Hymn of the Week: Be Thou My Vision (SLANE)

From the

 (No promises yet that this will be an actual weekly feature, but I have enough to last a couple of years at this rate.)

Hymn Title: Be Thou My Vision

Tune Name: SLANE

Meter: 10 10 10 10

The short stretch of Ordinary Time that separates Christmas from Lent is filled with directives on how to live the New Covenant. Depending on how far you get through the numbered Sundays, and which liturgical year you are on, you will find the Beatitudes, Jesus' discourse on one's interior thought being of more import than one's outer actions ("the law says... but I say..."), various parables, and many accounts of healing. What it all comes down to is the need to align oneself interiorly with grace, which will show forth in action.

The text of Be Thou My Vision is a perfect meditation on these directives - a plea to God to make His will our will, to be our interior light and guide in all things. This theme comes up more often than any other in the Offertory Antiphons throughout the year, making this hymn a great choice for your Collection Hymn.

The text here is a versified translation of "Rop tú mo Baile," an Old Irish lorica, or prayer for protection. There's a whole Wikipedia article on it, if the scholarship on it interests you, but I love it chiefly for its pure Irish soul - the focus of everything on the goodness of God, and nothing else matters. The tune it is most often set to, SLANE, has a bit of a range - commonly set in E-flat, it goes down below middle C and up an octave and a half above that, up to where altos and basses may complain, but it is simple to hear and pick up. Keep your abdominal support strong on those high notes, and you'll barely notice that you're really up there.

(Incidentally, do you know how the Sundays in Ordinary Time are ordered? You never do get to celebrate every one of them - because of vagaries of calendars and the year not breaking up into an even number of weeks, the first Sunday in Ordinary Time to come after Easter Season closes will always skip at least one extra place ahead of where you left off on Ash Wednesday. So at the end of Christmas Season, you begin at One (well, Two, actually, as the Baptism of the Lord takes the place of the First Sunday in Ordinary Time), go in order until you hit Ash Wednesday, get through Lent and Easter, then take a look at what day Christ the King falls on; count the weeks backwards from 33 from there, to get to which Sunday in Ordinary Time you begin with after Easter. Make sense?)

Click here to print the sheet music!


Comments

Post a Comment

Others are reading...

Hey You! Join the Choir!

From the
 I'm pretty sure there's a large swath of people (mostly men) who suddenly remember that it's time to be somewhere else when they see me get that certain look, especially in January and August - prime Choir Recruitment Time. They know they're on my radar, either because I can hear them from upstairs when they sing below, or they used to be in a choir but left, or I know family members of theirs with fine voices, or any number of other reasons. Choir directors learn to live with this fact - that most people will laugh and simper, and say "oh, you don't want me in the choir," (which is sometimes true), but that doesn't mean they don't want to be asked, or even pressed. Still, most of the time, the final answer is no. But this post isn't for the choir directors, since I don't have any good tips for recruiting - in fact, I'm always scrambling for more members. (Especially basses - I think I must have offended a bass somewhere down the line,
Keep reading »

Ora et labora

From the
 O nce there were two novices working in the field, and they heard the bells ring for the Angelus. While one of them began to pray immediately, the other quickly lit a cigarette first. "Hey!" cried the first novice indignantly. "I asked the prior if I could smoke while I prayed and he said no!" "That's where you went wrong," replied the second, puffing away. "I asked prior if I could pray while I smoked, and he said yes." Jokes aside, sometimes it's hard to remember to pray the Masses we work for, especially if we are tucked away in a loft or a corner. Responsibilities will tug the corners of our mind, changes might need to be made and communicated, or just plain performance nerves get in the way. I have sat in the choir loft of many a restless choir director, as well as tried to manage my own ADHD while balancing presence for the job at hand with presence for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The struggle is real, whether you are a choir m
Keep reading »

So, what's this all about, then?

From the
  Me, personally My name is Kathleen, and I’m the music director at a Catholic parish in a small college town in Southern California. During my 20+ years at this parish and throughout my whole lifetime of liturgical music, I’ve worn many different hats - organist, choir member, cantor, choir director, person who chooses the music, person who manages the music staff - so I can speak from many different perspectives. My experience is my main qualification - I am the owner of zero pieces of paper validation except for a certificate of completion of the kind of Child Safety Training I’m sure most of my target readership is painfully familiar with. But I’ve studied a lot, thought a lot, had a lot of discussions with a lot of thoughtful people, and tried a lot of different things, so I do hope that my experience and perspective will be helpful. I do have one publication to my name: a  hymnal for Catholic schools  that I helped edit for the  Institute for Catholic Liberal Education.  This pro
Keep reading »