Here are the lyrics:
Come, come, ye saints, no toil nor labor fear;
But with joy wend your way.
Though hard to you this journey may appear,
Grace shall be as your day.
Tis better far for us to strive
Our useless cares from us to drive;
Do this, and joy your hearts will swell -
All is well! All is well!
Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard?
'Tis not so; all is right.
Why should we think to earn a great reward
If we now shun the fight?
Gird up your loins; fresh courage take.
Our God will never us forsake;
And soon we'll have this tale to tell-
All is well! All is well!
About signature hymns, another such is A Mighty Fortress, for Lutherans. By the way, Reformation Day was yesterday, for any who have Lutheran roots. My paternal grandfather was Lutheran, he might have liked this Scandinavian hymn, Behold a Host Arrayed in White which is taken from the reading in Revelation which was used at Mass today.
I don't know if Catholics have a signature hymn, maybe it would be something like Holy God, We Praise Thy Name.
I enjoyed that, Katherine. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteCatholic signature hymn is Ave Maria or Salve Regina, no? I try to sing the Salve every night before I go to sleep.
Episcopalians have Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah. I love that one.
My favorite is Immortal, Invisible, but with the Anglican lyrics.
For sure, the chant mode Salve Regina is an enduring classic. It, or another Marian hymn, is usually sung for Compline. Guide O Me, Thou Great Jehovah, sung to the tune Cwm Rhondda, is great. Immortal, Invisible is actually in our OCP music edition, but the group I'm in doesn't like to step out of their comfort zone too much. It's funny, in my protestant hymnal that song is to the tune Joanna. In OCP it's St. Dennis, but it's the same tune.
DeleteJean, "Or Holy God We Praise Thy Name"?
ReplyDeleteThe usual for All Saints is "For All the Saints (Who From Their Labors Rest)." Our new music minister apparently doesn't know it, so we did some Praise songs he does know today. An appropriate alternative would be (from the Praise world)"Salvation Belongs to Our God." I happen to like that, surprisingly.
Katherine, Thanks for "Come, Come Ye Saints." I'd never heard it. I like it. Of course, the singers for the video aren't exactly the Fifth Grade Class from St. Josephat's. But it is clear that even with less proficient singers it would summon the blood.
I like For All The Saints, but we didn't sing it. I wish we did.
DeleteThere was a time when the Catholic signature hymn, at least in the Anglosphere, would have been "Faith of our Fathers", yes?
ReplyDeleteAccording to the fellow who wrote "Why Catholics Can't Sing", Catholics in the US don't have a rich tradition of liturgical hymn singing. The hymns we tend to think of as traditional are really devotional and para-liturgical hymns: "Holy God We Praise Thy Name", "Ave Maria" and other Marian hymns, quite a few of which are no longer remembered ("Bring Flow'rs of the Fairest").
I remember Bring Flow'rs of the Fairest. We used to sing it for May crowning. Which I liked, because we got out of class to practice.
DeleteA little bit newer Catholic signature hymn is Here I Am, Lord. It has even crossed denominational lines. I was to a Lutheran funeral and noticed it was in their hymnal. I always have to check out other people's hymnals if I am there.
I was amused when our younger son and daughter in law got married. They said they wanted "traditional" music. It was almost all St. Louis Jesuit, Glory and Praise songs. I guess it was traditional to them!
We sang "I Am The Bread of Life" last night at the All Saints Day mass. Over my 40 or so years of making liturgical music, we've beat that one into the ground, although our current music director hardly ever chooses it, so I hadn't heard it in a decade or so. I once thought that it was one of the pieces from the post-Vatican-II era that would enter the "classics" repertoire, and maybe it will (or already has), but last night, I thought that it hasn't aged well.
DeleteI like I Am The Bread of Life; or maybe it is the alto harmony part that l like to sing.
DeleteI like a simple hymn that our EC parish uses every year. Very different from any All Saints hymns I heard as a Catholic!
ReplyDeleteI first heard it at the funeral of an English friend who died of cancer at 42, leaving 4 children from 3 - 13 years of age. She had time to plan her own funeral, a very sad funeral especially since she and her husband were still young and had a young family. But when I heard this hymn, I thought that it was so representative of her spirit - so ANN - and I have loved it ever since. It was written as a children's hymn, and I found a blog by a woman who grew up with it and loves it still.
I Sing a Song of the Saints of God
This song will mean nothing to you if you didn't grow up with it, but it means so much to me now (as it did then). It conveys the message that you don't have to die to be a saint. You don't have to be a hero. You don't even have to sacrifice to be a saint. You can be a saint of God in your lifetime. We know many, don't we, who fill this role.
I sing a song of the saints of God,
patient and brave and true,
who toiled and fought and lived and died
for the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
and one was a shepherdess on the green;
they were all of them saints of God, and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.
They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
and his love made them strong;
and they followed the right for Jesus' sake
the whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
and one was slain by a fierce wild beast;
and there's not any reason, no, not the least,
why I shouldn't be one too.
They lived not only in ages past;
there are hundreds of thousands still.
The world is bright with the joyous saints
who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, on the street, in the store,
in church, by the sea, in the house next door;
they are saints of God, whether rich or poor,
and I mean to be one too.
Anne, thanks for that song, I love it! And the pipe organ in the link was beautiful.
DeleteWonderful hymn! Lovely for All Souls!
DeleteKatherine, I too like the Mormon hymn and video. My maternal grandmother was born in Nebraska, and her parents were also pioneers there. The house they built for the first winter sounded just like something out of Little House on the Prairie, since they too dug the cellar first and lived there all winter, waiting to spring to build the house. But I was amused a bit to see a man using duct tape to bandage his foot.
ReplyDeleteI had to laugh about the duct tape, too. A bit of an anachronism.
DeleteThanks Katherine.
ReplyDeleteYesterday we sang "For All the Saints," and ??? The cantor was not our usual, who is a wonderful young women.
I noticed this fellow had a voice that everyone could follow, not too high, good pitch, and loud enough for everyone to hear. The result Catholics did sing! The problem with choirs and sopranos is either they're too loud or too high and the congregation goes dumb!
The ordinary parts were from Schubert's German Mass. It was last year's go-to music for Sunday. As a result people know the melody, the pace, and the rhythm. But as I think we've discussed here before, the English words don't scan with the music...yet familiarity is having its effect. Good cantor, etc. We sang.
Margaret, Schubert's German Mass? I am totally jealous!
DeleteYes, pitch is important. I can be a soprano in the morning. By evening I am alto bordering on tenor.
I am guessing that it was this version, arranged by Richard Proulx. If so, it is lovely. Appears that it is from the GIA music edition, which our parish doesn't have, unfortunately.
DeleteWay back when I was dating a Mormon lass, she sicced the missionaries on me. I attended one of their services and chills ran up and down my spine when I heard "Come, Come Ye Saints." In those days we Katliks had nothing to compare, or at least my limited church music exposure at the time told me so. To this day I still find it very rousing. (She went the way of the nickel seegar, which she wouldn't countenance, along with my beer drinking and use of undeleted expletives.)
ReplyDelete