Church Music

This is a song Greg Scheimer sent me which, despite its title, was not written for this year’s Jubilee.

I’ll let him fill you in on its origins:

Hope of Pilgrims was written in 1966. It was called Pilgrim Song when Karen Corbett first sang it on my self-funded cassette titled Songs for a Pauper, a King and a Jester in 1981. You may recall Trish Watts sang Poorman’s Heart on that cassette. In its current form Hope of Pilgrims includes revised lyrics with a Trinitarian theme and is dedicated to the memory of all those who served the community of Holy Trinity Church Minto… To anyone wishing to use it in a liturgical celebration feel free to make all the copies of sheet music and lyrics you need without the usual liturgical copyright and royalty restrictions.

I love the easy walking style, and when Greg mentioned he was a banjo player I had to put some BIAB banjo in a backing:

1 Hope of pilgrims light the way

To the stars in the evening from the break of day.

Shine on dusty road and be our shelter in the night.

Your yoke is easy and your burden light, and your burden light.

Chorus

Loving Father, Son and Spirit,

Guide us with your healing hand throught the waters of salvation.

Breathe new life in all creation and take us to the promised land.

Take us to the promised land.

2 Lead us to the well that’ll quench all thirst

Where lost is found and last is first.

Living water of mercy brings our journey

To a land of ever lasting things, of ever lasting things.

Chorus

3 Foxes have holes and birds nest high

But you have no safe place to lie.

Cast your light in the darkest street

And be with us in every place we meet, in every place we meet.

Chorus

4 Pillar of cloud come guide the fold.

Burn among the brambles when the night is cold

And with your manna let our hearts be filled

And seek a place beyond the walls we build, beyond the walls we build.

Chorus

5 Give glory to the Father and You

And to the Spirit calling us to life anew.

Call every sibling and light the way

To be there in the morning at the break of day, at the break of day.

Chorus

© 2025 Greg Schiemer

He provided sheet music, a midi file and a recording:

After another well prepared and moving morning prayer, we were straight into Rita Ferrone’s second keynote, “Can Liturgy Change the World?” I found her exposition of the assembly’s self offering as participation in the Priesthood of Christ exercised in liturgy inspiring. The way liturgy can change the world is by ruling out toxic individualism and acknowledging that when when part of the Body of Christ suffers, we all suffer. She challenged us to avoid liturgy as personal therapy or consumerist. She see hope in the synodal approach with its emphasis on community, mission and belonging.

After another Morning Sing with Dr Anthony Young, we had the keynote from Rev Dr Richard Leornard SJ, entitled, “Anchored in Hope: Why Alleluia is our Song.” It was typically discursive and funny, but effectively landed the message that optimism and hope were very different outlooks. He deplored the falseness of the happiness industry and a society more isolated than ever despite greater technology for connection. The loss of meaning in people’s lives and youth suicide was highlighted. His reasons for hope in our Catholic faith included the number of professing Catholics in the world, perseverance despite the crises – ie not letting those who have failed children in the church make the decision that the church is no longer relevant and the the promise of Jesus to be with us. He noted that if St Paul, who murdered Christians, was accepted then no-one is beyong God’s love. He highlighted the evangelising tools of Baptisms, Weddings and Funerals and just being inviting. He described his approach as leaving who is saved to God rather than judging.

The rest of the sessions I attended had to do with youth matters, as I am interetsed in how the parish and schools can be more in sync.

Gen Bryant had a Mini- keynote, “Transforming Tomorrow’s Leaders – Call to Action for Mentors.” He encouraged us to see the gifts of young people, keep inviting their participation and accompany them when they need it.

Dr Anthony Young spoke from his experience within the school system. He complained of a siloed church: school vs parish. He suggested we could sing them together and gave examples of events that were often messy but enthusiastic and transforming. His advice was to be open and inviting, avoid turf wars and egos, encourage links with institutions and encourage singing groups rather than soloists – villages of musicians. He said we should be sharing repetoire across schools and churches especially leading up to major events.

Lauren Bierer spoke on “Building Bridges between Parish and School with Music.’ She reinforced the need for shared repetoire as school and parish have quite separate sources for liturgy, which is not helpful.

The last session before the closing prayer that I attended, was a panel looking at, “Meeting Young People Where They Are.” I was surprised that apart from the obvious answer, that they were at Catholic schools, they were at Adoration, EYM, YCW / social justice groups. It was suggested that as mass is a ritual for the initiated and since even Catholic students are essentially unchurched, a simpler ritual like adoration had appeal and lead to social interaction around that.

I find the conferences an encouragement to persist and a place to get insights and practical advice that is not generally available. I’m not sure we need two overseas keynote speakers, as the local keynotes were fine. Rita Ferrone was very impressive as a speaker and Ricky Manalo was engaging enough, but local speakers are the way to go for an Australian conference.

Day two started earlier and went straight into morning prayer.

The next keynote was from Rita Ferrone entitled, “Friends on the Way.” She noted the distinction between tourism and pilgrimage, which was a response to a call to travel to a holy place involving self discovery and transformation by mystery. She discussed the communal nature of pilgramage and the association with the need for penance, leading in to the the Vatican 2 characterisation of the church as a Pilgrim People. The symbolic nature of processions in their various forms was discussed.

After the Morning Sing with Dr Anthony Young there were the prsentations of awards and scholarships, followed by small group discussions.

In one of the breaks I spoke to a young man from Quack Studios, the company that did the NLC website, and he showed me the difference that a great website can make for a parish.

Before lunch, I was pleased to introduce Timothy Hart, who spoke on “The Guitar in Worship: A Pilgrim’s Instrument.” He demonstrated how using different styles of guitar playing were useful in different circumstances in the liturgy. He demonstrated the techniques but lost me when he used two capoes. The main message I got was to get better on the guitar.

After lunch, I attended Michael Mangan’s talk, “Suitable and Singable: Composing Music for Liturgy.” He gave wise counsel on the context for which we were writing, the intended assembly and care with language.

Ricky Manalo gave another keynote, “Many and Great: Transformative Inclusion through Intercultural Liturgical Music.” He used his own story and his blended background to illustrate the way these influences inspire musical style. Unfortunately, in a lecture about inculturation, he used an Easter song with Spring motifs in the Southern Hemisphere, and I wasn’t the only attendee who noticed. While his story is interesting, a keynote on inculturation given in Australia might have been better given to a speaker with local insights.

Prior to the the moving conference mass at the Cathedral, there was an expert panel with some home truths about the lack of liturgical formation in our seminaries to the fore.

The biennial conference was held in Adelaide this year and I was there, at the Hilton Hotel, which is agreeably placed between the Adelaide markets and the Cathedral, both of which came in handy.

As usual, the organisation was top notch and Michael Mangan, Clare Schwantes and their hard working committee are to be commended.

The conference kicked off with a welcome and opening ritual in which all our ministries were blessed and we were challenged to share our gifts in the liminal space which is today’s church.

The first keynote was from Rev Ricky Manalo CSP entitled, “Sacred Rituals, Sacred Sounds: Rediscovering the Centrality of Ritual Music in Liturgical Worship.” He took us through the history of music in the church from music of worship, to music for worship, to music at worship, with the decline of participation from the early church to the Medieval and Baroque era. He noted that an ornate secular style was being performed in a sacred context.

He then noted the influence of Vatican 2, with the move to encourage participation while preserving what was worthy in tradition and the adoptation of the vernacular and incultured liturgy.

After discussing the various combinations of music alone, music with action, music with text and music with both action and text in the liturgy, he moved to the proper place of music, that is music as liturgy.

After lunch, we broke into our Block A workshops, and I attended The Willow Music team’s “Made in Australia”. I have got the point where I frequently have only Austraian music in my liturgies, unless an old favourite from the US or UK is heavily suggested by the text. The Willow team did “All the Hungry” by Beth Doherty (sung beautifully by Lauren Bierer because Beth was double booked). Gen Bryant sang and then the whole team presented music written by Aunty Donna, Amanda McKenna and James Martin. I’m pretty sure Gina Ogilvie sang “Here at the Table” a few hours after it had been sung at the Vatican.

The Block B workshop I attended was the one given by Elizabeth Fort called ‘Praying the Preface”. She pointed out that most of the time as musicians, we are waiting for the cue at the end of the Preface to play the Sanctus, but she opened up the options and the riches of the texts in an insightful and surprising way. I suspect these texts would be good inspiration for liturgical song.

The last talk I attended on day one was the mini keynote from Fiona Dyball, focussed on music, called “Partners in Music Ministry.” She noted the need for musicians to have liturgical training and liturgists to have musical training, and the fact that this was not a widespread occurrence. Her local knowledge came to the fore acknowledging the tendency in Australia to imagine these things happen without a budget. She noted the availability of online courses and the new NLC website as possible supports. I would very much like to see more content from great speakers whose experience is within the Australian church, to ensure their relevance to our situation, which is vastly different to the church in the US.

I did hang around for AGM of the APMN before heading out to a night of music at St Paul’s Church at the Monastry. Beth Doherty, Tim Hart, Lauren and Peter Bierer and others were there and it was great music. I was fading out after a very long day and had to leave early. I successfully used a taxi app for just about the first time was able to find my way back to the hotel.

This is the last song from the hymn section of CWB I that I haven’t already covered elsewhere. As usual there were far more songs to cover than I had thought possible and with a lot of them being of a traditional nature, I was somewhat out of my comfort zone. There weren’t as many Australian hymns as I expected, but I suppose it gives an idea about what Australian Catholics were recommended to sing forty years ago in 1985.

Happily, my blind spot is Chris Wroblewski’s passion. His site Liturgyshare continues to give great assistance in the area of more traditional Catholic hymnody and he tells me he has renovated the indexes to make things work better and you will find sheet music and texts where legal and melody lines for use in overheads, which is a very thoughtful and pastoral activity.

Getting back to this hymn – it has a text by Edward Hayes Plumptre set to THORBURY by Basil Harwood.

The commentary from the Psalter Hymnal Handbook (via Hymnary) says:

Edward H. Plumptre (PHH 363) wrote this text entitled “Church Defence” and published it in Plumptre’s Lazarus and Other Poems (1865). Republished in the 1889 Supplement to Hymns Ancient and Modern, the text has gained much popularity in England …

The text affirms God’s faithful hand of guidance and blessing on the church (st. 1), a church that has continually proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom (st. 2), and that, by God’s power, will ultimately be victorious in its mission (st. 3). Each stanza leads directly into the powerful refrain line taken from Ephesians 4:4-5: “There is one body [the church of Christ] . . . one Lord, one faith. . . .”

Liturgical Use:
Festivals of the church; church anniversaries; mission services; Reformation celebrations; ordination/ commissioning services.

It’s another somewhat triumphalist anthem from a past age that sounds very Anglican.

The editors have altered Plumptre’s text and may have actually improved it.

I once again found the chords in Together in Song – indispensable.

Your hand, O God, has guid­ed
Your flock from age to age;
Your faithfulness is writ­ten,
On hist’ry’s open page;
Our fa­thers knew your good­ness,
And we their deeds re­cord:
And both of this bear wit­ness,
One church, one faith, one Lord.

Your her­alds brought the Gospel,
To great­est, and to least;
They summoned men to hast­en
To share the great King’s feast.
And this was all their teach­ing,
In ev­ery deed and word,
To all alike pro­claim­ing,
One church, one faith, one Lord.

Through ma­ny days of dark­ness,
Through ma­ny scenes of strife,
The faith­ful few fought brave­ly,
To guard the Christian life.
Their Gos­pel of re­demp­tion,
Sin par­doned, man re­stored,
Was all in this en­fold­ed,
One church, one faith, one Lord.

And we, shall we be faith­less?
Shall hearts fail, hands hang down?
Shall we evade the con­flict,
And throw away our crown?
Not so! In God’s deep coun­sels
Some bet­ter thing is stored:
We will main­tain, un­flinch­ing,
One church, one faith, one Lord.

Your mer­cy will not fail us,
Nor leave your work un­done;
With your right hand to help us,
The vic­to­ry shall be won.
And then by men and heaven
Your name shall be adored,
And this shall be their an­them,
One church, one faith, one Lord.

CWB was fond of Lucien Deiss and here is another of his songs.

The antiphon is based on Luke 15:18 and the ten verses come from various psalms, and are suitable for Reconciliation, Lent, Easter and funerals.

The sheet music is available to purchase at GIA, being an old WLP copyright.

I got chords from their preview to make a backing:

This clip has the text:

This looks like a hymn for the parents at a child’s Baptism.

The text is by Frederick Herman Kaan and is here set to ST CLEMENT, by Clement Cotteral Scholefield.

The text and sheet music are available from the wonderful people at Hope Publishing.

TIS provided the chords for a backing:

This a useful Eucharistic hymn by Lucien Deiss.

The text is on page eight of this handout:

https://www.bbcatholic.org.au/ArticleDocuments/12448/15th%20Sunday%20%20-%20Home%20Liturgy%20a.pdf.aspx

CWB got it from Biblical Hymns and Psalms Vol 2, which was published by WLP in 1970, and is now available very cheaply at GIA.

I made up some chords for a backing.

More necessary prayers for the evening from CWB, this time from St Joseph’s Abbey.

The text is here.

It is set to the venerable KINGSFOLD.

This is a text by the Benedictine Nuns of St Mary’s Abbey in West Maling.

I have it in RitualSong, and other GIA hymnals, as a chant (TE LUCIS ANTE TERMINUM) for night prayer. In CWB it is set to a French tune, AUCTORITATE SAECULI.

The text is here.

Dusk is indeed a gift and a foreshadowing.

I found chords at Small Church Music.

I can’t find any clips with the tune from CWB, but this is a nice chanted setting: