“I Go to Sing”
Nick Tamen
Shipmate
Last night I picked up the winter edition of the magazine of the Hymn Society in the US and Canada—The Hymn: A Journal of Congregational Song—and I read an article that I think I missed when the magazine first arrived. It was an article by poet and hymn-text writer Lindy Thompson about her poem “I Go to Sing,” which begins:
I know I’ve heard some Shipmates express a similar sentiment, and I started to simply mention and link to this poem in the “What did you sing in church today” thread. But then I thought it might make for a good thread on its own.
Why do you go to church—if, of course, you do go to church? Is it the singing? The liturgy? The community? Habit? Something else, perhaps something that might strike others as odd? Is it because it’s your job? And if that’s the case, what meaning (if any) do you find in the job?
I put this thread in Ecclesiantics rather than Purgatory because I envision more a sharing of personal thoughts and experiences, listening to and learning a little more about each other, rather than debate.
So if you go, why do you go?
I might be exhausted and the children might be cranky,
but I will be going to church on Sunday.
Don’t know who is preaching, doesn’t matter —
the sermon may be helpful or not, holds my attention or doesn’t —
it’s the singing.
I go to sing.
I know I’ve heard some Shipmates express a similar sentiment, and I started to simply mention and link to this poem in the “What did you sing in church today” thread. But then I thought it might make for a good thread on its own.
Why do you go to church—if, of course, you do go to church? Is it the singing? The liturgy? The community? Habit? Something else, perhaps something that might strike others as odd? Is it because it’s your job? And if that’s the case, what meaning (if any) do you find in the job?
I put this thread in Ecclesiantics rather than Purgatory because I envision more a sharing of personal thoughts and experiences, listening to and learning a little more about each other, rather than debate.
So if you go, why do you go?
Comments
I disagree a bit with the poem; we are fortunate enough to have a choice of two morning services and I confess I do look at who is doing the talk which sometimes influences which one I go to.
There's also some nebulous reason around the fact that it feels odd not to go. Maybe that's just to do with habit.
You can probably guess from that that I am a bellringer.
Edit to add: The 5 days I go for work are also to partake in the entirety of the experience and to be transformed by the sacrament.
I think I go because I still have this vague feeling something is it it.
I have friends there. It has been my community for 35 years. Its a happy place for me. And I love the Liturgy as a piece of human activity that balances speech and music and silence, and physical stillness and movement. I find it aesthetically very satisfying.
1. To worship and to receive the Sacrament.
2. To hear the sermon, to have conversations with my fellow Christians, and hopefully to gain insight in to how to apply the Word of God in my life.
3. Habit. Don't underestimate the power of habit. Habit will keep you going through patches where faith seems distant.
4. Obligation. I'm not RC, and don't take as strict a line on the obligation to attend Mass as RC Canon law does, but I still feel an obligation to show up regularly.
I like to sing, although I'm bad at it, but I'd still show up without singing.
I think in the poem, the poet was speaking only for herself when she said she didn’t care who was preaching. Different strokes . . . .
(Interesting, though, that you have a choice. At most churches that I’m familiar with that have more than service, the same preacher preaches pretty much the same sermon at each service.)
I’ve been on the road since starting this thread, so I’ve been pondering my own answer. I think when it boils down to it, I’d say I go to remember who I am—part of a community that is called together to be shaped by a story, our story, and gathered around a Table where Christ meets us. And singing is definitely part of it; I am a person for whom singing, and singing with others, is necessary.
Another ringer here. I go to ring, we wake people up and call them to worship, then we head off for our varying reasons, mostly not staying for the service.
Community? Never found much of that at Our Place - too cliquey by half.
Fewer and fewer these days ( can only speak as a recovering RC). I doubt that younger RCs have been fed the idea that missing Sunday Mass is a hanging offence. It may be that those who attend The_Riv’s shack are of a more traditional/ triumphalist bent.
It's also possible that American Catholics are fed something different than your own (Australian? if I remember correctly, forgive me if I am mistaken.)
Mass for me is primarily to do with participating in the Eucharist and sacraments, but when travelling I will try to attend Masses known for the music or watch live-streaming Masses around the world just to hear the choirs or sung liturgies. Music touches places nothing else can reach. I do appreciate the sermons or homilies because the priests or preacher have taken time and trouble to prepare them. And in my home parish, the community is very important, friendship as well as the opportunity to do service and help with readings, taking Comunion to the sick, filling the church with flowers.
@Sojourner, I wonder if that wicked family was related to the family who skipped eating fish on Friday and were poisoned by pizza before descending into the torments of Hell? They don't make fire & brimstone preachers like they used to do...
As for the pizza eating family, who knows? It was the Schadenfreude what got to me, even at the age of 5.
To sing and/or play.
To see people I know.
Possible:
To be inspired and learn something
To have a sense of God’s presence.
The “possibles” are what I hope to find, but don’t always.
The Eucharist was very important to me when I first switched to Anglican, but has become less so. I was surprised how little I missed it in lockdown, though was aware many people felt differently.
I wouldn't be too worried about the sense of obligation which perhaps some people may have. There are lots of times in life when we are obliged to do certain things. Most(but not all) people pay their taxes. Surely they don't just pay their taxes because they are afraid that may may be punished by the state in some way if they don't pay. Surely, although we may grumble about paying tax , we see that it is our responsibility to contribute to the upkeep of our state and society in general.
If we believe in God - if we believe in his love for us - if we believe that we are invited to respond to that love then we do have an obligation to respond. Just as we pay our taxes for the good of society in general, so does our attendance at community worship help the Christian community of which we may claim to be members.
Pre-lockdown that was the case with us - two services at 9.15am and 11am, carbon copies of each other apart from children's groups were only at the 9.15. Same songs, same speaker, same worship team... it was a long and intense morning for those involved in facilitating.
Now we have two services, 9am without children's groups: shorter and more meditative with maybe only two or three songs. 10.30am: a completely different worship team, speaker, set of songs. Much better than the previous arrangement, in my opinion.
Having said that, the theme of both talks will be the same and if it's a week for communion that will happen at both services.
I'm interested that a number of people have said they go to take communion. That doesn't happen every week at our church and on the occasions I arrive and realise it's going to my heart sinks. I don't know why that is. Probably a subject for a separate thread.
( wrong word, I know ) apart from in my own church, as I get too anxious about the logistics. Where to go, which way to return, whether to kneel or stand, whether to receive in both kinds or one.
If I am at a Methodist Church, I don’t like their “ tables”. I see no merit in treating a group of communicants as a unit, dismissed by their own prayer. It just makes the service longer for no reason, especially if it is a large, ecumenical congregation.
All these concerns get in the way of what communion is supposed to be about.
For me it now feels odd to go to a RC church and not have communion. I feel a bit deprived of that particular expression of being part of one body.
I struggle with homilies. I really am not interested in what the preacher has to say unless they are excellent.... and they rarely are.
I've heard of at least one priest in Canada saying the same thing about people who die right after watching supposedly sinful movies.
You'd really think those are the exact sorta situations where purgatory would apply.
Oh stetson you’re a lot younger than I am. Pre V2 the catechism was like the 18th century English penal code: 200+ capital offences!
Yes, this. And missing the communitarian aspect. For me "us and we" have always carried far more weight than "I and me." Our Place didn't live stream, and the couple of times I tried it I felt like a spectator, and that is totally alien to my idea of the Eucharist.
The teacher .as Enoch rightly asks, could not have known, what direction they were going in, and perhaps the teacher forgot to mention that, as was also standard RC teaching at that time, as long as the Mass missers were sorry for any sins they had committed they would most certainly not have gone to Hell.
Who knows? i thought it was crap then but was smart enough (at 5) to put up and shut up.
Of course not, but everything to do with pre-conciliar triumphalist Catholicism
At the risk of prolonging an entertaining tangent, a young curate at the Church Of My Youth (very low-church Prayer Book C of E) preached a sermon in which he stated categorically that certain Sinful Persons (for the life of me, I can't recall exactly which persons
I was in my late teens at this time, and was able to recognise Total Tosh when I heard it. Decades later, and this sort of Tosh is still being preached, albeit to very much smaller congregations...
Apologies. We seem to have moved away from the subject of Singing, but I do miss (some of) the hymns and liturgical music. Happily, one of the churches I visit online (the Reformed Church in Franeker, NL), puts both words and melody line of its hymns and songs on screen, so I'm able to sing along, not only to the tunes I know, but also to those I'm not immediately familiar with.
Yes, I need to get out more...
The present Catholic catechism reminds us that Jesus solemnly proclaims that he will send his angels and that they will gather evildoers and that Jesus will pronounce the condemnation 'depart from me,you cursed,into the eternal fire'.
The affirmation of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon each one of us to make use of our freedom in view of our eternal destiny.
We know that many of those who claim to follow Christ find it easier to attempt to explain these ideas in simple black and white ideas of' do this and you will be saved, don't do this and you will be damned'
I most heartily agree that it is better to concentrate on the positive rather than the negative,but not only in religion,but generally in life we have to be aware that there are consequences for our actions.
If we deliberately and with full knowledge reject God then we may not wish to spend eternity in the presence of God.
It may be difficult to really know if anyone can actually with 'full knowledge' reject God
and it may be difficult to understand really whether the person who deliberately 'misses
Mass' has made with 'full knowledge' a decision to fully reject God for all eternity,nevertheless we cannot say that these ideas have 'nothing to do with christianity'.
I certainly don't believe that a child who misses Mass will have done that in the full knowledge that they have in practical terms rejected God and the chance to play the harp in heaven.
It is however a way of instilling the idea that our actions have consequences.
Assuming that we accept that we as human beings have certain imperfections which sometime the Church calls 'sin' then we should be equally reminded always that 'sorrow for sin' will at least in God's eyes cancel out the punishment due to sin. That is something which does not always happen in our everyday lives,where our imperfections or 'sins' can have real and lasting consequences.