Church Music

Michael Herry wrote this song for the Year of the Family in the 1990s. After yesterday’s blockbuster this is a sweet singable song.

There are Marian uses and Eucharistic uses as well as the obvious use for gathering. There are extra verses for a recessional at the end of the sheet music.

You can hear music from the Dare to Dream collection, including this song, here and the sheet music is freely available from the Marists.

Just to prove BIAB can be used with subtlety:

1 We are family, as we gather in your name;

We are family, we are one yet not the same.

As we gather in our brokenness we are but blind and lame.

May we reach out to each other yet again.

2 In your family, may you open us to share;

In your family, make us bold enough to care;

May the spirit of a woman hast’ning to her cousin’s side,

So inspire us to reach out with our lives.

3 Living family, we know our God is real.

Living family, we’ve got nothing to conceal,

For in giving we receive, and in dying come to life,

Living fam’ly overcomes the darkest night.

4 So be with us Lord, as we journey on each day;

So be with us Lord. You’re the Truth, the Life, the Way;

As we gather ’round your table, may our lives and hearts be one

To be offered now together with your Son.

Rpt Verse 1

© 1993 Michael Herry

This is an ambitious title from Michael Herry’s collection, Dare to Dream.

It is a choir piece (women, tenors, basses, cantor) and utilises didgeridoo. The music is by Herry and the text by Tricia Walsh. Getting from the slow verse to the fast refrain efficiently is the trick.

The sheet music is free from the Marists. Listen to the choir do it at their site.

I made a backing but there is no didgeridoo in BIAB. I tried a “Chariots of Fire” feel in the verses but it clumsily stumbles into a fast gospel chorus.

1 Spirit of an ancient land, breathing echoes of a dream filled past,

Flow into our hearts, fill us with your love.

You whom winds and waves obey, show us ways to live your truth;

Make our lives new wine-skins for Christ, our Truth, our Way.

Refrain

Praise God – you mountain ranges.

Praise God – first light of dawn.

Praise God – you thirsty deserts.

Praise God in our lives reborn.

Praise God – you starry heavens.

Praise God – far sunlit plains.

Praise God – summer scented breezes.

Come Lord, fill our lives again.

Come Lord, fill our lives again.

2 Our thirsty souls are parched and dry;

Our hearts as hardened as the mountain range;

We long for springs of water welling up to love and life.

Call us to create in You a new heaven and a peace filled earth,

Where we will be your people and you will be our God.

Refrain

3 Heal the pain of days gone by, of wounds unhealed, of scare so deep.

Reconcile us with each other where we are one in You.

Lead us in a joyful song, our hearts made strong as we recall your Word:

“I will be with you always, even to the end of time.”

Refrain

Come Lord, fill our lives again.

© 1993 Michael Herry

I have left the familiar songs from this collection from Michael Herry called Dare to Dream to look at selections that are new to me.

This one has a text based on Deut 6:4-7 and Psalm 26.

The sheet music is freely available from the Marists. You can hear their version here. The third verse has a key change from Bb to C.

1 Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord

and you shall love the Lord your God

with all your heart, soul and might.

These words I give today, remember in your heart

and teach them to your children’s children, and live by them all your days.

2 Lord, my light, my help, the stronghold of my life,

when evil doers draw near to me ’tis they who stumble and fall.

One thing I ask of the Lord, one thing for which I long,

to live each day in God’s house and to savour the sweetness there.

3 Let me see your face and feel you by my side

and when my spirit weakens, Lord, to have you as my guide.

Sure I am of this, to see the face of the Lord,

so hope in him, hold firm forever take heart and hope in the Lord.

© 1993 Michael Herry

I am working through the very prolific Michael Herry’s collection Dare to Dream, which is freely available as sheet music at his website.

The refrain text is anonymous and adapted by his collaborator Tricia Walsh. The verses are Psalm 138. It is indeed a prayer of trust. The refrain is metrical and the verse chant. You’ll get the idea from the You-Tube version.

For BIAB I had to make things more metrical (and folky) and it worked better than usual. The notes are for the first verse and I’ll leave you sort things out for the rest.

You know the way for me; you know the time.

Into your hands I trustingly place mine.

Your plan is perfect, born of perfect love,

You know the way, your way is love.

1 O lord, you search me and you know me,

You know my resting and my rising,

You mark when I walk or lie down,

All my ways lie open to you.

2 O where can I go from your spirit,

Or where can I flee from your face?

If I climb to the heavens, you are there.

If I lie in the grave you are there.

3 If I take the wings of dawn

And dwell at the sea’s furthest end,

Even there your hand would lead me.

Your right hand would hold me fast.

4 For it was you who created my being,

Knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I thank you for the wonder of my being,

For the wonders of all your creation.

5 To me, how mysterious your thoughts,

The sum of them not to be numbered!

If I count them, they are more than the sand;

To finish, I must be eternal, like you.

6 O search me God and know my heart.

O test me and know my thoughts.

See that I follow not the wrong path

And lead me in the path of life eternal.

This is another of Michael Herry’s songs from Dare to Dream, that I have already blogged.

The links there are dead, however, so I’m reposting with up to date links. It is a great chant for Gifts.

The sheet music is here and you can listen to it at the Marists’ site.

This backing of mine is from 2012.

Lord, we come to your table.

Lord, we hear your word.

Lord, you are our bread of life,

and we the Body of Christ.

© Michael Herry fms, 1996.

Continuing with Michael Herry’s Dare to Dream collection is this song, which I have already blogged because it is in As One Voice. I’ve posted it again to let people know they can get the sheet music form the Marists here. There is an extra verse for Advent there. Verse three is useful for Marian celebrations.The music is by Herry and the words are by Herry and Tricia Walsh, who contributed words to many songs in this collection.

I had never used it but it is being used here in George Town by the amazing string band that plays on some Sundays here.

This is my backing from 2011 but it works well enough.

1 Joyful in hope, your people pray.

Joyful in hope we’re on our way.

Though the road may not be clear,

We believe, Lord, you are near

In the smile and open heart of a friend.

2 Joyful in hope, your people pray.

Joyful in hope we’re on our way.

There’s sunshine after rain;

There’s laughter after pain;

And I am with you always, so rise again.

3 Mary, so open to the Lord,

When you answered, “Yes” our hope was restored.

Though you couldn’t understand,

In trust you took his hand.

So, joyful in hope, we live again.

© 1991 Michael Herry

In her kind response to my quandary over singing the Celtic Alleluia, Josie pointed out that some parishes use a chant response.

Chris has come to the party with his chant responses and other suggestions:

Attached are written out verses for Ordinary Time Year A using Psalm Tone 8 (from my LiturgyShare.org website). For obvious copyright reasons the Celtic Alleluia is not included, but the verses have been laid out in a manner that allows the page to be folded or cut in half to fit underneath a legitimate copy of the Alleluia. If there’s any interest in this I can do the same for the other times in the liturgical calendar as they are already written out for my own Alleluias.

Some other sources of verse tones:

Catholic Worship Book II: hymn 48 (accompaniment edition) has a verse tone from A. Gregory Murray, OSB. You have to write out the words yourself, but that’s simple enough, and you can use mine as a starting point.

Gather Comprehensive, 2nd ed., (choir/accompaniment edition): hymn 266 with fully written out verses for Ordinary Time by Marty Haugen (of all people!). I don’t have the current edition to know if they are still included. Verse texts are from the American lectionary, so there are some discrepancies.

Meinrad Psalm Tone 8 (transposed) freely downloadable from: https://www.saintmeinrad.org/media/1486/modalpsalmtones-organ.pdf
using the first and last measure of the four-phrase version.

Celtic-Alleluia-Ordinary-Time-A-Verses-LiturgyShare-8-Oz-cantorDownload

If you are looking at a Australian catholic music, Brother Michael Herry is pleasantly unavoidable.

His sheet music is all available to download for free at the Marist Brothers website, which unfortunately is not a pleasure. Don’t bother with their title page or their search engine. It is better to just google his name and what you want, or go to this page. You will find psalms for every week of every liturgical year, chants for every week and folios of songs.

I did God of Surprises last year and will look at the collection Dare to Dream now.

I have blogged this song before as part of As One Voice, and at the time hadn’t actually used it, although it is one of his most known songs. I suppose it must have been the St Peter’s, Rochedale team that got me using it, because it something I turn to frequently now for Eucharist. I don’t play it quite as slowly as he does, but it can’t be rushed. I’m putting it up again to point to where the sheet music is available. You can hear the Marists’ version and download the sheet music here.

This is my same backing from 2011.

Lord, to whom shall we go?
You are our bread, broken and shared,

Lord, to whom shall we go?
Yours are the words of life

1 Our fathers ate, yet their hunger remained.
Their hearts were not satisfied.

2 O Lord, you feed us with the finest of wheat,
our pledge of eternal life.

3 The bread you give is the living bread,
your flesh for the life of the world.

4 Your word, O Lord, is a lamp for my steps;
a light for my path of life.

© 1993 Michael Herry

This is a joyful singable alleluia by Fintan O’Carroll and Christopher Walker that is widely used. At my previous parish we used a selection from one of many supplied verses that matched the verse for the week most closely.

The practice at my current practice was to sing the refrain and say the verse for that week. In an effort to get more mass parts sung through, we have been singing the verse instead. Quite often it can be fitted into the three lines pretty seamlessly, but I had had to resort to some repetition for shorter ones and a little editing for longer ones.

Since a lot of parishes use this, I was wondering if anyone had thoughts on which of the three solutions is the most practical, liturgical and pastoral – picking one of the alternate verses, saying the exact verse or adapting the verse for each week.

After all those Paul Mason’s psalms to discover, Gen Bryant has brought us even more.

She used some of her time during lock down composing psalms, which will be published by Willow later in the year.

For now, they are part of her Seeking Stillness series. The psalms can also be listened to on their own.

I hope to look at them more once they are available as sheet music.