by Fred Moleck
We Gather Together . . . One More Time
Part 2
In a few days—depending on when you are reading this column—hundreds of congregations in the United States will be singing, “We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing.”
In last week’s column, I wrote a mini-history of the text, complete with the first line of the original Dutch text.
After the morning service or the Mass on Thanksgiving Day, church music leaders put away the music, repair to their cars, and make their ways to the centers of festive eating.
What many of us realized a long time ago is that the festive eating is the threshold feast of what some of us see as the beginning of the r e a l liturgical year.
You’ve heard me rant on that topic before—remember? The r e a l liturgical year in the United States begins with Thanksgiving Day and completes itself with Super Bowl Sunday. (Pardon the repetition.)
For church musicians it is the jam-packed time of rehearsals, extra liturgies, compound liturgies such as Christmas Eve, special rehearsals with instrumentalists, and very little private time for prayer, reflection, and meltdown.
What I am suggesting here is that sometime today you spend a little time in private prayer, reflection, and in supplication to God for courage, patience, inspiration, and—if that isn’t enough—a retuning of your sense of humor.
All of these factors can be seen as safeguards to our craft and art of liturgical music making as we prepare for Christmas while “doing Advent.”
They also provide a “blessed assurance” that our faith is protected in all of the almost successful music programs as well as the most trying of rehearsals.
That same “blessed assurance” can renew our stamina so we can play “Silent Night” one more time on Christmas Day.
I suggest that you couch your private prayer time in the context of giving thanks. Thanksgiving Day is a good time to recollect for what we are grateful. David Haas has written these reasons:
This first stanza and refrain of David’s hymn text can be found in Gather Comprehensive—Second Edition and an octavo (G-4973) of “We Give You Thanks.”For the bread and wine we share here,
for the friends that we embrace,
for the peace we find in healing,
for all who gather in this place,
for the faith of those around us,
for the dead and all those here,
for the hope we find in mem’ry,
for the love that draws us near:
We give you thanks,
we give you thanks
for the grace to receive,
in you we believe.
We give you thanks,
we give you thanks.
With faith and hope and love,
we give you thanks.—David Haas, b. 1957
Happy Thanksgiving!
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@earthlink.net