shelf of the newsagents, and I must inadvertently have picked up the adjacent and very similar Cathy's Tablo by mistake. Imagine my shock! I was expecting some nasty and unfunny cartoons mocking Mohammed, Jesus, the Trinity, etc. What I found instead was some nasty and unfunny writing, mocking the Christian teaching that is so dear to my heart. Who on earth thought that Hans Küng, Tina Beattie and Tony Flannery belonged in a Catholic paper?"

A Tablo contributor. Admit it, you just shuddered, didn't you?

It was reported that the "Je suis Cathy" campaign was now taking off, and that a second demonstration would be held in Paris this coming Sunday, to be led by François Hollande, Angela Merkel, David Cameron, Kim Jong Un, Robert Mugabe, Raúl Castro and Xi Jinping. People who are not famous are asked to attend a separate "plebs only" demonstration, so that they do not accidentally appear in the celebrities' selfies.

French police accidentally treat "Je suis Charlie" as a normal demonstration.

Meanwhile, in other news, the Nigerian President has sent a message of support to "Je suis Charlie", regretting that he was unable to take part in the photo-call march, since there was the little matter of 2,000 of his people just having been massacred by Boko Haram. Since these were just Nigerian peasants, rather than European intellectuals, he realised that his own massacre was relatively insignificant, but he felt that he should at least stay around to keep an eye on things. However, he signed the letter of apology with the words "Goodluck Jonathan", to show his support.

"Oh, why did my parents christen me 'Goodluck'?"

No Kiss of Peace for Eccles

Long-time readers of this blog will remember Fr Arthur, our local priest in good standing who takes very seriously the view that we are all sinners: indeed, for two pins he will give you a list of your sins, and, if he spots you in the confessional, will remind you of all the things you forgot to confess.

Fr Arthur has now recruited Deacon Marvin to help him, another man of pronounced likes and dislikes - mostly dislikes. On Sunday we had a hymn by Bernadette Farrell, "Christ, Be Our Light". It's not a completely bad hymn - it doesn't give me stomach cramps like "Shine, Jesus, Shine" or "Walk in the Light" do - but it reads more like a Guardian editorial than a hymn.

All music is equally valid, you see.

Now, you may remember that Mrs Farrell wrote a rather impudent piece in the Tablet, in which she concluded that all styles of worship were equally valid and that the composer James MacMillan was wrong to express dislike for the dross produced by Paul Inwood, Dan Schutte and Gerry Fitzpatrick. Somehow Deacon Marvin overheard a private conversation in which I criticised Bernadette's musical taste, and that set him off.

There's a point in the Novus Ordo Mass where we are encouraged to offer each other the sign of peace. Usually it is the deacon who says this particular exhortation, and what we got this Sunday was the following version "Let us now offer each other the sign of peace. Except for Eccles, who is revolting and unkind, a bitter and twisted old neverwas. Anyone who shakes hands with Eccles is not worthy." You could see the Christian love radiate from the deacon (and the steam coming out of his ears) as he said these charming words.

"We hates Eccles because he criticised Mrs Farrell."

Fr Arthur slapped the little deacon on the shoulder, as if to say "Good man," and so the Kiss of Peace went on without me. "Peace be with you." "Peace be with you." "Sorry, Eccles, you're an untouchable." "Peace be - oh, I've done you already, haven't I?" "Unhand me, sir!" "Ugh, you just sneezed in those hands." "Peace be with you." "Pax tecum." "Traddy pig!" "That makes twelve handshakes, I'm on a roll this week!" "I'm a Catholic, get me out of here!" "Bog off, Eccles." "Peace be with you."

Well, I never much liked the Kiss of Peace, and it is only an optional part of the Mass, one of those things that the Ghost of Vatican II slipped in when nobody was looking. And it is humbling once in a while to be told by a man in holy orders that he hates us.

St Nicholas gives Arius the "slap of peace".

Liturgical dancing - the only way to worship

Advent is here, and many readers have asked me, "How can I brighten my services with a little liturgical dancing? The traditional litany of the Mass is so predictable, with its obsessive focus on God, and my congregation is crying out for novelty and entertainment."

So we have got together with some of the greatest liturgical experts of our time, to present a new translation of the Mass that can be (and should be) danced to. Out go the ancient Latin texts, and in come Spirit-of-Vatican-II dances from the period with which our experts are most familiar, from the 1940s to the 1970s!

KYRIE (arr. P. Inwood)

One, Two, Three O'clock, Four O'clock rock,
Five, Six, Seven O'clock, Eight O'clock rock.
Nine, Ten, Eleven O'clock, Twelve O'clock rock,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight.

Dr Eccles, the Regius Professor of Liturgy at Oxford, explains: England's "Mr Liturgy" has chosen to replace the boring "Kyrie Eleison" stuff with a more rhythmic version, which marks the passage of the hours, while at the same time bringing us meekly to our Maker. It states our devout intentions for the Mass: "O Lord, we shall rock around the clock tonight."

GLORIA (arr. B. Farrell)

You put your left arm in,
Your left arm out.
In, out, in, out,
You shake it all about.
You do the Hokey Cokey and you turn around,
That's what it's all about!

Eccles: Bernie knows that all forms of worship are equally valid, even ones that don't have much to do with God, and so she has chosen to glorify the Lord by saying, in effect, "God created us to dance, and, when you get down to basics, that's what Christianity is all about."

CREDO (arr. D. Schutte)

Oh baby.
Yeah come on shake!
Oh, it's in the bag,
The hippy hippy shake!
Well now you shake it to the left,
Shake it to the right,
Do the hippy shake, shake,
With all your might!

Eccles: A powerful affirmation of faith from Dan Schutte, there. "Oh, it's in the bag," is a very concise summary of God's purpose in the world, I feel. "Do the hippy shake, shake, With all your might!" is certainly telling the world in no uncertain terms that we are backing God!

SANCTUS (arr. K. Mayhew)

Well, shake it up, baby, now (Shake it up, baby)!
Twist and shout (Twist and shout)!
C'mon c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, baby, now (Come on baby)!
Come on and work it on out (Work it on out)!

Eccles: A new take on the boring old "Holy, holy, holy" routine that drives so many people away. Kevin tells us to shake our bits to the Lord, and show Him we're gonna work it on out! This is just what we have come to expect from a man of sincere and deeply-held faith.

BENEDICTUS (arr. G. Kendrick)

You are the Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen.
Dancing Queen, feel the beat from the tambourine!
You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life,
See that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen!

Eccles: Well, "Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord" is very old-fashioned, and Graham has recognised that we may want to celebrate other blessed people, perhaps ones with a greater tendency to dance!

AGNUS DEI (arr. E. White)

Hands, knees, and boomps-a-daisy! I like a bustle that bends.
Hands, knees, and boomps-a-daisy! What is a boomp between 
   friends?
Hands, knees, oh, don't be lazy. Let's make the party a wow.
Now then, hands, knees, and boomps-a-daisy! Turn to your 
   partner and bow. Bow-wow!

Eccles: Estelle has gone for a more traditionalist liturgical dance, one in which physical contact is encouraged! "What is a boomp between friends?" we ask ourselves, and this is follows on naturally from the "Boomp of Peace" that many go-ahead parishes have introduced recently.

Music in church

I don't usually blog about music, since I don't know much about it. On the other hand I do know what I don't like.

The Mallard - a metaphor for this Sunday's music.

This Sunday I went to a Mass at which the music hit a new low. The best way to deal with a trauma is to tell people about it, so here goes. I've changed the names in order to protect the guilty.

The musicians:

Mr Anguish, organist. 
Mrs Bedlam, singer and conductor. 
Mr Cacophony, singer and guitar-player. 
Mr Dissonance, singer and flute-player.

A, alone, would have done a very competent job. The first hymn was "Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven", which I normally enjoy very much. However, C and D were also allowed to play their instruments, and this was a bad idea. We got to the chorus, "Praise Him, praise Him..." and there was a screech such as you get from the wheels of a train when it is going round a tight curve. Yes, D, the flautist, had decided to show off a little. Maybe it was in the wrong key, maybe it wasn't in any key, but the high-pitched screeching was horrible, and probably infringed numerous health and safety directives.

"Eeek!"

The other hymns were unremarkable. The final one was Bernadette Farrell's "Christ be our light", which is not ludicrous enough to be a candidate for the Eccles Bad Hymn Award, although it can be extremely irritating in its banality.

No, the real offence came during the sung parts of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, etc.) There's a basic question here: why are people who are musical always assumed to be able to sing? You don't ask James MacMillan to give us a rendering of Donald, where's yer troosers? when he's finished conducting his latest work, so why should a guitar-player be rebranded as a singer? We had C's big moment, when he led the singing of the Gloria. Even I could tell that he was singing no better than anyone else in the congregation, and a good deal worse than some.

Another mallard, this one singing "Gloria in Excelsis Deo!"

You may think I've got it in for C, but his guitar-playing was also intrusive. When you are about to sing the Agnus Dei (even in English), do you really want it introduced with a massive TWANNGGG! on all the strings simultaneously, as if you were about to sing "Eviva España!"? And another TWANNGGG! to conclude?

A similar TWANNGGG! can be obtained by getting up quickly from one of these seats.

B was fine as a singer, although as a conductor she didn't always make it clear when the choir was supposed to sing along, and when the congregation could join in - this confused the priest as well. The overall effect was dire.

The counselling I was given.

Of course one should never criticise bad music in church, even when it distracts from worship, devotion, and thoughts of God. But how do you tell a musician, politely, "Er, you're not very good, are you?"