Well, often they are in Latin, and often sing praises to Mary, a statue that we worship (just joking). Today is the feast of the Assumption, and in a parish with some of the most awful music to be found anywhere in the post-Vatican abyss of ugly music, we actually sang Hail Holy Queen enthroned above...what a great chorus..Salve, Salve, Salve Regina....our life our spirit hear below Oh Maria..our hope in sorrow and in woe...lots of sorrow and woe and vales of tears in Catholic hymns.

What makes the "new" Catholic stuff so awful is it is unrecognizable as to musical form. It will go from 3/2 time to 6/13 time to 7/2 time in the same song...all sorts of rests and flow charts to go from one verse to an alternate chorus to a hidden verse and back again. Nobody ever probably in the history of the world has actually sung like that..no particular rhythm, and they certainly don't rhyme the songs these days. The worst are when they take psalms and just wind them around some pretense of a melody.

Anyway, the Welsh I think are the masters, with the Germans perhaps coming in second. This is Eurocentric, so sorry but I just am not too familiar with other cultures. I do know Maori and South Africans etc. are known for their singing and I did go to a church in Hawaii once when a group of teenagers from Maui attended and burst into fantastic song. Guide me oh thou Great Jehovah certainly gets a vote from me but I think the greatest of all when done well is Diadem as sung by the Welsh. That is for Protestant songs.

Catholics..Holy God we praise thy name, Tantum Ergo, May crowning song (which musicians love to rip apart but we the people love it..bring flowers of the fairest bring flowers of the rarest..then we put a flower wreath on the statue.).

God I do believe loves this song..Tantum Ergo...so I will put the words here because I have probably not had a chance to sing it for decades.

TANTUM ERGO SACRAMENTUM VENI REMUR CERNUI
ET ANTIQUM DOCUMENTUM NOVO CEDAT RITUI
PRESTAT FIDES SUPPLEMENTUM
SENSUUM DEFECTUI

GENITORI GENITOQUE LAUS ET JUBILATIO
SALUS HONOR VIRTUS QUOQUE SIT ET BENEDICTIO
PROCE DENTE AB UTROQUE (?)
COMPAR SIT LAUDITIO.

AMEN.




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